Landscapes and Atmosphere

It's been about a hundred years since I last posted, but I'm still here!

I'm working really hard to improve my art work, focusing a lot on putting my subjects in a space with some depth, and atmosphere.  I spent about 40 minutes doing this sketch, and it's the first woods scene of my life that actually achieved that.

Drawing from life or photos of scenes has helped a lot.  Especially when it comes to the texture of plants, though I know I've got a long way to go.  For this one, I used the value almost exclusively.  The limited light source really helps you push things into the background. 

Making a Maxi Can Make you Mad!

It's summer + I wanted a maxi dress + I have short legs = I make my own.
This one, to be exact, cause it's purdy!

Smocked Maxi Dress 4/2013 #125, from BurdaStyle

The measurements seemed like they should be just fine, other than the length adjustments I knew I would have to make.  So I just dove right in.  I got the bodice done, and it was beautiful, but way too big.  Like, the shoulder straps sliding off my shoulders too big.  The arm holes are gimongous, too big.  Who has tatas this size, too big.  

I took it as a cue to finally draft myself a sloper based on my actual measurements.  I used a tutorial on youtube for a very basic sloper, and I measured in centimeters.  For one, the video used metric, and it's just more precise.  Additionally, I have no idea what 50 cm actually is, so it's a good, honest way of measuring myself.  

I traced my new sloper onto some vellum, and began marking points based on the Burda pattern.  I marked the depth of the V-neck, and where I wanted the shoulder straps to land.  I matched the width of the straps, and matched the armhole of the Burda pattern to that of my sloper.  Here, you can see all the changes I made.  The original sloper in purple, and the pattern in blue.

And here's a comparison between the original pattern pieces and the modified ones.

The bodice ended up a little too long in the back, and I'm not quite sure why.  It's still wearable, but I need to figure it out! I love this pattern, and it may be the first of many more maxis for me.

Color-aid Paper and Colored Pencil - A Great Pair!

Well folks, I have been busy! I've done a lot of work on the house, a lot of family related stuff, and lots of drawing!

My sister had this big stack of Color-aid paper.  If you've never seen it, the color is rich, incredibly even, and has a very fine tooth.  We were going to try some collaborative exercises, but we've both got a lot on our plates and it hasn't really worked out.  What did happen, is that I found out I LOVE to draw on it with colored pencil!

I've always really enjoyed drawing on toned and colored paper, but this stuff is fantastic.  It's small, so I don't usually spend more than a couple of hours on a drawing.  It's a lot of fun to let the colors come through in the drawing.  This is made extra challenging by the fact that it doesn't erase well.  In fact, you'll probably lift the color off the page before you lift the marks you want to remove. 

The best way I've found to work on it, is to start with a low-contrast pencil, and draw lightly.  For these bird drawings, I've been lightly blocking in the whole bird, and slowly building the colors.  It was initially developed as a backdrop for photographs, but since when did artists ever use things the way they were intended?

Black Is (And Isn't) A Color

James Gurney has just published the best explanation of the properties of black that I have ever seen. He has done a four part examination of its use as a pigment, in composition, and properties as a color...or not.  This last installment was my favorite.  As it turns out, it depends on the context of the discussion, and its relation to other colors.  This man is a heck of an educator!

If you don't read his blog yet, I highly recommend it.  GurneyJourney.blogspot.com

New Scanner!

A Scanner Darkly: It might be the name of a really weird movie.  It might also be the addictive behavior of a person who just purchased an Epson Workforce 7510. 

We bought it for the large-format printing and scanning ability.  Now, I'm not planning to make art prints for sale with this thing, though I hear it does ok with that.  I was really interested in the scanning ability.  The reviews were great, and I've been a scanning fiend since it arrived!  It's got an 11x17" bed, and prints up to the same size.  It's not a plug-and-play scanner, but the software and network setup is not complicated, and the directions were quite clear. And all of that setup comes from it being WIRELESS!  Here's a fun feature: any apple mobile device connected to the same network can print without any setup!

Check out the detail it captured in one of my new drawings:

Primary - Female Eastern Bluebird

I'm still tweaking the color settings.  It seems to read white as white, without letting its natural transparency appear.  Much of this can be corrected in Photoshop without too much effort.  I did change the gamma setting, which helped a great deal.

I also prefer to start my scans through the PC application, because you can crop out the extra scan area before the image is captured.  If you use the buttons on the scanner itself, you cannot perform this function. 

Yes, I've only had this thing for a few days, but I really could not be happier!  Scanning is so much faster than setting up a photo for these small drawings!

In The Dark

Rachel has done it again, and assembled a seriously A-list team of creators for her horror anthology, IN THE DARK.  She's funding it through Kickstarter, and today is the last day to get a copy.  

Click here to get yours!

Sargent's Methods

I've been reading the book John Sargent, by Evan Charteris.  Sargent is one of the greats of portraiture, and my work has been leaning that direction lately, so I've been doing my research.  This book was written shortly after his death, by someone who knew him personally.  It contains statements from his students, and is generally a close look at his life.  Most important, it talks about his methods, not just examines his work.

In the last couple of pages I read, I learned that he preferred to work on the mid tones, and lift the lights and deepen the shadows from there.  Let me tell you, this is a GREAT way to work!  It's my favorite way to work on drawings, in fact.  So why have I never tried that in a painting?  I haven't a clue.  But I'm going to now!  Can't wait to share the results!

I've also recently started posting photos to my Blue Canvas account.  I found it through the magazine first.  It's one of my favorites, and features a wide variety of mediums and styles of art.

Check me out here!

Inducing Creativity

Wednesday night, I went to a concert to see Gypsyhawk and Kadavar.  I was tired, it was a long drive, and we paid $20 to park, thanks to the Cleveland Indians game that night.  It was worth the trip - it always is - and I also had an interesting experience.

While listening to Kadavar, I kind of spaced out.  I found myself closing my eyes, and envisioning a painting I'm developing.  I'm just in the sketch phase, at this point, but I could see it come to life in my mind, and I really wanted to drive the 2.5 hours back home just to work on it.

So was it the laid back, jam-style of the music that stimulated the artsy parts of my brain?  Was it just the late hours that I don't often see, thanks to my work schedule?  Was it just exhaustion?  It warrants some experimentation... on myself....  What can I do to induce the most creative state?

In The Dark - A Horror Anthology

If you're like me, you're super excited for Halloween.  If you're in need of a collection of terrifying tales, by an AMAZING set of creators, look no further!

Rachel is at it again, with an anthology called IN THE DARK.  This is a passion project for the creators, many of whom are very well known, and taking time out of their busy schedules to make this happen.  Why?  Because they want to!  Have you ever experienced a piece of work that someone made just because they wanted to?  You can feel all that passion!

Contribute to the kickstarter here, to get your copy.  There are loads of fun rewards, including having your own gruesome death written into one of these stories!  What better Halloween gift to give yourself?

Watching Paint Dry

I have learned an important lesson.  Not all brands of oil paint have the same dry time.  I had a bit of a false start on a painting, and covered the whole thing with white.  It is a brand new tube, and a brand I hadn't used before.  I expected it to dry in a day or two, but parts of it were soupy after a week!  Wen I've mixed it with other colors, it has dried much more quickly.

In order to finish this painting on time, I'm going to have to add some cobalt drier.  You have to be careful when using drying additives.  If the paint dries too quickly, it can crack.  The additive itself is dark blue-purple, so it can discolor the paint, too.  I'm going to start making test cards just for dry time on new paint!

Unfortunately, there is no way to really accelerate the process.  Oil paint doesn't dry by evaporation like water-based paints do.  Rather, the paint oxidizes, which causes it to solidify.  Once you've got it on canvas, you pretty much just have to wait it out.

I like to have a couple of pieces going at the same time.  I can work on one painting while the others dry, and have them on a sort of rotation.  It also helps each painting stay fresh for me.  It's a system that has treated me very well.

The Tall Man

It was a dark and rainy night.  My energy was all but spent, but I had not touched a pencil.  I asked Rachel who I should draw, and with my last efforts of the day, completed her request.

The Tall Man, Angus Scrimm.  

I had some trouble getting a good photo of the drawing, given the reflective nature of graphite.  I'm. Going to give it a try with a scanner later.  It should yield better results.  

The Iron Lady

It seems like I need two tries to get these portraits right.  I get no less preactice by painting the same face twice.  That's why s o many artists have zillions of self portraits!

Margaret Thatcher

Rendr Sketchbook

Because I have been practicing capturing likenesses, I decided that I wanted a sketchbook for that alone.  I've also been using wet mediums much more, so I needed a sketchbook that would allow for that.  Wandering through my local art supply store, I found this Rendr sketchbook, which claims to have no show-through pages.

We all know that traditional sketchbooks cannot begin to claim that.  Rendr achieves it!

Here's the sketch I did of Kelly MacDonald in gouache.  The pages curl, but that can be remedied by just closing the book for a while.  But does the paint show through? 

No.  Not at all!  I'm impressed! 

What other sketchbooks would you recommend for this type of work?  Do you keep sketchbooks for separate subjects?

Foley - Sound Effects Creation

Did you ever realize that sound effects are captured and built up layer by layer, completely independently of dialogue?  It's wild the way they create what we experience.

A Knight's Likeness

I've been practicing my likeness drwwing skills.  A good way to do that is draw very familiar faces.  I've been practicing on celebrities.  It's just been a few days since I started this practice, but improvement happens so quickly!  (It's very satisfying.  Try it!). Today, I give you what is actually my second shot at the face of Gandalf and Magneto: Sir Ian McKellen!

I worked small, and in gouache to help me work fast.  I'm fairly unfamiliar with gouache, so part of this piece was just figuring out how it works.  In real life, it's very flat, but it photographs with more fidelity than oil, as there is no tranparency to lose!  

The Beholder's Share

One of my favorite painting teachers expressed an idea to me that has always stuck.  He taught us never to include too much detail, and told us that the viewer's brain would fill it in.  (This was complete with optical illusion demonstrations, and lots of science.  Pretty fun, for an intro level art class!)  But the real lesson here is that a work of art needs a viewer, and that the viewer will better appreciate art that includes them.  "Great art is great, because it is ambiguous." 

Pockets!

A friend of mine has commissioned me to make a couple of messenger bags.  I'm once again using this great pattern from the weekend designer (the same pattern I used for the army owl tote).  The only thing  lacking from the pattern is pockets.  My friend is a programmer, so naturally has lots of gadgets to carry about.  So I want to include pockets with a bit of volume.  I've made them a couple of ways, but it's usually a trial and error thing for me.

This tutorial in Cut Out and Keep shows a couple of ways to achieve nice pockets.
Here is another for cargo pockets on pants.  On yhis, the top is a fixed width, but the bottom of the pocket will expand.

Happy pocket making!

Colorblindness

Ever since I was little, I have been fascinated with the idea that we are all alone in our heads, that maybe my truth isn't the same as everyone else's.  (I was a deep little kid.)  Only since I have grown did I realize that this came down to perception, and how it shapes our thoughts.

One of the simplest and easy to simulate examples of this is colorblindness.  In this video, the small image is full-spectrum vision, while the large image is deficient.  A friend of mine was recently diagnosed with both deuteranopia and protanopia, meaning he can see neither red nor green.  Can you imagine seeing in only blue, yellow, and grey?

What's interesting is that we can simulate the deficiency for those of us who can see in full spectrum, but you can't simulate full color vision for the colorblind.  Here's a great website with more information about color blindness: Colblindor

This has me thinking a lot about my own tendency to rely on color in my work.  I really need to push the value factor, if I'm going to make this enjoyable for colorblind people.

Painting with the Shortcut

The other day, I bought an angled brush with a stubby rubber handle, and wished I had done it sooner.  May I introduce to you the Wooster Shortcut.  

I get a nice clean line edging, and the handle is easy on my hand.  It makes for a very fast paint job.  I highly reccomend this, if you're painting your house!  

Summer Reading

I love reading, for entertainment or for knowledge.  I was the kid that was not at all troubled with summer reading assignments.  I was going to read something anyway.

You might have seen me mention that reading about art can give you almost as much knowledge as the process of actually making it.  Well I just found a pretty rad reading list on the portraitartist.com website.  It's not an enormous list, but it breaks things down by topic, and includes instruction books, historical, books by movement, there's even a section on the business side of art.  Check it out here.  All the usual places sell these books; Amazon, Barnes & Noble.  I'll be visiting my library with this list in hand soon.