Assignment 2

Assignment 2, Colorizing from Black and White. Bobby Chiu gave us this image in black and white and we had to color it. It is not as easy as it sounds, it took me over 3 hours.

Is anyone else totally getting tired of studies? Cause I know I am. I'm gonna be doing my new assignment for Bobby Chiu's class and trying to come up with some stuff of my own this week. OH YEAH CHRISTMAS. Well, next week then. Arg.

First Bobby Chiu Assignment

Our first assignment for Bobby Chiu's class was to "recreate" one of his black and white pictures. I don't know if I did it justice, but here's my second/final draft.

Also, I know its been a while since I've posted, I've been too busy making stuff to really stop for blogging, don't feel neglected. :)

A lot to show, and a little to say

Let's all not forget that this is all practice work, so a few of these are more trial and error things where I'm learning a lot more so than finished 'pieces' or whatever. 

This one here of Beth was a two hour pose, its like 12"x16" (these drawings are a lot better in person in full size, I think I say that a lot) and I learned a lot here about pencil technique. A new lead-smoother-outer idea from Barrett that will pay massive dividends in future drawings. You'll see the chalkiness/grainy stuff in a lot of my work but now I know how to fix it. :)

I really wanted these two tonal pieces to fit on the screen side by side but I couldn't figure that out and I'm in a hurry sort of. The top one is my drawing in white pencil on toned paper, the bottom one is to show how solid the forms are, that the figure reads really really well, so I feel good about my "eye" but I'm really trying to nail down technique and craftsmanship so my drawings look a little more graceful. I don't want my drawings to BE blurry....I just did that to show you that the structure is intact and that the pencil-quality sort of takes away from that right now. 

1 hour, Allison. 

These two are both unfinished, but something else I'm working on is not detailing features too much. Look how pronounced the eyes are in the top one versus the bottom one. The bottom one, as a finished drawing, would ultimately read better because its more true to life, eyes don't pop out of the shadows and glow, so I'm working on - as always - drawing what I SEE and not what I think I see. 

Also, look at that handsomely shaded sphere. Now that's just plain classy. (Barrett was talking light to the class, so I drew along. Never enough practice!) 

Jon's Octopus

Jon's Octopus Drawing, I just colored it.  :)

Logan Study

Logan, Approximately 13"x18", 1hr 30mins

John, Tuesday Portrait Study

John, 2 hrs

Michelle Portrait Study

Michelle, 12"X14", 1hr 30mins

Another of Beth, 2 hrs, from this weekend.

portrait 11/13

beth, 11"x14" - As always, I apologize for the crappy photo-reproduction of the work here. If you wanna see them look really good, you're just going to have to make a visit. :)

Two for One

Beth, approx 12"x12" - Wednesday night figure study.

For those of you that may have noticed one of the first posts to this blog, these pins are being released as promotional items for the comic I'm working on with Tony and his brother. It revolves around a character named Nathan Cresk, who is in a governmentally run 'contest' to see what American gets to go to space - and THEN it gets crazy. So, these are campaign buttons for Cresk. Genius.

Toned Paper Studies

Just getting into this, and I really like it. These were both done in about an hour. Also, check out my Flickr Page link on the right, it has updates from the weekend. If you use a reader, you can subscribe to the flickr page, FYI.

Karla

As per usual, unfinished (had to watch The Office!) and a lot of lessons learned (aka FAILs).

This is my first charcoal drawing in ages. I think I need to do some more, this came out nicely for not having worked with the medium much.

Figure Study

First one in a while. Rusty, but ok. I'm going to an actual figure session tomorrow instead of working from stock photos, so that'll be interesting.  This was about 45 mins.

Long time coming

10" x 8" - Untitled

I'm posting this in part because I feel like there's something dreadfully wrong and I can't place it. I've looked at it too long to discern problems at this point. Maybe someone out there has an idea, or if you just really really like it, you can buy it!

This is my first painting attempt in over a year, and I'm happy with it for that reason alone, if nothing else! More to come, certainly. 

Photography

There hasn't been a post here in a while, but I promise I've been hard at work. :) I just got a new camera, and some of these you've seen, some I took tonight. Thanks for checking back regardless of my regular neglect of this blog.  (click them to enlarge)

Amanda

Robin and Neal

Famous Sculptures

Amelie, the Raney's little tramp. 

Their dining room at sunset.

See!? That's paint. I'm painting. Which is what I'm going to do right now after I publish this.  Now you have photographic evidence. 

Brown Tree

Just going for that painterly look in photoshop. This is 11" x 8.5" for prints.

Illustrator Tryout

I just did this randomly and decided to try coloring it up in illustrator. Fun experiment, I'll maybe do some more. 

New Drink and Draw setup.

Many of you know about Drink and Draw, its been going steadily for a few months now. However, it started to waver and wane due to the fact that we're getting random and far-reaching on our topics.


So, we came up with a new method. We're going to each pick (or at least four people will pick) a card at random. Person, place, phrase, or thing. Then they come up with a person, place, phrase, or thing at random, depending on which card they got. Then we take all of them, and put them together to make the week's drink and draw topic.

Last week was the first time we did this, and the drawing ended up being: Kindergarten Class, Tomahawk, Mother Teresa, "Takes one to know one"

So you can see how that got crazy. :)

Being the nerds we are, we're taking it to a level beyond. Jon is making a box for these four cards I designed, with keys and everything. Neal will laminate them to ensure that they last. The top and bottom brown things are the same, just flipped - that's the back of each of these four cards. Click for a larger view.

Well THAT's not allowed in the dress code....

Unless you're a very well paid escort, or a professional model for a kinky photographer. Whatever. Newest piece. I think I've accomplished what a lot of professional illustrators accomplish...and it only took me ten times as long! I learned a lot.

Alabama ARISE

This hasn't been approved yet, so there might be changes. But this is a T-shirt design I just finished for the advocacy group, Alabama ARISE.

24"x18"

Original Sketch and Finished Product. Guess which is which!?!?

A nice break from the strict rules of realism but I'm glad its done. :)

If you want a print, they're 24"x18" and $50.00 unframed on archival paper. They'll be signed and numbered on the back, so you know its legit and the "value" will never drop due to reprints. (haha...I feel ridiculous even saying all of that, but if I get a few requests, I can do all that) :)

Work in Progress

Just to alleviate any concerns that I may have given up my artistic pursuits altogether, this is a preview - with great hesitation - of what I'm working on now. I demand that you not like any of it, as the colors, background, everything might be different by the time it sees paper. Just look at all those colors muddied up against one another. yeelcchkk. (that's how you spell the sound of disgust)

I'm about 35% finished here. Final print will be 24"x18" if anyone wants to buy one. Hint, hint.

3hr Figure Study and Color Pencil

Color Pencil, 24"x18". This one goes out to Mrs. Pat Dwyer, without the color pencil gift, I would have never had the chance to make her a 'thank you' picture. It's pretty special in a lot of ways just because I do so much practice that I don't make many "finished pieces" so I'm really grateful for that.



18"x24" 3hrs

Sorry as always for the poor quality on these images, but it's the best we're gonna get for now. :-/

Karla

This is like a 30min portrait I did a while back for my good friend Karla. Trust me, she's way more attractive in person.

20min study.

18"x24" sheets. Pencil thrown on there for scale. this would have been a good hour pose, crazy angle I was sitting at and crazier light. fun.

Also did an hour on another piece that will be a three hour drawing. Finishing the other two hours friday night.

Fairyfall and Blue Guy

Most of you that know me have seen these. I'm working on an abstract tonight, hopefully posted in the next few days.

Figure study

Frankenbear

Valentine for a friend this year. That 'wild thing' song was an inside joke, so I got a good reaction :)

Drink and Draw!

Space Cowboy

Figure study and sketch

study from figure drawing 18"x24"



This will be finished by the end of the week. Sketched tonight in 3.5 seconds. That is a lieeee.

Chic Chick

aaanndddd done.

Chic Wine Girl

This is sort of an adaptation on last week's drink and draw topic, "Your favorite alcoholic beverage as a woman" but not what I did last week. This is only the value shading, I'll color/fix/finish it by the end of the week or this weekend.

Milk Lizard and Crawfish

Ink - Neal Russler
Color/Photoshop - Matt Johnson



Ink - Neal Russler
Color/Photoshop - Matt Johnson