Master Copy | Landscape | Tula Telfair

(upper) Tula Telfair's original, (lower) my copy

A bit after the fact, but here is my final for landscape painting this past fall semester, a master copy of a Tula Telfair painting. When I went through the list of master painters we could choose from, Tula Telfair stuck out the most to me immediately. Color! So vivid, it reminded me of how saturated I like color sometimes. The way she uses it truly is masterful, a brightness but also a quiet to many of her paintings. There is an almost surreal quality that I feel and I believe I react that way based on the color.

Also, the woman can paint some DAMN fine clouds. And this fool needed to learn how to paint clouds.

I had a really great time doing this painting and, even more importantly, feel that I learned a lot from it. It's not exactly like the original (for starters, size... Tula's are like five feet!), but I think it's on the right path. It just needs another ten or twenty some odd hours.

Fun times

The first batch of fun-a-days! Mulder and Scully (from The X-Files)!

I inked these with a brush pen out of convenience (sitting on my couch watching Doctor Who) but it reminded me of two things: 1. I really like the look of brushed inking, and 2. I am pretty bad at it. So I've decided to ink each drawing with a brush pen or brushes and ink. Time to work on that technique!

First Post of the New Year!

Happy New Year! Hello, 2013. You seem like you'll be cool, but really I'm holding out for 2014. For some reason that year number feels good to me...

But 2013, here you be so let's get this year started productively!

The first blog post of 2013 marks 500 heads!!!

There are some... bad.. bad.. heads in this bunch. There was definitely a wall that slammed into my face and I started wielding the pencil more viciously than needed around the 430s. I think I got out of that funk by the end of this bunch of hundos, so I feel like this is a good milestone. Halfway completed!

(In case you're new to the blog or merely lost track, I'm participating in a draw-one-thousand-heads challenge. It's a great boost to my drawing habits and really allows me to explore and experiment with stylization. It's been super fun so far!)

Also tying into the thousand head drawing challenge, there's this cool January project some friends told me about called Fun-a-Day! Anyone can participate and certain cities will even be showcasing what gets made in February. The idea is to do something fun once a day for the month of January--pick a project and go with it!

So I'll be working off my thousand heads challenge and drawing five heads a day then inking/coloring one that I like. I'm thinking of doing one week of fictional characters then one week of real people... friends, maybe even historical figures or politicians too, and switching that up each week. This may change as it goes, we'll see. But it seems super fun and I already got my first day done! Just not inked...

You all should totally participate! Let me know if you do!

Also, keep an eye out for the best ten(ish) heads inked from this last batch to 500.

Dreaming

Wow, it's been a week or two, eh? Sorry about that, dear internet. I was in the depths of finals and then attacked by the laziness of the holidays. However, I wanted to get back to my treasured blog and you swell folks, so without further ado...

the last post of the year!

Here is the final work for my interior illustration for Philip K. Dick's "Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?" Above is the lineart, inked traditionally on bristol with dip pens and India ink.

Then I took that baby into Photoshop...

Ta-da!

I'm still experimenting with applying texture in Photoshop and I want to keep it flat, more of a style than trying to be realistically rendered. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it, but I sure do love that owl! Man, that is one sweetass owl.

Have a great remainder of 2012 and I'll see you all in 2013!

Sneak Peek

Just a sneak peek at an illustration I've been laboring over the past few days. I really am working on getting the drawing tight and where I want it before moving along. Drawing is my favorite part of the illustration process and I think it's been shafted in the past sometimes when I try to rush things. Steady and with thought now!

And with the help of lots of NPR and This American Life especially. Ira Glass, your voice can calm my deepest frustrations sometimes...

Once the final is done it shall be posted!

Felurian of the Fae

Lineart for an interior illustration of Felurian, a fae sex goddess (or monster, depending how you look at it). The character is from The Wise Man's Fear of The Kingkiller Chronicles: Day Two by Patrick Rothfuss. If you're a fan of the fantasy genre, I super highly recommend you check out this series. It's super addicting and has some of my favorite characters I've read in awhile.

I'll be obsessively working on the finish of this illustration in color, as well as a cover illustration for the book, this week in the throes of finals. These are also for my thesis so it's time to draw, draw, draw.

And just the regular lineart. Hopefully I'll have enough time to clean this up for the final art. I got some sweet violet and purple Prismacolor Col-Erase pencils for the task ahead!

Landscapes

I'm back after my short hiatus over the holiday and my visit to Chicago. It was great to be home for a bit.

Now, without further ado, I have for you on this fine Tuesday... Landscapes!

Week 12 into the semester and I finally feel like I'm getting somewhere with landscape painting. There's still much more for me to practice, experiment, and develop, but I'm beginning to enjoy it more each day.

This is a master copy of a painting by Michael Workman. He is a great landscape painter and I really love his compositions and texture. I've found that one of the aspects of oil painting which I enjoy the most is the interesting and various textures that can be made. Sure, texture is in every medium, but I feel it comes more naturally to me with oil and also allows for much more variation in approach. Copying Workman's painting has definitely helped me in switching up compositions in future thumbnails and paintings, as well as think more about shape, texture, and atmospherical perspective.

Here is a study from a field painting at a winery in Sonoma. I like the patterns which were visible from above and also like that the painting has some cartoony, animation-like feeling to the colors and shapes. I still need to go back in with a few layers though, especially since you can still see the pencil lines I put down originally! A bit too thin of application, mayhaps.

Another study from a field painting, this time at Tennessee Valley in Marin County. It was a very foggy day and color were very subdued. Although it got pretty chilly painting so near to the ocean in the morning, I really enjoyed the setting and sweet reference photos I gained from this expedition.

There will be more landscape paintings to come. I'm thinking now about doing some of my thesis illustrations as landscapes.

More to come Thursday!