Werkin' In the Studio

This is currently in the pre-production stages as I'm trying to solidify my synopsis and story. Getting people to read a story and give valuable feedback is quite difficult. I always run into this and short of hiring someone I usually rely on a few trusted people. Not trusted in the sense of I want them to tell me how great it is, but in the sense that they know what I'm trying to do and are not trying to recreate the story in the way they think.
I'm also developing another project at the same time as it helps to keep from getting stale too early on in this lengthy process. At the very least I have two stories that I can hang some illustration work on, which for me is absolutely necessary. Illustrating anything without a story causes me to wander aimlessly.

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Droll Troll

Just a quick study to cover a bad one in my sketchbook. I don't paint people enough from life and it's getting to the point where I've built up an anxiety about it. One of the things I'm doing to counter this is to get back to just painting still lifes and self-portraits. If I can get my paint handling down again then as Sergei Bongart puts it, "If you can paint still life you can paint portrait."

Yeah, we'll see. Dead russians are always trying to make painting look easy.

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Winthrop Washington

We got back a few days ago from a family in-law outing. Everywhere you look you could set up and paint. I was busting at the seams to get to it. The tough part about these things is getting enough sleep, but if you want interesting light early morning is one of the best ways to go about it.

Getting up early is never a problem for me but getting to bed earlier certainly was. Never seemed to get enough quality sleep especially with kids and a dog around. There's never a shortage of noise. At least I had a bed all to myself which sort of made up for it.

The sky was the hardest to get right. Without mixing the correct blue the time of day doesn't really hit you right. I fell down a few times but some of the studies did prove to work out okay. I figured out what I did wrong with the water only until after it was finished.

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Digital Mountainscape

Spent some time this weekend in Winthrop, Washington at a cabin near a river. Did some gouache and watercolor paintings while I was there. Got inspired to throw around a little color after the fact though I wished I would have spent more time doing some better layouts.

I'll post the traditional stuff here in a bit.

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Throw Away

While straightening up the studio and putting a lot of work into storage I got inspired to ink. Of course when that happens there's very little forethought or study of what I'm going to do. Besides I'm waiting for some computer stuff to get here so I can continue some of this digital painting again.

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Shadow Color Study

The last few days of working at Sony I spent on this piece. I thought why not spend more than a day on something. But like most things, if you don't do enough planning or research the end product just looks like polished pablum. I probably could have put more story or context for the character in the piece but what I was trying to accomplish is energy, color, and appeal in my paint strokes.

With a few key suggestions from a friend I'm looking at trying to redo this but this time armed with a bit more information. Maybe the final will be more than this overworked sketch. At the very least, as a color study it's not too far off of where I was aiming.

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Throwing a Thousand Pots

A wise teacher once told me it's better to throw a thousand pots (referring to pottery) than to spend a thousand days on one. You'll learn more by doing over...and over and over. I always worried I'd never finish anything. But then I worry too much.

My mind is pretty active even when it shouldn't be, and so there's no doubt I'll try every combination but the right one until I've eliminated all those possibilities. While in this process the CONCEPT IS THE MOST IMPORTANT THING, being able to clearly deliver it and in a way that has an appealing aesthetic doesn't hurt either.

You can do an awesome concept in black and white but the average concept that is painterly and energetic will be the one people are drawn toward.

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Dropzone

This one took awhile. Which a while to me is probably normal for most people. I have a rather short attention span when it comes to creating. I mean, if I can't knock it out in a day I'll get bored. This helps when it comes to initial concepts and storyboards, but falls flat when I'm trying to do illustration or paintings.

I almost abandoned this several times and changed it when I couldn't overcome certain problems which need to be isolated and worked on outside of this. So...this is the end product of a little perseverance. woo.

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JAAAAAANE!

So I did it, I threw down a bunch of color and in a series of happy accidents ended up painting a figure. I achieved two things here that I'm excited about. I just don't know if I can reproduce them. First I got some semblance of a natural looking figure and second I got a nice mess of mood and atmosphere with sharp and soft edges playing well with each other.

Keeping the detail toward the focal area was something I was hoping would work without over-working. Anywaaaaays...thriving on!

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