SmArt school #5

 This was the art director assignment. I chose to work on Karen Berger's spec Vertigo Comics cover assignment. She asked for a half angel half demon with a man (in jeans and a T-shirt) in a moonlit graveyard. So here are my thumbs. Rebecca wanted me to rework the composition on the one in the colored box. She talked with me about ways to do it.

So I came back with this revised rough drawing and I got the go-ahead.

I made my frankensteined reference.

My final drawing that needed a few slight adjustments before moving on...

My value study.

I chose the end top right of the color studies...

When I showed my finished piece to the Art director, I had mostly positive feedback. I needed to darken the man's hair and clothes for contrast. Adjust the value of the angel/demon's hair and obscure the lower of her feet (the one behind the man's hand) behind sheer fabric so the area wouldn't look so busy. Below is the finished painting with the changes.

SmArt school #2

I wanted my second piece at SmArt School to be based on the book Stardust by Neil Gaiman. I wanted to paint the character, Yvainne (a fallen star). I wanted her to appear otherworldly, like her hair and dress were being pulled back up to the night sky. I also wanted to show the silver chain that was used to hold her captive for a time by Tristram. I showed some quick thumbnails to Rebecca to have the idea approved. 

 She recommended I work on the flow of the composition and gave the following examples:

I went crazy with the thumbnails to see what I could come up with. I narrowed it down to three that I felt were the direction I wanted to go (1, 2, & 17) and showed those to Rebecca. We decided to go forward with #2.

 

 

I put together some frankensteined reference using my head and arms, some random photos for a torso (I'm pregnant so I couldn't use mine!) and an assortment of blowing dresses.  I distorted the figure reference by elongating the neck and arms and even the fingers to get the form I wanted. 

My husband gave me some feedback and helped me come up with the idea that embers or fire were coming off her hair. So, I was playing with having her hair look like it was glowing and a little on fire with burning bits floating off, kinda like a shooting star. Rebecca recommended I simplify the chain element so that it didn't compete with the hair. So it would wind up her arm and past her up to her hair, instead of going off in some other direction.

I drew over it on the computer so I could pick out what was important to me and leave out the rest.

I decided to make the painting 15x22". So, I printed out the digital drawing that size, I had to do it in pieces and taped it together. I then, used transfer paper to transfer the basic composition and lines to my drawing paper so I wouldn't lose the nuances of the composition I had worked out on the computer. Then I drew the whole thing by hand looking at my photo reference on the computer and stylizing the drawing further as I went. 

I showed it to Rebecca and she recommended some small changes to the body by narrowing the shoulders and the waist and widening the hips to give a more feminine form. She also recommended more fullness in the skirt to balance out the hair. Below is the final drawing with the corrections:

My value studies, we went with the one bottom right corner: 

I mounted my drawing onto a 3/16" plywood board with matte medium, then started painting values  in acrylic paint in muted browns. While I was working on my underpainting I painted over a photo of my drawing to do some color studies. I tried a variety of color palettes, but I wasn't feeling right or certain about any of them.

Then my underpainting was finished, shown below:

I took a picture of it and then used it to make even more color studies. After my husband saw them he decided to try playing with the colors on one of them and came up with some interesting options. Then I played with the ones he had played with and came up with the large one, below:

I love what comes out when my husband and I have some back and forth about a piece of art that I am working on! So working from that, I glazed in my colors in oil paint over my acrylic underpainting.  The face lost the look of the drawing during the painting process and I had to paint it out, redraw it, and paint it again. I showed it to Rebecca, she suggested a few minor tweaks and here is the finished painting:

SmArt School so far

I signed up For SmArt School earlier this year. There were many great artists to chose from but, since you only get to pick one, I signed up for Rebecca Guay's class. You also get to monitor one other artist's class, I ended up going with Scott Fischer. Class started in September and we were given our first assignment a week or two before class so we would have something to show Rebecca during class. She gave us some interesting photographic portraits to draw from so that she could see where we were at in our skill level. In spite of the fact she also said we could use the reference as "a leaping point" I took that to mean adhering to the reference as closely as possible. So here is what I sent her:

So other than randomly adding antlers to the girl. I followed what was in the photos pretty strictly.

Rebecca worked right on top of the one on the left in Photoshop and talked to me about distortion and stylization, so next I came back with this:

And also we talked about color studies based on other artists' paintings we liked.

So we picked the second study on the bottom and I did an underpainting in acrylic...

And then, continued painting in thin glazes of acrylic colors to slowly build up the color without losing the drawing and values. I brought what I thought was a finished painting and Rebecca made a few suggestions on how to resolve the painting completely. They were really tiny adjustments but made a huge deference! So here is the finished result below:

It's great to watch the critiques of all the students in class. Seeing everyone's ideas and work is very inspiring. Scott Fischer also has so great input for his students and has some good information for working in Photoshop as well as in traditional media.

A Seer

                 

Two days ago, I was browsing through Behance and saw a painting that triggered my art bug. It was a digital painting of a seer woman floating in a white, layered dress with a lace veil covering her eyes. She was holding out one hand with an eye on it (the eyes on the hands thing totally creeped me out in Pan's Labrynth and was only slightly less unsettling in Once Upon A Time). So I decided to try my own version. I was especially intrigued with the idea of painting lace, I haven't really done it much. And I liked the idea of the obscured eyes. I painted this in Procreate on my iPad. I like how it turned out.

another one

Another painting made on my iPad. I used a photo as reference. I didn't follow the reference very closely. I like how it turned out.

iPad Art

Here is some iPad Art I made recently. For the top one, I used reference from deviant art for the figure and winged it for the background. For the bottom one, I used random photo reference from the web but exaggerated her features for fun.

IF- Storm

The moment I read the Illustration Friday prompt "storm" I had an image come to my mind of a storm wolf - whatever that is. This image is pretty close to what I saw. I don't remember ever hearing of a storm wolf before but it feels like it should be a thing of myths. It was drawn and shaded with pencil on paper, then colored it on my iPad.

fun in the sun and self portrait

Not much to say. A couple pictures I just finished. Just a fun experiment. Drawn on watercolor papers and colored in procreate on my iPad.

IF-Myth (iPad Art- fish tail)

Mermaids are a myth, right?

So, I got an iPad with Retina for an early Christmas present! I invested in a couple nice styli and several art apps to try out. I just made this one in Procreate App which I like quite a bit. Another App I like for recording ideas, coming up with concepts, or just playing, is Paper by 53. So far I'm very pleased with my purchases.

IF- haunt

I bet ghosts really like to haunt; but I don't think the ones haunted like it very much... 

This is also a self portrait (bet you didn't know I was a ghost!). Happy Halloween!

IF- water

Even though I have several works that are related to water, this is one of my favorite pieces. I would still like to do an original work for the IF prompt (we'll see if I get to it!), but for now I will use this.

IF- Mirror

I thought I would post this for Illustration Friday.

swing a giraffe

I'm sure it's been thought of, but hasn't everything? I think it would be nice to have a purple giraffe to play on. 

I drew this eye while watching a video demo and then decided to paint it. I think it turned out nicely.

I think the guy has a lot of very good and entertaining tutorials. He bases several of them on Andrew Loomis' drawing methods. Here is the video I was watching:

phoenix

I made this about a week and a half ago. I scanned in my pencil drawing and colored it in Photoshop. I really like how it turned out.