A Face Only a Mother Could Love

Amphibious Cotillion - 12"x12" Acrylic on Panel

Well, its no Bouguereau painting, but its a start. I'll be refining this some more when I get home. The important thing to note here is that I used a pretty new method of painting for me, and came out with a result close to what I wanted...something a little weird with a classic feeling.

I'll be doing more like this in the future, for sure. If this is my first one, I can't wait until my fifth, or my tenth painting. The complexity possible is limitless... now I feel like I can do as much with acrylic/oil as I could EVER do with digital, if not more.

I hope you have enjoyed seeing my progress over the workshop. I can't wait to show you more art, announce new projects, and do more commissions for those of you that were waiting.

Feel free to email me any time with questions, comments, concerns or requests. This has been an absolute blast. :)

Stay tuned for another post with final thoughts on the workshop as a whole in the next few days!

Acrylic Concept

Digital concept for Acrylic Painting week at the Imaginism Workshop

This is my digital rough for the acrylic painting project we're doing in our last week at the workshop. I love this disgusting little girl because she has manners. Haha.

The interesting part about this is that the entire process from idea to 'finished' digital (which admittedly isn't perfect) took easily a 1/10th of the time that my work before the workshop would take.

Acrylic Underpainting of the digital rough...still needs some work but its almost ready for color!

Brain Renovations

Wow, how much has changed and how hard we've worked, and how much clearer everything is now. Just wow.

The difficult thing about posting during this workshop is that it requires 100% of your focus and dedication, and by the time you write a post, everything has improved and changed again, and the post becomes irrelevant, and you don't even want to post it.

Don't take the lack of posts from any of us to mean we're sitting back in some non-existent Imaginism Workshop lounge drinking cocktails and reminscing about the good ol' days when we made art. HA. HA. HA.

Thierry has been giving us challenging assignments, time crunches, tough deadlines, even tougher standards for our work, and more advice than you can wrap your head around. The learning almost can't keep up with the application of the new ideas, you just have to grab everything you can and process it later.

We're off to the Imaginism Studio for our official tour so I am cutting it short. I wish I had something visual to post, but you can see our gorgeous faces over at the Imaginism Blog, there's a post there about subway sketching!

Other Workshop Mates' blogs!

If you're needing a fix of info from the Imaginism Studios workshop and haven't seen these already, take a look at the awesome posts the others in my group are writing.

Filipe Laurentino: http://www.laurentino.com.br/en/blog/
Daria Zersen: zersen.blogspot.com
Jimena Sanchez:  monitosbonitos.com

Quick update

I guess one blog post in a week is a good indicator of how crazy demanding things have been here. It is all wonderfully productive, lots of late nights of homework assignments, learning about light, realistic painting, dynamics of drapery, anatomy, and more. So much more! Life, career goals, time management, etc. etc.



Let's not forget our amazing visit with Doug Sneyd this weekend. Doug Sneyd has been illustrating for Playboy Magazine since the 1960's, so naturally his wisdom about the industry and his technical skill are unparalleled. 

Not to mention, he is totally hilarious, as you'd imagine. It was truly an honor to be a guest in his home, viewing his work from decades past, and hearing his thoughts on our careers and where we can go from here.


We're all trying hard to ignore the fact that we've already been here for two weeks, and that we're technically half way finished. I prefer the glass-half-full idea that we've already had two weeks of great education and new ideas for the future. 


I've started to get some clarity on my next projects, which is very exciting. Looking forward to giving another update, hopefully even sooner. :)

Picture time.

So, while I'm probably too tired to properly post ever again, I thought I'd at least take an opportunity to show you some photos from the weekend. We went subway sketching, checked out a mall full of giant ghost deer (at least that's what I like to call them) and found Jimena's evil twin brother. All in all, a good weekend.

Oh, and lets not forget the 8 - 12 hours of drawing and painting at the house. There was that, too. :)

66 flavors of burgers and wings....I'm not going back to NYC.

Filipe, Jimena, Daria. And a pole.

Look at these guys.

Jimena, Daria, and Filipe while we were on a trek through downtown.

That guy could eat you. Seriously huge.

These deer ghosts are obviously in the wrong place.

Jimena's evil twin was at the mall in Canada...random, right!?

Gonna get drunk on pancakes.

Get your subway sketch on. Peace sign and devil horns. We couldn't be more cliche if we tried. Haha.

This is my "whatchoo doin with that camera" face.

The Nitty Gritty

Photo by Workshopmate Filipe Laurentino

After yesterday, my ideas of how to develop story and character have been changed in really great ways. We learned techniques for being more receptive, more intuitive, and more expressive, and crazy character ideas were floating around all day.

OH....and we bravely ventured into the great outdoors. Seriously getting cold up here, kids.

Basically things are going as you may expect.... late to bed, early to rise, and extremely productive. Week one is almost over, and it has been worth the entire expense and journey already. I can't believe my work stands to transform this much three more times at least before I leave.

This workshop also gives us all pause to consider our larger goals, and we've been getting a lot of feedback on pursuing them. When you really get down to it and organize your thoughts, there's very little you can't accomplish if you set your mind to it and use common sense. The same is true of anything, artistic or otherwise.

I accidentally (and only temporarily) stole a shopping cart. They do shopping carts differently here, I learned very quickly. Lesson number one about Canada.... if something looks free to use, make sure someone else didn't put money in it to make it functional first.

On a final note, I would like to point out again that T's cooking is not to be reckoned with. That is all.

Day 4 - Salads, Mass Hysteria, & Efficiency

Curves are actually straight lines. Arms and legs are boxes. Up is down. As the great Dr. Peter Venkman would say, "Dogs and cats, living together! Mass hysteria!" Who knows what assumptions will be shattered and rebuilt next!?

Our notions of structure are being simplified. There is an elegance to this new method that isn't just about making it 'right'....it is about making it right the first time. Drawing carefully and correctly can be faster than drawing quickly.

This is so much more valuable than someone leaning over your shoulder giving advice on a single specific piece of art....this is much more efficient and effective knowledge for us.

I started some sketches last night and I feel like a different person is at the computer than the guy that was painting back home a couple of weeks ago. I think that's a great sign.

Also, change of subject, but I'm gonna take some pictures of Thierry's awesome lunch salads for you all soon. You haven't had lunch until you've had lunch T-bear style.

Feel free to talk to me on twitter or email me if you have any questions. I know when Jodee Taylah was writing about her experience, I was glued to every post. :)

Also, if you aren't already, go to the Imaginism Workshop Blog and check out the updates from everyone else.

50-Headed Monster and Bobby Chiu

Filipe, Daria, and Jimena on break, but not really because there are entirely too many awesome things to read here.

Day two was definitely the beginning of something new and magical that none of us quite understand yet, even if we think we do. Thierry has been teaching us how to restructure our thinking about the human head and how to rethink how things are built and appear in physical space.

Our drawings are very abstract right now, almost just notes of how we are thinking when we look at things in the world (like I said yesterday.) but I think we are all learning immensely from it, and I can already tell that my approach to getting my imagination on paper has improved. Drawing heads in a few simple brush strokes in a matter of minutes that are intended to read as having depth and structure is no small task, but we are performing as well as we can, and doing a good job, if I may say so.

Oh, hello little guy on the wall....I know you.

Suffice to say, there is more being packed into our brains than we can digest in one day but there is already immediate improvement in everyone's work just from having Thierry surgically deconstruct our thinking.

Today (day three) was our Master Class lecture from Bobby Chiu. I am so blown away by the knowledge and the new perspectives that I don't even think I can speak on it just yet, maybe tomorrow or the next day....or next year. I have a lot to think about and plan for.

Also I should point out that it really feels like we are one team pursuing one goal together, and a lot of people are lucky if they ever have that once in their lives, much less for an entire month about art.

Break is over, now it is time to learn some more from Thierry about these 50 heads we drew last night (and then had to be up early for Bobby's live-changing talk) then it is on to the next challenge.


Maybe it will be 50 more heads. And why not? I can't get enough of them. Haha!

First impressions

Monday was our first day doing 'lessons' from Thierry, but it has been a non-stop learning experience so far. Sunday in the airport we sketched while waiting on classmates to arrive, learning a million little things from Thierry before even starting.

The first day I filled pages with notes, notes on things T said about life, about art, or about common sense, things that weren't even parts of the lesson at times.

We are learning about structure, how to make our images have more depth and interesting features. I feel like I have had my eyes opened to how 'flat' my art can be, and how to fix it, and it is only the first day.

Dinner with the Imaginism team was enlightening and fun, of COURSE. The conversation moved from art, to mango milkshakes, to Richard Branson and then back again!

Looking forward to sharing some art soon, we are doing a lot of drawing right now that is mostly mental work and not very aesthetically appealing. The work right now is about reconfiguring our brains to think differently about our work.

That is truly the most valuable type of knowledge, though. It is the old idea of 'teaching a man to fish' which is stuff we can take with us and work on for years to come.