Academic Work

I've been wanting to try some very academic graphite drawing for a while now.  I don't think I've ever been satisfied with the way that I draw with a pencil, but I think I'm starting to get there.  Somewhere around the second session on this, I realized that I could use the HB pencil to push around and blend the 2B and 4B - so that was pretty cool.  There is definitely more to do here, and we'll see where next week takes me, I really just want to see how far I can push this one.  A little detail below. Obviously the hair and the jewelry need a bunch more work, and I'll keep fiddling with the flesh as well.

And as a kicker, a little 20 minute oil study in Raw Umber and Titanium White.  I picked up Jeff Watts' awesome DVD on gesture work last month for my birthday, and have been itching to get my paints back out ever since.  I really love his philosophy on approaching the work - which seems to be fairly intuitive.  I especially needed to hear the bit about using MORE paint, it really does make a difference.  Go figure.  Anyways, the study is about 8x10 on canvas board, Gamsol was the medium, and a #2 round hog bristle was the brush.

A Christmas Carol

So for the past four years or so, I have been intermittently asked to create the posters for our school shows.  The high school runs a drama production every fall, and a musical in the spring.  And I typically use these as an opportunity to get back into some pen and ink work.  The shows have not always been ones that I have been personally interested in, but I usually find interesting solutions that are fun to draw - one of the benefits of being the art teacher at the school is I tend to get a lot of freedom.

But this year was different, this year's Fall production is Charles Dickens' "A Christmas Carol." It's a story that is near and dear to me, even though I cannot honestly remember the last time I saw it (either on stage or screen).  But I do remember two versions that really stuck with me - Disney's "Mickey's Christmas Carol" from 1983 (the year I was born...holy moly) and "The Muppet Christmas Carol" from 1992.  I also remember seeing a pretty good version on one of the local college's stages back when I was in grade school, but the two mentioned earlier are the ones that really hit home.  So there was a lot of nostalgia attached to this poster, and it was quite fun to pull from while I worked.  So, on to the thumbnails...

...which were pretty bad.  But, some of the best advice I have ever received regarding sketches came from Jeremy Jarvis (the AD for Magic: The Gathering) about four years ago.  It was simply that a sketchbook should be the place to get the bad drawings out of the way.  That's stuck with me ever since I heard it, and it's really helped me free up my thumb nailing.  Regardless, I knew that I wanted to focus on the initial meeting between Scrooge and Marley, and incorporate the other Ghosts of Christmas as well, and I knew I needed it to be a montage.  So I looked back to some of these awesome Manchess sketches for "The Mongolian Wizard" for some inspiration, and the idea started to gel in the bottom right.

Still playing with the overall layout, but a flow between the figures is starting to come together.  I knew I wanted to keep the massive scale of Christmas Present framing the left side of the image, and I figured that Christmas future could frame the top right with his pointing arm, and then I could use his cloak to frame the right side and bottom.  Scrooge and Marley are going to be central-ish, and I tossed Christmas past in on the right, below Future.  Seemed like a plan.  I also took a little stab at Marley - really wanted to have some fun with those eyebrows and that nose.  Also, played with the idea of the village occupying the bottom center and an open doorway framing Cratchet and Tiny Tim.

And here's where everything seemed to click together.  CR Thespians splash would go at the top, credits and title in Oldish English font underneath, Christmas future framing top-right, Christmas Present framing center-left, Scrooge recoiling from Marley into Present's massive hand, Christmas Past sitting on Present's other hand looking across, and the village/town occupying the rest of the composition with that little open door framing Cratchet and Tim.  This also left a nice negative space on the right side for me to throw in the show times/dates.  Was feeling good at this point, so I took to a larger scale to lock it in.

 More of the same, just a little more clarity with how the lettering would fit in and some compositional noodling with the placement of Scrooge and Marley.  Now for the fun stuff.  Reference!

Knew right from the start that I wanted up-lighting on the Ghost of Christmas present, never got a decent sketch of it though, so you'll just have to live with the final inks.

Scrooge.

And Marley.  Man, love that nose and brows.  Also, we were testing for PSATs this day, so I had a good chunk of time in the classroom alone to take care of these shots...except for one of my Advanced students who came in to get some extra work done and got to witness this nonsense.

From this point it was just layout on the bristol and a whole lot of brushwork.  And that was the one big change that I made to my process from earlier posters - the switch from a pen to brush.  I used a synthetic liner for most of the poster, but then just attacked it with black before calling it a day.  I had a lot of fun, feel like I learned a lot, and our Drama teacher was very happy with the results.  I'll call that a good day.

Studies for Muse

After tearing into one of Rob Liberace's DVDs on drawing the figure in motion, I took a crack at some in depth studies of my own.  Following Liberace's method pretty closely on these, black prismacolor verithin pencils on paper that has been toned with shelac.  I really liked the process, the hard surface of the shelac eats away the pencils pretty quickly, especially when I really dug into some of the dark areas, but it really let me move the black around like it was charcoal.

So these are studies for a larger piece that I have had kicking around in my head for a while now, and I really like how the far right figure turned out.  These also represent a bit of a new direction for me. 

For the past several years, I have had a fairly concentrated focus on the Sci-Fi/Fantasy illustration genre, but I think that's starting to change.   Maybe some of it's because as a teacher, I don't have to conform to some of the requirements/constraints that publishing puts on illustration.  Maybe it's because for the first time, I feel like I am comfortable with what I do, where I am, and what I think I want to do.

Now I certainly haven't lost my interest in the genre, it's just that I'm finding myself more and more drawn to the figure and the dynamism, emotion, and subtlety that it can convey on it's own. I'm not completely sure yet how this is going to translate into new pieces, but I'm feeling more directed now than I have in a while - so I'm excited to follow this track and share the journey along the way.

A Chance Encounter

A Chance Encounter, oil on canvas, 32x24.

Glad to finally get this one off the easel.  It was a good slog through the final work on the three adventurers, with lots of rethinking and repainting as I changed a few things up for the finish on this, and maybe figuring out some semblance of painting that feels right.  So I broke down and added a nit-picky round sable to my stable of hog bristle brushes, and also made copious use of a burnt sienna, ultramarine, raw umber, and pretty much any other dark on my palette glaze for the final shadows.  All in all, pretty happy with how everything turned out.  Enjoy.

Also, props to my student Matt Gray for the "Golden Axe" suggestion, though he's a bit too young to get the reference...

Happy Holidays

And the gift of new work.  Not much commentary for this first post in a long time, as I have a pint sized art director sorting through the desk next to me.  Two newest pieces off the easel in order:

Early Gifts, 21x30, oil on canvas.
This is the Holiday card for the high school where I teach, and continuing the trend that I started last year, I've made another family portrait out of it.  And also, continuing the trend I started with my first card four years ago...there's still a wreath in it.

RTM, 30x18, oil on canvas.
A wedding gift for the excellent Dr. and Mrs. Bongiorno, featuring an excellent Mecca for food - Reading Terminal Market.

Pieces

 

Something a bit different.  A few pieces of larger images that I can't quite show all of.  Soon though. Soon.  More MTG sample work in the next post.

Sparkmage Drawing

 

Final drawing for the Sparkmage painting.  I'm pretty happy with how this turned out, I was a little worried in the early stages that I had lost some of the movement I had in my initial thumbnails, but I think I found my way back.  I'm particularly happy with the armor - I had initially thought I wanted it to have a bit more cobbled-together look, but this, I think, is certainly a bit more "manufactured" and orderly.  Probably all of that Warmachine influence bouncing around in my head, and I'm sure watching Iron Man 2 again didn't hurt either...  

I've got the drawing projected onto the canvas everything primed up for an evening of paint as soon as I leave the keyboard.  I'm going to work a bit smaller for these than I have in the past year, this one is clocking in at 20x15, mainly to see if I can speed the whole process up a bit.  I'm also not sure how much help my color roughs will be, as I've got something completely different in my head for how I want everything to look, playing into the "Red" color scheme and whatnot.  I believe I'll tackle the background tonight, or at least as much as I'm able.

So, will the painting be done by Tuesday night?  We'll see, if the post contains thumbnails and roughs for the second card sample, I suppose that will be our answer.  Stay tuned.