Painting Rocks

Not much movement on any real paintings (other than I have been getting all my watercolors together; apparently I have bought several sets [all unopened] in the last 5 years) but I did have the opportunity to paint rocks with my young niece.  She was very excited to finally paint with me.  I did the green dinosaur with the pink spots and she did the rainbow and flowers.

Truth be told, this was probably the most fun I had painting or "doing art" since college.  We are now on the look out for more suitable river rocks to paint (even though we can buy more at the store).

Hulk vs Rhino

So, I finally finished a pastel painting!  I had not realized, but looking back, the last pastel painting I did was in 2005.  It was the Song Bird in Blue.  How did that happen?  I have no idea but I am happy the long drought is over.  As with most things, this took longer than I had expected but I think it turned out well.  I am very happy with the final product.

This picture, which is a replication of the cover from Hulk #104 (June 1968), was my favorite comic book issues growing up.  I must have read this book hundreds of times until it was a battered, beat up mess.  I just loved the fight between the Hulk and the Rhino and how the Rhino, despite being severely over matched never gave up.  The Hulks ends up dragging the Rhino away from a burning jet liner that is about to explode.  Just a spectacular issue.  Growing up, I had always thought the issue and cover were drawn by Herb Trimpe (an underrated and under appreciated artist who had a great run on the Hulk).  However, when I went searching for a reference picture to paint I discovered it was drawn by amazing Marie Severin.  She was the Hulk artist as the book transitioned from Tales to Astonish to Hulk proper (with issue #102).

Color Blocking the Hulk

Color blocking is the next step in my process.  So, after the rough charcoal sketch, I begin to lay down color.  At this point, it does not matter if I get the exact color or not, I am just trying to block in the basic colors.  The painting will be worked and re-worked with workable fix, allowing for layer upon layer of color (without the painting become a muddled mess).  The directions of pastel strokes are varied and there is no blending.  I am even testing colors for the Hulk's skin tone, seeing how they look upon the pastel board.

The process continued as I laid down color on the figure of the Hulk.  At this point, I did not completely obliterate the charcoal under drawing so I could still see basic musculature.  The color of the foreground looks more orange than yellow of the above picture.  I guess I will have to be more consistent with light and flash when I take these photos.

Next, I began to blend the colors, to smooth out the rough pastel strokes.  I also switched from the harder Rembrandt to the softer Unison pastels.  From here on out, most of the work will be done with the Unison sticks.  I have some pastel pencils that I hope will allow me to do fine detail (on top of a layer of workable fix).  This is something I have never tried before as it was not necessary for the landscapes I had painted previously.  I am curious to see if I can pull this off.

When it stops raining, I will take this out side and hit it with the workable fix.  I hope to begin layering the details soon.

The New Studio and a New Painting

In the last post, I alluded to my new studio so I thought I would share some photos of what it looks like.  It was designed to maximize the natural sunlight light.  Most days I do not even need to turn on the lights to sit in there to read.  My drafting table and easel sit in the corner four windows.  The easel will be for mostly pastel painting and maybe, just maybe acrylic and oil paints if I ever get so inspired. The drafting table will be for pen & ink, colored pencil and watercolor.

If you look closely, you can see the beginnings of a new painting.  My work travel schedule has just been plain brutal, with trips to California and the West Coast in the same week as trips to Europe (not to mention all the weekends).  The net result is this painting is not as far along as I had hoped.  But I have started it and that is a victory in and of itself.

This charcoal sketch took less than 10 minutes to complete but I cannot tell you how satisfying it was.  I have always wanted to paint some classic Marvel covers in pastel much in the same way Alex Ross has done in oils.  Thus begins the process.

I will talk more about the choice of this cover and my hopeful process in completing this painting. 

Beginning the Process Once Again

So, after 2 years, 3 moves and building a new house from the ground up, I am once again ready to paint, draw, sketch and just plain try to be creative.  I have not painted anything with pastels in almost 5 years (how sad).

Before the Studio

The new house has a room set aside to be my studio, but before I was able to set it up I was drawing at the kitchen peninsula.  Not what I had initially intended, but a good place to start.

What to Draw? The Inspiration.

As I had not drawn anything in over 2 years, it felt as if my creative brain had atrophied. After several failed start/stops, I decided to use my favorite splash page from Mouse Guard as a kind of drawing exercise, much the same way one would do word problems to learn math skills.  I have done this from time to time when I am more interesting in learning a technique or playing with new tools or media.

The Tools

The last few Christmas I asked for and received many art supplies, including watercolor pencils, Cotman travel watercolors and micron Sakura Micron colored pens.  This choice of picture subject matter also allowed me to play with all these toys.

The Initial Drawing

The initial sketch was completed quickly and the drawing was inked with the Sakura micron pens (0.25, 0.45 and 0.50 mm black). Simple, yet fun.

The picture was painted using a combination of the watercolor pencils and Cotman pans.  I used the colored microns to add details to the leaves in the tree and on the sword.  David Petersen, the creator-artist of Mouse Guard, is such a talented artist, even my pale copy of his his wonderful work is actually pretty good.  Eventually, I will create original works using this technique, which was quite fun and can be done virtually anywhere.

Finally, something new - Tiger, unfinished pencils

So, I have not finished this yet but it does represent something that I have worked on in the last few months (not going thru the archives of older paintings and drawings). I actually had wanted to add water color and water color pencils to a light pencil sketch. But, ah, I drew this on the cover sheet of the water color pad and not the 40 lbs paper. The cover sheet will not accept water, therefore it has become a more complete sketch.

It is hard to see the rest of the torso, but I have laid it out, along with the stripes. I was actually beginning to worry that I was losing my ability to sketch and draw. But I am pleased with this thus far.

Hope you enjoy.

As My Dreams Died-redux

The partner to "Ever Wistful" was "As My Dreams Died". A bit melodramatic, but hey, I liked the way this looks with the original poetry finally added.

This time I used Keynote instead of Photoshop. For what ever reason I could not get the font to fit in Photoshop properly. Keynote is a pretty neat program and I am enjoying learning how to use it.

Ever Wistful

I did this picture (color pencil, ink and pastel 9X12") back in college for a friend. At the time (summer of '94), I did not have access to a scanner and any kind of photoshop-like program to integrate the poem that went along with it. They had to settle for a painting and print out of the poem. As I was cleaning today, I happened a color copy of the original drawing and decided to add the poetry.

This is close to my original intent (not sure if this is the best font, but it will do for now) of the painting and words. I did two paintings with poems back then. I will work on the other this week.

And I have been working on a new pencil sketch. Hope to have it up in about a week.

Before there was Clip Art. . .

Doing presentations in graduate school in the early nineties (aka the dark ages) meant black and white over heads, not powerpoint (or keynote for you mac users) presentations, with photos and color graphs and builds and animations and imbedded video files. It was primative. Toward the end of my schooling, powerpoint became more common. Hell, I can remember glass slides (although I have sleeves of ppt slides that I will never ever use again but can not bear to throw out).

The point? Since I there was no such thing as clip art and I could draw, my friends were always asking me to draw little pictures that they could include on their overheads. Recently I found a book of such drawings.

The "take home" message was a favorite expression of a professor of mine (who loved to verbally spar with me, in a collegial way) and the caricature bears more than a passing resemblance to him. Score one for me (and my sartorial splendor!!).

And the reason the guy doing push ups has a ball and chain on his leg is because my buddy was giving a lecture on proper exercise at a correctional institution. He said they loved it.

Gahlmaar the Fallen

Probably the most vile villian of the D&D campaign I ran with my college room mate was the fallen ranger, Gahlmaar (version 1 is what the raw pencils look like; version two is the b&w version). He is the ultimate sore loser as he betrayed his friends, his god and everything he believed in simple because he felt disrespected and under utilized. In a pique of anger, he slew the unicorn god, Elasmothera, and violated the sacred grove (now the forsaken Heart of Stone). He took Its horn as his weapon and symbol and wears its skin as his armor. He rules his huntsman with an iron fist. Basically, he is one nasty, indignant SOB.

Re-Learning to Paint in Pastels

Ocean in Purple (pastels on paper 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 in)

Simple Spring (pastels on paper 5 1/2 x 8 1/2 in)

Back in the mid-nineties when I was trying to, essentially, "re-learn" how to paint in pastels I started by making small paintings (5 1/2 x 8 1/2 inches). What do I mean by re-learn? When I was in grade school, I just painted and drew and had fun. I took some lessons and improved. The work was quite good (wish I had some proof of these comments but all those originals are lost). My high school had a commercial art program and I thought I would become a professional artist. Well, that did not happen. I dropped out of the program, graduated high school, went to college and earned a non-art bachelors degree and pretty much did not paint or draw for about 5 years. My art skills atrophied incredibly.

But I missed drawing and painting. So, I began small. Above are some of the first pieces that I tried. Not very good but, as the legend says, they were not The beginning, but they were A beginning.

More old D&D artwork

Beyond the Otyugh I also did a host of other drawings for our game. Unfortunately, only a few of these still exist. Have no idea what happened to the original pen and ink drawings. Above we have the pen and ink drawings, "George and the Dragon", "Goblin" and "Draco" (man, was I awful at naming files).

For me, it is fun to look at these again and think about that time in my life but also look at how my art style has evolved, from technique and media to subject and quality. From high school to early college I was in love with line work (thank you Ronin by Frank Miller). While I never fully embraced "speed lines" I did so love cross-hatch. I still do, though on those rare (but hopefully increasingly) occasions, use cross-hatch as primary shading technique. Just not as much.

I am going to post a few more old pieces and then hopefully get to some new, original work. That is the plan at least.

Otyugh from waaay back when

Wow. I had did these drawings back in college for the D&D campaign my room mate and I ran. I lost the originals but had them scanned into my old Mac IIci (the height of cool in the early nineties). I have not been able to open the files in years.

Fast forward to now and with my new iMac and Photoshop I have open these files for the first time in probably 10 years. I think these would be great projects for me to learn how to layer colors in photoshop.

Here is my version of a crazy otyugh. To be honest, not sure if this is a swipe, an amalgamation or just me. Looks pretty cool, tho'. Waddya think?

Iron Man and Spidey

When I asked my nephew which characters he wanted me to draw, he said, not surprisingly, Iron Man and Spiderman. I tried a slightly different approach than used on the Cap and Hulk pictures (done in water color pencils and ink, btw). Instead of laying the color down on the pencils and then inking, I inked it first. Thinking this is a big mistake.

Why did I do this? Well, I thought it would be too difficult to ink the Iron Man armor features. Will not be doing that again. Should just have more confidence in myself I guess.

Sketch of The Knight and the Barbarian

I found a whole host of old pencil sketches that I did back. . .well, when I was in my teens. I am not sure if I ever posted any of them but even still, I think some of them are cool.

And as you will quickly tell as I post these old pictures, this was a time in my life where I was not interested in doing any kind of background. Guess that is why I started painting in pastels to take on this challenge.

Captain America

Yes, I know. . .I should stop doing swipes and start doing real drawings. At this point, they are more mental exercises than anything else. Still, this was fun to do.

Hulk (after Byrne)

So, I wanted to try and do some comic book type art and play around with watercolor and ink. Who better to swipe than John Byrne?

Hmmm. . .can not seem to get the images in the proper progression, but you get the idea.

After a long hiatus. . .

It sure has been a long, long time since I posted anything here (I changed jobs, moved etc. . .) but wanted to put up a few things that I have worked on during my hiatus.

Unfortunately, I packed my pastels away (and they will be in storage for a while) but have been playing around with water color and ink. I will try to post a few of the experiements and some newer stuff as well.

Path Ends

Obviously, I have not been very productive in terms of painting. . .

::sigh::

Life does happen.

Here is something that I completed a few months back, in a much, much looser style than normal. I tried to take advantage of the durability of Ampersand's pastel board, it really stood up to a beating. . .and lots of color.

Enjoy!!

Untitled-Water Colors and Pastels

2 Year Anniversery

Wow. I have had this blog for two years now, my how the time flies. And while I do not post to the site all that regularly, I do have some plans to make a few more posts this summer. That is, if my travel schedule ever slows down.

Speaking of which, I just returnd from my first trip to Paris, France. So here is a picture that I did for a high school French class project. Yes, it is silly. But it was fun to hand in a piece of cartooning and call it eduction.

Apprécier !

Untitled (from Freshman Year French Class)
9x12, pen & ink with colored pencil on paper 

What are my artistic influences?

A question that I get often asked is, “What are my artistic influences?”

First and foremost is Frank Frazetta. I wish I had 10% of his talent. His work awes and humbles me. The man had a stroke a few years back, paralyzing his right hand (painting hand). So what does he do? He teaches himself how to paint with his left hand, never mind that by this point he is in his 60's (or 70's). The resulting work is still more amazing, real and creative than anything that I could ever do. Why I have not visited his museum is beyond me.

The other two painters would be Chris Achellios and Royo. I really want to paint the sci fi/fantasy type art like they do (see “Sword of Royo”, so named for Royo. . .obviously). I was not confident that I could paint figures in pastels with the necessary level of detail and I did not want to pencil and ink landscapes (yup, call me lazy) with that much detail either. So I developed a hybrid mixed medium method that actually worked out pretty good for me. As you can see, the pencil work is pretty simple, most of the details of the figure were done with the colored pencil (something that Johnie C showed me). Most of the pictures done in this style, unfortunately for me, was done before I had access to a scanner (well before the digital camera age), and since I gave them away, I no longer have access to them.

::sigh::

In terms of comic book art, the career path that I would forsake all other for, I am most heavily influenced by Michael Golden (whose style I aped in my early teens). I so wanted to be the next Michael Golden. Two others are John Byrne and Frank Miller. I never tried Miller's "Sin City" style, but his older work, like Ronin, really influenced my pencil work. I was so totally in to cross hatch because of that.

Now that I paint landscapes, I have researched the impressionists like Monet and Van Gogh (not saying I am in that stratesphere of artists, but I do try to learn from them). Still learning about color, so I think that my painting style will continue to evolve. Which is probably a good thing.

I am sure that there are others, but those are the biggest influences.

Sword of Royo
9x12, pastel with colored pencil and inks on bristol 

That's me with the hockey stick!

Found it!

Welcome to my grad school apartment, circ 1993. That is me with the hockey stick, Anthon-Z playing sega, Coney shooting hoops, Johnni C (the artist of this picture) and Stacy at the table drawing, with special guest appearances by Ax and Dale.

I must admit, Johnie was one of the most talented artists that I ever met. He could draw just like Shiro, imho. Too bad he was never able to break into comics. I think his manga like style was way ahead of the curve. It would be another year before Joe Mads broke that style wide open and became the regular artist of the X-men. But for me, Johnie C was the originator.

Man, I still wish I had some of the pages that he penciled and I inked. And Anthon-Z's pages for that matter. I will post the splash page that Anthon-Z penciled and I inked and colored very soon. It is the best comic book related work that I have ever done. No question.

Dragon Sun-the early years. 

One of my favorites

I just like this one (see "Frozen Bog" below). It is, for me, very difficult to make "dark" pastel paintings but with this painting I was able to achieve something I felt had a very "atmospheric" feeling to it. I was also able to give this piece a feeling of depth, something that I struggled mightily with for a time.

Again, this was painting around the same time as "Poppies". In fact, this, and all the others from that period that I will be posting in the next weeks, were all painted in the same spiral notebook. Now, I tape individual pieces of pastel paper onto an board and frame them when they are finished.

I believe that I have definitely grown as an artist in the last 10 years, but I have fond memories of this time when I began to relearn to paint. It was also a time when my apartment doubled as the hang out and official head quarters for for Dragon Sun Studios—Johnie C, Anthon-Z, Def Stacie, Coney and my boy Charlie "F'K'N" Ward (okay, he existed only as his EASports digital self, but he was always there). In truth, somebody was awake 24/7, either drawing something or playing Sega or Nintendo. Ah yes, those were the days.

Now I am going to have to find Johnie's "Mangaverse" version of my apartment.

Frozen Bog
9x12, pastel on paper 

Even more from the archives

Okay, I admit it. I have been a big slacker and have not been painting at all of late. But I do, have a host of paintings from my archives that I had previously been unwilling to post.

Why?

Well, I have signed my name to them and I had been clinging to my "anonymity" of my blogger name. But realistically, the only people who don't know my real name are the ones who did not care to take 10 seconds to figure it out.

With that said, here is a painting that I did over 10 years ago when I first began to "relearn" painting. In high school, I wanted to go to Art School instead of a 4 year college. When I decided to go to a 4 year college I more or less stopped painting and drawing. Can not really explain why, but I did. At some point in during graduate school I decided to start painting again. "Poppies" is one of the first painting that I did from that period. I did not know about workable fix or different grades of pastels. I just painted this all in one layer. I think it holds up well, all things considered.

So, since I know that even if I do start a painting in the next few days, I will not have anything to post for a few weeks. Therefore, I am going to start dipping into my archives and bring out some paintings from 10 years ago.

I hope you all enjoy.

Poppies
9x12, pastel on paper