Texture and Light

Pushing for more interesting texture and light in these. Found a random rock texture that served as my 'blank' canvas, and just started painting over top of it, using the existing patterns of the rock to suggest design elements while I worked. I also used an excellent custom brush made by a friend at work. I'd give her a link but she doesn't have a blog. Get a blog, Elena!

DS Concept Sketches

More fun with the Nintendo DS! I took a break from it for awhile (reasons unknown), but now I'm back.

Another Portrait...and Sketches

The top one is a portrait commission, where I slowed down and worked very methodically (to make sure I got things right). The rest are alla prima sketches from life, no more than 2 hours each. I didn't even have a chance to finish the last head there...

Nick Kilislian

I'm proud to announce that my good friend (and former teacher), now has a blog. Nick's design sense and draftsmanship is out of this world. I took classes with Nick in the early 2000's, and it's he who introduced me to the fundamentals of drawing. I highly recommend you check out his blog...you'll be glad you did! The above sketch is one of the many awesome pieces you'll find there.

Lone Ranger

It's been more than a month since I've done anything conceptual like this. In the midst of working a lot from life, I seem to forget that it's also possible to paint from imagination. This is for DrawerGeeks.

More Life Heads

It's funny, doing that longer portrait painting (below) has made certain things a little clearer when doing these shorter (2.5 hour) life studies. Further proof that long studies really inform the shorter ones. These are from the past three weeks.

Keys

These are colour keys for a project that doesn't actually exist. I just felt like taking the same(ish) palette, and painting a few different locations with it. Good way to wind down the day, too.

Oil on Rainboot

This one was fun to work on. I was recently asked to donate some artwork to an upcoming charity event. Only catch was, it had to be done on a pair of rainboots! So I sketched up a couple of characters, gessoed the boots, and painted away. I thought it was a nice opportunity to be able to show both sides of the character on either side of the boot. These will be auctioned off at the event. I have absolutely no idea what they'll sell for.

First Portrait Commission

I've painted a lot of quick head studies, but this is the first time I've accepted a commission for a traditional portrait painting. The subject is Jacquelynne, a person I feel very fortunate to call my friend. Painting this was like fighting a mini war. Had to stay focused for a lot longer than I usually do on a head, and take it to a higher level of finish. It also was a great field test for painting with small tiles of colour (an approach I learned primarily from Morgan Weistling).
Anyway, I'm happy to say the portrait was well received!
Oh, and this is 12x16", oil on canvas.

Corner of the Studio

My cousin accidentally snapped this misc. picture of a corner in my studio space. Things just pile up in there, including my paintings. And I don't even know what's in that white box. Gotta clean up the place. This picture does, however, show two of my 'Weird Restaurant Employees' painting trilogy.

Messy

Doing a lot of detailed matte painting at work. Needed to loosen up to give my brain a bit of a stretch. Yeah, yeah, so I was on Craig Mullins' site today.

Busy These Days...

I've got a few cool projects on the go right now (which hopefully I can share here soon). Unfortunately, they're eating up a lot of my spare time, and I haven't been able to post here as much as I'd like. So as usual, I'll buy some time by posting more head studies!
First one is from life, 2 hours, 8x10". Second one's a study after Morgan Weistling.

Tarzan Environment Sketches...and Demo!

This week's Drawergeeks is Tarzan. I felt like doing concept/visdev type sketches of environments that could exist in a Tarzan film (without copying Disney, hopefully). Also, there have been some great demos hitting blogs recently (check out Mark's, Todd's, and Ryan's, and Joe's). I didn't do a cool video like them, but I did save the painting in stages as I worked on it, and included some of my thoughts on the process. Maybe I'll do a video soon!

Practice, Practice, Practice

Painting from the masters is my second favourite way to gain insights as a painter (favourite of course being direct study from real life). So here's a few recent ones. From the top: After Jeremy Lipking, after J.C. Leyendecker, after Morgan Weistling, and finally, after John Singer Sargent.

Monster Under The Bed

Wish I had one of these when I was a kid!
For Drawergeeks.

Last Week's Head Study

This 'yin-yang' type of lighting made for a good challenge. Instead of the traditional line-and-mass block in, I started with the eye socket on the right, and just branched out from there. I haven't approached a study like that before, so I felt like I learned something here.

Speed Dump

Something I don't do enough of. These are just random, fast concept stuff (i.e. moving the brush around until something interesting comes out). Played around with a few palettes, but mostly was determined to control values.

Plein Air In The Mountains

Took a little trip last weekend to the west coast of Canada. Absolutely breathtaking, and my first chance to paint plein air in the mountains. The painting on top is oil...had to work quickly because my paint actually started to freeze out there (I froze too)! The smaller sketches are from life, but done on the Nintendo DS, while looking out the window.
BTW, I've been posting some of my DS sketches in the Colors! Gallery
where you can also view playbacks of each one.

Studies

No place I'd rather be than in the classroom painting in front of the live model. If any of you bloggers out there live in Toronto, I'd love to have your painting company. I go to a studio called Artists 25 every Thursday night. Check the link for a map. Incidentally, I'm in the front page picture on the site, painting the African lady in this post. These are 2.5 hour oil studies done these past few weeks.

New Studio Space = New Painting!

Finally got my own painting space! It's just a room in my basement...but it's devoid of computers, phones, and televisions. In short, I love working down there. Here's the first painting to come out of it. It's part 2 in my series of weird chefs. The walls were painted blue before I moved my stuff in, and interestingly enough, it inspired the palette for this painting. Oil on board.
And above that is a shot of me "at work" (I'm really just posing). These photos were taken by my awesome photographer friend, Alyssa Bistonath.

DS Sketches 2

More DS sketches. Just a testing ground for ideas, really. At my core, I'm not that intuitive of a designer. Usually have to fight long and hard for anything decent. I think that struggle is pretty evident in these.

Batman

This is oil on canvas, after the immortal Jeffrey Jones. If you've never painted Batman before, DO IT - it makes you feel tough.

Lunch Sketch

Well, it started as a lunch sketch. Ended up working on it for about another hour after that :)

DrawerGeeks Redneck

Had a lot of fun with this DrawerGeeks topic. In fact, it's always more fun for me when I'm trying to tell some sort of story with the picture. Even something as simple as this. I think I'll try to steer my stuff more in that direction this year.

Gift for Art Director

The art director on the television show I work on has the physique of a street fighter, and likes to go bow hunting on his vacations. The TV show features cute, dancing animals...so this illustration just had to be drawn by someone. I decided to do it as a 'gift' for the holidays. He enjoyed the humour, and I haven't been fired yet. And I'd be lying if I said the way the trees are designed wasn't at least partially stolen from Todd Harris.
On a side note...any parents out there recognize those characters?

Nintendo DS Sketches

Alright, let's kick off 2008 with some DS sketches. I picked one up as a Christmas present for myself (after being inspired by Sparth's and Sim-R's DS sketches), and have been addicted to it from day one. I recommend this to EVERY painter. It's absolutely perfect for on-the-go plein air sketches, as well as for quickly recording what happens to be in your head at the moment. Of course, the Nintendo DS is pocket size, and boots up in about 3 seconds. Hats off to Jens Andersson for giving us this great app!

Christmas Oil Santa

This is an 11x14 painting which I am donating to my parents' annual Christmas party. They do a raffle for charity, and I always donate some sort of painting. So this is my contribution for this year. I've had to look at this painting for the past two weeks, and I absolutely can't stand it anymore. But I think I remember liking it as I worked on it.
Happy holidays everyone - see you in '08!

Elf

Last entry of the year for DrawerGeeks! I wanted to try something more refined with this, because I liked the topic. But I think I may have ended up overworking it. As a side note, I've been enjoying doing small colour keys for my stuff lately. The bottom image shows the basic progression that this image went through. On the left is a ballpoint scribble that I started with, then beside that is the colour key, and beside that is the actual painting in progress.

Star Belly - Finish

Here's the final. I fumbled around for awhile trying to find some sort of appropriate colour scheme. I wound up keeping the palette somewhat analagous, as a change of pace. The circle in the background is completely stolen from Leyendecker/Rockwell.

Star Belly - Sketch

A sneak peak at my contribution for this week's DrawerGeeks. Quick ballpoint sketch at work, while waiting for some renders. Stay tuned for the finished painting on Friday!

Tom

This is a painting of my friend Tom. He substitutes when the life model doesn't show up. Personally, I like painting him more than most of the models. This was a 2.5 hour study.

Break Sketches @ Work

At work I constantly have to deal with large PSD files and lots of layers. Lately I've felt the need to take breaks and do these little thumbnail colour studies. They're painted at about 350 pixels wide, and take 20-30 mins. Just keeps me thinking about simplifying things down to readable shapes. Something I have to remember, even when I'm forced to use a million hi-res layers.

Happy Halloween!

Just remember, if somebody tries to give you or your kids an eyeball on Halloween...take it, cause that's the good stuff.
And this is oil on board, for those wondering.

Edit: Now with detail shots.

More Life Painting

Still hammering away. These are both 2 hour studies. We've all heard the saying "get your values right, and it doesn't matter what colour you use." With the painting of the girl at the top, I decided to use the worst possible combination of colours on my palette (Burnt Sienna, Prussian Blue, and White), but still have a full value range. I simply ignored the somewhat ugly colours that were going down, and just tried to get the values correct. The bottom painting is a good ol' Raw Umber+ White study.

Post No Bills

Last year I saw a "Post No Bills" notice written on a wall. And just underneath it, somebody posted pictures of Bill Clinton, Bill Gates, and Bill Murray. It's the first time I'd seen that joke, and I thought it was genious.
Anyway, here's a little lunchtime Bill Murray speed sketch.

Down Time @ Work

Thanks to a well-timed note from Mark, I re-discovered the work of Milt Kobayashi. This meager little sketch is shamelessly inspired by his simplicity and (odd) colour sense. Good use of work downtime, anyway.

Sargent Study - Final

A follow up to this post.
In keeping with Sargent's method of painting, this was done Alla Prima. It's oil on 12x16" linen canvas. The biggest challenge while painting this was trying to make each brushstroke driven by draughtsmanship. This was difficult because I'm not a master draughtsman yet. But I tried to sum up everything I knew and could observe from Sargent's portrait in simple brushstrokes, and then not fuss over them. My natural tendancy is always to lay something down and then go over it again. I tried to step back often to evaluate where the next brushstroke needed to go, and basically built up the painting in large, impasto patches of value/colour until the canvas was covered. This was probably the biggest learning experience I've had as a painter!
Click here for a high-res photo.

Practicing Edges

This painting is basically a study in edges. I'm fascinated by what great painters (like Richard Schmid) can do with them. One type of edge that I've just recently learned the strengths of is the lost edge. I tried to use lost edges in areas of this painting that I never would have before (like the eye). I definitely learned a thing or two from painting this.

African Model This Time

I love painting dark skintones. It seems like the temperatures get reversed. Even under a warm light, the lights are cool, and shadows stay warm. I was late for this session, so I decided to skip the linear underdrawing phase that I usually do, which seemed to make the painting better actually. Although I wish I had painted a little more thick.

Funny Clown!

Well, not exactly funny. More like the horror variety of clown. Luckily for me, the horrific element is happening just off-frame, so I didn't have to paint it :)
Oh, this is for DrawerGeeks!