Painting 1: Final

This is my last painting this semester for my painting class. It's the only one I like too. Oils n' stuff on Canvas.

Model

So this is my first live model painting. I didn't use an underpainting because we only had one 2 hour session with her. I had to restart several times because I still can't handle oil paint very well. I'll be finishing up some details and the background soon as well.

This week we'll be doing another live model and I think I'll be using acrylics if I can manage it.

Apples & Oranges

Some crappy paintings of some crappy apples and an orange. This is the first painting I've used that has an underpainting. It has inspired me to start writing tutorials. Should be fun.

Oil: Friend or Foe?

I've been working in oils recently thanks to my painting class at cofc. I'm still not quite sure whether or not I like it more than acrylic paints. It has its upsides and downsides. Some of those upsides and downsides are the same thing, depending on the situation.

Anyways, here are my first few oil paintings that I've done in my class.

And here's an update to an older acrylic painting. Here I've just added a background color and cleaned up the amoeba things in the afro with oil paint.

That Thing

Sketchin like a fool in school. La Mamacitas is no more.

A Little K'nuckles

Doin a little fan art for one of my favorite shows. I still need to watch the finale.

I'm also coloring this in as soon as I can.

School Sketches

I've got a couple hours between classes now and I just sketch at Starbucks like the coolest kid alive.

The mural thing is a pain in the ass right now. I don't want to think about it.

Here are some sketches in the mean time.

More from - LA MAMACITAS

So, we've got a little bit more done. It's definitely more fun now that we've gotten into the detailing on Alejandro. That's Fernando to his left. I think I'm going to introduce some cool colors into his poncho, and carry it over to the next guy.

We're having major discussions on the middle guy's hat. It's very blah. So stay tuned for shocking hat details.

The Service Is Terrible (Rough Draft)

I don't know where this came from, but it happened. As soon as school starts back up and I can get to a lightbox I'll redraw it. OR, even better, I could use my friends projector and make this sketch into a transparency! This is only 8x11, so some more space to work in detail would be fantastic.

Edit: Looking at this on the computer I can tell it needs a few more things to balance out the composition, like maybe another tiny little cherub in the top left. Once I get more room in this I'll put in some more details on the lower half. I just need to decide his setting.

Roberto, Fernando

Here are the last two mariachi men that will be going up beside Alejandro on that mural. They will be doing a Charlies Angels pose and will flank Alejandro on either side. A few things in both of them are wrong, but I'll fix them once they get up on the wall.










Oh and I've decided one of them will have a large mustache. Now which one...

LA MAMACITAS

HELLO. I'm working on a mural with this girl, Ashley. The mural theme is Dia de los Muertos. This skeleton man (Alejandro) is of her design, I'm just helping paint and outline. My own designs will come in later with two other skeleton band members (Roberto & Fernando) and some little things.

This dude, Ben, is working pretty much by himself in the other room. It's twice as big as the mural me and Ashley are working on so he's a beast.

So here's what we have done.













Oh hey look its Ashley.

A Sneeze, Backfired

I'm enjoying this thing. I don't know where I'm going to go with it from here, or if I should just stop right now. Oh well. I wanted to make it slightly more interesting so I turned his afro into a scaly mess.

ALSO. I really like how his ear turned out. I am never happy with ears. But here I am, happy with his ear.

ALSO. That hand bothers me. I'm not happy with hands yet. But I'll put at least one in every painting until I am.

Ol' Coot

I'm working on a few small things for some small contests on some small paper. But hopefully, this guy will be part of something much larger, because I like him and his dreary eyes.

A Peaceful Protester

Poor thing, never had a chance.

Order Inside Spontaneity

When I was 17 or 18, I felt liked my work lacked process. I was painting in a fog, without any idea of where I was going or what I was creating. I just let the colors flow and the lines take shape on their own. I would create paintings like this one I did in 11th grade, and it was kind of like unconsciously doodling.

I decided then that truly great artists had a process. I imagined that these artists would labor over these exquisite ideas for months, maybe years, before they would finally begin creating their masterpiece. In truth, I still have no idea what makes a great artist since there are so many to choose from. Even my idea of what great art is has changed over the years. One day its tight, technical paintings and the next it's about abstract expressionism. Yeesh.

Now, instead of feeling like I have no process, I feel like I don't have enough prep time. I feel anxiety over not having picked the colors more meticulously beforehand. I have to say, it's making me feel like I'm limited and that I won't grow as an artist.

So now I've decided that great artists know how to do both. I'm still not sure though, so I decided to do a little experiment. I gave myself 30 minutes to do something technical and familiar to myself (which is a face btw), and then I gave myself about 10 minutes to just let loose on it with color and let the brush create the detail.

I'm actually pleased with how it turned out. It's funny to me that I am more than happy with how the painterly brush strokes and color turned out, but I'm much less happy with the face.

Web Site

Thinking this is my website design. I've had it for ages but I just recently got dreamweaver back and I updated some of the artwork on there.

Midnight Sketches

I was really having fun with these. Especially since they didn't take too long.

Ryan Bailey & Cumberland Belle Font Test

This is the first and hopefully the last font test I'll do. I used Nashville font as the basis and hand drew it all out and did my own little decorative line below it. I happen to like the font but now I'm not happy with the composition of the drawing below it. Oh, the agony!

The Leaf Diver

I'm still playing around with drawing things separately, scanning them in and then smashing them together. It's fun. Here's something that accidentally happened. I hope the diving off the leaf came across. I'm gonna shove some patter in there and maybe some crazy water.

Ryan Bailey & Cumberland Belle

I got in the mood to play around with my brother's band's CD cover. Their band name is Ryan Bailey & Cumberland Belle. I never got around to trying it before when I was asked to though. I guess that's just the way that works. I'm not entirely sure where I'm going with it either. I think in addition to this hummingbird there are going to be four flowers and, of course, the name of the band in some sort of decorative fashion.


















And here's a little bit of an update. Just added a few flowers and a halo thing. I think there will be one more flower and then the unpleasant necessity of creating the text. Oh lawdy.

The Meadowlark's Revenge

This is my final art project. The only requirements was that it should be a self-portrait. I've taken some liberties with my appearance but I have roughly the same features here as I do in real life.
I've got eyes, a nose, a mouth and a beard.

It's on a wood panel, about 24x36 inches and I used colored pencils and graphite.
Someone in class asked me if a guy missed the bird and shot me instead. So instead of a long detailed explanation of the symbolism here, I'm just gonna go with that.

A Grid Gone Wrong

This was going to a background for a really cool painting. It was gonna be this half hunched guy coming out from the bottom and it was going to have this neat little opaque grid sprawling across his body. But...




















Instead I ended up painting this over it. This was my first attempt at my final project in art, which is a self-portrait. It is now the backside of a new drawing I'm doing. So thank you for inspiring something better at least.

Biology Sketches

Here we have a sketch dump. Just some things I sketched in my biology class. Much more fun than learning!

Lost Thoughts

I don't know when I'll finish or what I'm going to do with it from this point. But I enjoyed making it while it was happening. Maybe it will be even better to me when I settle down and get to it.

Sadly the only comments I get about this from 'artists' are references to the horrible anatomy I've given it. But I'm OK with it. I don't mind that the hand is too large or impossible to place like that. I don't care if the colar bone is too high or if there aren't any neck muscles.

Acrylic on some large canvas.




















Just cleaning up the edges a bit in preparation for whatever I'm gonna do to it.

Sista Earth

This was another school project. The Owl thing was the second part to this project. We had to use pine-cones in creative ways. So I chose them to become a tutu and an afro. I ended up liking this, excluding the chin/jaw. I just couldn't get it to look right.

This was made with charcoal and chalk.

Pine-cone Tutus and Eczema

Everything has it's problems. Fortunately the problems with these two pieces can be pawned off on artistic expression. The androgynous pregnant owl pine-cone tutu thing is a school project. Just some graphite and charcoal and chalk.




















This portrait, on the other hand, is not a school project. It's of a friend of mine and I've kind of given her skin problems in the painting. It was getting a little boring as just a portrait so I gave her eczema and rosacea. Hope she doesn't mind. It's acrylics on a medium sized canvas.

This is a self-portrait (kind of). I just wanted to experiment with this sponge brush I've had since I first started painting. I think it gave the painting a nice structured look without sacrificing the brush-like texture. Gladly, this painting only took about half an hour.

Acrylics on Board.

Here is the first layer to a few paintings. They will eventually be just little ghost images behind three or four layers of new paintings.