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.

the mermaid and the deep sea diver

So I have finished my little watercolor studies. Ideally they would be super simplified but I wanted to flesh them out. I think I will probably stick with the first one for Reality Not Included 2 but I want to take some of the others to finish for myself. 

 This one is the most interesting one to me.

 I like the mermaids face and hair in this one. Other parts need work.

 I want to take this one to finish as well.

The original watercolor of this didn't turn out so good so I digitally reworked it to make it feel better.

watercolor study

I'm working out some ideas for a piece I want to submit for Reality Not Included 2. I've done a study from one of the thumbnails. It has some anatomy/foreshortening problems to work out. I think I want to play with some of the others too. I should probably do more thumbnails too...

The Dragonologist

I made this for the ArtOrder Challenge- dragon world. I thought that in a world with dragons, what are some of the ways you could study dragons? This image shows a glimpse into the perilous life of the professional dragonologist. 

I picked my favorite composition out of the 20+ tumbnails I made. Then I refined it on the iPad, then printed it out so I could transfer it to watercolor paper. I made the watercolor below first. (I did a Vine while I was at it!) Then took it into Photoshop and  simplified the background and darkened the cliffs. I decided to make the dragon green and digitally painted more lights/shadows and refined certain parts on the dragon and the glider/man. The results of the contest will be up next week. I'm kinda excited! I bet there is going to be a lot of cool art!

IF- "wool"

Here's my Illustration Friday contribution. The prompt is "wool." So, I decided to draw a shepherdess and a goatherd. 

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.

Vine

This is just an old painting from about five years ago or more, it was for a class assignment where we were learning about masking. I got a lot of practice masking this one! I don't like the colors so I'm sharing a grayscale version. The texture is nice.

So I've been experimenting with the app Vine. It's not perfect but it is fun and with a few changes could be awesome. Anyway, here's a link to one of my Vines: my nose itches vine

I've linked more to my facebook page and my twitter ( @jmlshirley ) it's a diverting little app! Go and try it!

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:

knight

I have been making art, I just haven't been uploading it! I had a lot of fun with this one. I have more that I'll post in a little bit...

This one is super tiny, like two inches tall. I like the original drawing better though...

Go Fish!

My three year old wanted to play Go Fish with my five year old (almost). But he doesn't know his numbers very well yet, so the poker cards were no good. I decided to make them some cards for Go Fish thinking I could do it quickly, but the project ended up taking a bit longer (like all day). First of all, our printer wasn't working very well so I decided I would have fun making stamps and color the prints with colored pencils. 

 Here are the cards before color. I really like my fish!

The stamp for the back of the cards, tested on scrap paper.

All twelve colors.

For some reason my three-year-old took a few bites out of the back stamp. Luckily, he didn't swallow. But still, what the heck, is he a boy or a dog?! It's not like he's teething either-he is three! Anyway, I tried to salvage it by going for a corroded/grunge look.

Finished! (I did end up laminating them later)

And they are a success! Little hands- they had to lay out their cards and have a barrier in between (Battleship style).

map sketchbook

I made this book something like three years ago. I harvested the paper from some beautiful outdated aerial maps that were going to be tossed. I've always loved this book but never been certain what to do with it until recently. I painted these in gouache to get a nice opaque color, sometimes I used colored pencils if I want something more transparent. These are so much fun to do!  Enjoy!

returning to the castle

Last year I was having creative time with my boys and I made this for a fun picture for them to hang in their room. I drew it free hand in pen with only one prior attempt. It was very spontaneous and I think it's so cute and loose with fun little details. It's not perfect but I think that is part of it's charm. I drew one knight for each of my sons. You'll have to click on it to see it very well.

Spectrum 18

I noticed in my original post for this selkie painting I mentioned that I had entered it in contests and had not gotten in. Well it wasn't true, though at the time I thought it was. My selkie was chosen to be included in Spectrum 18 magazine! I was very excited. There are so many amazing artists included in their magazine, I feel like it is a huge honor just to make it in! I didn't share this right when I found out because I wanted to wait until it was available for purchase. They send all the artists a free copy, I was so excited to get mine. It's actually been a month or two since I received it. I just got distracted with life and forgot about posting it.

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.