Bard. Me. Me Bard...

A little progress post.

Another piece from The Hobbit, as well as the "How do I work?" category.  I feel like I'm getting closer to figuring things out.  The beasty from the last post definitely got me thinking in more step-by-step terms, a set process to work through, if you will.  But I'm still not totally sold on a few issues.  I may just be hard-headed at this point...

This is Bard, and as I'm not sure if my Mom has finished reading the book yet, I'll leave it at that.

A little sharpie thumbnail, was digging this.  Lots of energy.

Learning from mistakes.  This is a terrible drawing, I debated not posting it.  I may yet remove it.  But it serves a purpose for the moment - this is out of my head, going off of the sketch above, and it is useless.  It solves no compositional problems, it's stiff, inaccurate, and just plain bad.  Now I think I may leave it up, just to shame myself into never drawing like this again...

My faithful assistant, getting ready to give some critique...

"Something looks a little off..."

"There.  I fixed it."

I had a lot of reference for this one, so I'm not gonna post all of them, but in summary:  I did pose using a stick and a curtain rod for the bow and arrow, and I definitely took a picture of one of our stew pots to get ideas on reflected metal... So here is the drawing thus far:

Well, that's not quite how the drawing stands, I finished most of it up (I think) before I sat down to post this.  Originally, I wasn't going to make this a self-portrait, but then I figured I might as well go for it, as I haven't done one in a while, Bard is a pretty cool character, and I didn't feel like looking up another face to plop on my figure.  I also haven't worked this realistically in a while, we'll see where this goes.  I'm not sure if I want to continue working with this much realism, but I have a feeling it may be good for me to really crank out some polished pieces.  Plan from here is to get a copy made of this drawing (it's 20x30, I just wanted to do something big) then mount the copy to masonite, seal it in, and then paint.  I'll make another brief post when I've got the painting surface ready.

One last note, I should have done a quick reread before I started drawing.  It's a thrush that comes to Bard, not a raven.  Ah well, at least I'll have a self-portrait out of it.  And another thing that this particular piece is teaching me, is that there is ALWAYS so much more to learn.  And after chewing on that a bit, I find it incredibly refreshing.

Art Procedural

So I got distracted this week with a challenge from the great blog ArtOrder.  Going off of the prompt and Mr. Schindehette's description, it seems like pure cheese...my favorite kind.

Plus I got off of my butt and did some process shots as well, so here goes part II of that challenge - Anthropomorphized critter (probably will be read as a vulture by most, but he's a turkey buzzard at heart):

The initial scribble.

The next scribble.  I liked the first one more.

Some thumbs to get my comp in order, I was feeling more of a portrait look for our carrion friend.

Working sketch.  Lots of Mad Max in this, as well as a bit of glare off the graphite.

Painting in progress with a few little tweaks from the sketch.

Things gleaned thus far:

         1.  It pays to hunt for reference material.

         2.  It pays to develop that working sketch as much as possible.

Funny how I tell these things to my students all the time and then think I can skip them...

Oh and here's that spider, I didn't forget completely:

'bout Time

Remember this?

It finally turned into this:

This has been on my work table way too long, but here goes:

The Good:  Smoke rings and Thorin et al ( i.e. the dwarves)

The Bad:  Bilbo, totally dropped the ball on him and he's RIGHT IN THE MIDDLE OF THE COMP!

Things to take away:  More work in the drawing and sketching stages; start things and finish them - this sat for too long between too many sessions of paint, ergo, no flow.

"Queer Lodgings," 16 x 20, oils on Illustration Board.

P.S.  on the time issue and things sitting for too long...there will be a finished drawing for the next Hobbit painting posted by Sunday night.  

P.P.S.  there will be spiders.

A Fierce Enemy, Now Their Friend

Beorn has always been a favorite character of mine from The Hobbit.  This piece has changed A LOT from the first little inkling that cropped into my head a couple of months ago.

Photocopy of the pencil drawing which was then mounted onto masonite and sealed with matte medium.

Oil paints over top.  Trying to keep it painterly, but this one probably sat on the worktable a little longer than it should have.  A better image and explanation will follow once I dig out my tripod and/or find some better lighting.

The Hobbit.

When I was eight years old (I think) my Dad read me The Hobbit before I went to sleep.  I don't remember how many nights it took, probably many more than he needed to spend, but I have always remembered him taking the time to do this.

It was the most fantastic stuff I had ever heard of, little people called hobbits, dwarves, trolls, goblins, great eagles, Gandalf the wizard, a big guy who turns into a great bear, elves, spiders, a dragon, stolen gold under a mountain, and a grand adventure.  I was hooked, what's not to love?

Lots of artists have tackled Tolkien's extraordinary world, that being the case I think back to a quote I heard from an artist not long ago, "If you keep trying to be original, you'll wake up one day a shriveled old man that's done nothing.  Just make sure you're being authentic."  If I can get these pictures to look anywhere close to what I saw in my head when I heard The Hobbit for the first time 18 years ago and what I see when I read it now, I think I'll be doing OK.  And even though this is a personal undertaking, these images are just as much for my Dad as they are for me.

"Queer Lodgings"  one of many scenes of feasting and deep talking, this time in the house of Beorn.

Looking now, there are some real ugly passages yet...pay those no mind.  Graphite on thrice gessoed illustration board.  Plan is to spray the drawing with fixative then lay oils on top.  I've seen a really good illustrator do this to great effect...I have no idea how it will work for me.  The other purpose of these Hobbit pieces is also to try and find a good way of getting the drawing into the painting, this being the first method of a couple that I'm trying.