THE SIX. - Recent Artwork

Taking a break from schooling, I've taken a chance to work on some personal projects, including this one which has been in the works for several months. Drawn on paper, inked in Illustrator, and colored in Photoshop, several new techniques (for me) were tested and successful on this illustration including the use of cell shading.

Halloween Fun

A while ago I designed a new character while watching a Photoshop demonstration by Michael Bear back in July. His subject was a boy and his dog, which quickly turned into a ghost dog. I was very interested in this match between boy and dog and drew up some sketches.

 

Bear is a golden retriever mix with an incredibly long tongue. Barry is the classical blond haired, blue-eyed boy, with a lobe of bow ties.  After designing the two, I drew some activity sketches for them and thought it would be fun to give them some friends. During a head drawing session, I found 2 such people. Seen below, Ryan was the name of one model and I felt the name fit the face very well. His sister is based off another model but with a name change to fit her dress-wearing-tom-boy attitude.

This month I thought it would be fun to dress everyone up. I had originally planned to do 13 images for the 13 days of Halloween, but ran out of time so instead I focused on the individual characters.I painted them with gouche on illustration broad, then put on backgrounds in Photoshop. The logo was designed in Adobe Illustrator.

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Count Barry.

She-wolf Delilah.

Mummified Ryan.

Bear is the red dog, 2nd in from the left.

Gouche Test - Barn Owl

This semester I'm taking a Media Experimentation class. So far we have done an photo rendring in oil and a painting in the style of Mark English, but the next assignment is a gouche painting. I've worked with gouche before, but that was very in a very limited setting and without much instruction or understanding of the medium.

Needless to say, I need to practice.

I drew a quick sketch of a barn owl and then layered it with gouche, sticking to a lavender-yellow, warm theme. The paper is just the cut out from a matte board I cut yesterday (black-black core).

Tools: gouche, matte board 5x6in
Time: 35min

The Beginnings of a New Medium

I've only ever played around with watercolor as a child and once in high school more professionally. Finally, this semester, I've been able to take a watercolor class. i am very excited because it is a medium that has always interested me. The painting and reference photo is from an assignment from last weekend, to paint a single object still life. I chose my friend's Scentzy, disassembled it and added a flower and leaf for extra color. My class was very pleased with how it turned it, especially my instructor, so I won't be touching this specific piece, but I plan doing better work than this. I just need more practice. 

POKA DOT-Z

What girl doesn't love a good poka dot?

Obviously, this piece is inspired by the common poka dots and all its cute wonders at how versatile it is in both color and fashion. 

This drawing I did back in March, planning to paint in watercolors, but was switched to a Photoshop painting due to the small size (9x12in.) and my inexperience in watercolors. It has been a joy and wonder. Deciding on the technique I would use for this. In the end I decided to go with a simple round brush and layering everything with a normal-mode layers and using the opacity of the brushes to create shading. The poka dots are all made from different techniques from simply putting down dots, to putting down the color first then creating dots with the eraser tool. Then different sizes were used so there would be more contrast between each girl.

Value is still an issue for me, but I don't feel that brings this piece down because of that.

Its so much fun to work with these characters as they are my best friends, and being able to bring out their characteristics through stationary actions and clothing compositions.

Before and After

I've been taking a Head Drawing Class this semester from an amazing artist, Leon Parson. The first assignment of the semester he had us do our best heads in charcoal on some regular printer paper. As you can see I already knew some things to watch for, but still very inexperienced. The second image was done today, the last day of class, in oil pastel on Canson paper. There are some errors that have since been fixed, but the progress is still evident.

New Sketchbook, New Pen, New Furture

 Last Saturday I felt like I needed something else to draw in and so I went to the local craft store Porters, and bought this really nice, bound book. The paper is the perfect weight and I just love using it.

The first image I drew was an old aspen tree that was down the street with a Sharpie pen with a chisel tip. It was hard to draw because the wind was blowing and drying out my pen, but I love how it came out. The other image I did the other  day of my classmate. I chamoised the area first then erased out the half tone and then drew in more definition with  my mechanical pencil. It really does look like her, I'm pleased.

This is what my work area looked like when I got home: computer, cantaloupe dinner, water, sketchbook. Got to love it.

Drawn in my new favorite pen. Zebra Sarasa, maroon, size 0.7.

(Original Image, not mine, just found in a Google Search)