The Blog
Art
A Parting Gift – Digital Painting
For those following my instagram stories over the last few weeks, you have got to see the birth of this piece. It started out as one of my daily gesture sketches of an old editorial of Mona Johannesson. I had made the mistake of using printer paper to do the drawing and as I started to shade it the paper wasn’t holding up. I ended up scanning it and finishing the drawing via Digital Painting. There was something I liked a lot about the sketch so I decided to develop it further. I’ve been really into 1500-1600 century painting and tapestries. Based on those inspirations, I started to concept the piece to be a scene from my brother’s and my up coming book series. There are a lot fun little details in this piece. Also, some guest appearances in the tapestry of Lily Cole, Alexander McQueen, and Simon Ungless. I hope you like it. I’m planning a color version right now, then I will oil paint it.
P.S. I want to thank Mona for letting me use her dog Selma in the painting. It is one of my favorite parts of the piece. :)
Daily Sketches
Luma Grothe – Daily Gesture Sketches
Over the last month I started doing two gesture sketches every day in order to improve on my drawing skills. Today I sketched Brazilian model Luma Grothe. I used pencil on 9 by 12 inch water color paper.
Portrait
Mona Johannesson – Light & Color Study
Happy New Year! This post is a Light & Color Study drawing I created over the last 3 days of Swedish model Mona Johannesson. Over the last few weeks I’ve been concentrating on improving my drawing skills by doing a lot of light & color studies of poses and angles that have given me trouble in the past. This drawing was created by using a color pencil on Arches 300 lb. hot press paper, blended with razor blades, colorless blenders, and rubbing alcohol. Below, are some of my take aways learned from making the piece.
My Lessons Learned;
– Pre visualize the final image
– Think through what I’m drawn to & want to express
– Work on transitioning from big to small shapes
– Blend, blend, blend, and than blend some more
– Look at the subject from different perspectives
Portrait
Seated Lighting Study Sketch
Part of my daily routine, I’ve been doing a couple gesture Study Sketches a day. I’ve been working a lot lately on improving my shading and rending lighting. This was a study drawing I did of Model Mona Johannesson. I did the pencil study using Prismacolor Turquoise Lead, and Prismacolor Color pencils on animation bond paper.
Portrait
Through the Sheet – Mona Johannesson
Over the years there have been images that from the first time I see them I’m inspired to paint them. There have also been images that no matter how many times I paint them it never gets old, still feel inspired to paint them over and over. It almost feels like a quest to truly capture the element that I love about the image. Camilla Akrans’s photo of Mona Johannesson is one of those images. I drew it in my Character Sketchbook years ago, and it is an image that I keep coming back to and drawing or painting again and again. I never have been satisfied by my interpretation of the picture. So a few days ago I decided to give it another go. It’s a Watercolor & Color Pencil on Arches 300lbs hot press paper. It turned out way better than I thought it would. What do you think?
Portrait
Lucy Jean Bemis
A few months back I did a couple of portraits of my friends’ kids. This illustration is of my friends’ Max & Sherri Bemis’s daughter, Lucy Jean Bemis. Lucy has a really fun personality to draw. I used pen and ink on bristol smooth paper.
Portrait
Ezaki Nanaho
My third portrait in my new series “Portraits of Japan” is of Ezaki Nanaho. I stumbled onto Ezaki Nanaho via Instagram. I really like how this portrait turned out. I did the sketch with pencil and colored it digitally. :)
Portrait
Risa Nakamura
The painting today is of Risa Nakamura (中村里砂) also known as Risadoll. She has a great look and was really fun to draw. So last week I was experimenting with digital painting. I’ve done a little bit of it throughout the years, but for the most part I don’t enjoy doing it as much as real life painting. For this piece I started out with a black & white pencil sketch in my sketchbook that I digitally colorized. I really like how it turned out. My brother thought it was kinda different for me… What do you think?
Portrait
Natsume Mito – なつめみと
I started learning Japanese a week and a half ago. Everything I read about learning the language said I needed to fully immerse hearing the language. Which brings me to Natsume Mito. I’ve been listening to a lot of music from Japan to help with my language skills and a few of Natsume Mito’s music videos pulled up into my play lists. She has a really fun and adorable style. I did a series of sketches of her and this water color painting. I had a lot of fun with it, so I’m starting a series called “Portraits of Japan”.
Video
Laura O’Grady Speed Painting Video
I finally got around to editing the stop motion speed painting video of painting Laura O’Grady. The Video turned out better than i thought i would be. It’s a tricky thing painting a negative but i love the result. The Music is by my good friend Ryan Baxley. I hope you enjoy the video, and hope you like the Art in Motion Series.