blog!

I'll scan this for real when I'm less lazy.

blog!

...but

Pens.

I've always drawn with ball point pens. It never bothered me that I couldn't erase.  When I was little it was the bic clear handles. Everyone had them and they draw on anything. The line is medium size and slightly smooth. It was permanent but almost felt like a pencil, just don't put your line in too dark too early. They're cheap and I usually keep one with me at all times.
In college, a teacher of mine used Parker fine point refills to draw. I gave it a try and immediately loved it. Parkers can be super light and sensitive and they can get VERY black. I think they're about 3 dollars per refill but they'll last you many drawings. I love them for life drawing.
I've tried waterman fine points too. The line is alittle too dark for me.  Very good for fantasy artwork. I don't like them for life drawings.
With ballpoint pens it's always a good idea to have your shading lines going the same direction then cross hatching. As long as you keep it consistent. If you're going for sloppy keep it consistently sloppy. and your picture will look good. consistency and continuity makes for nice work. With some ball point pens, you can take a napkin and actually smudge the ink. Give it a try!

blog

I got this,

This is the doodle I did in the videos.

blog!

I'm now awake in my dreams.

Hey friends,
This is more of a blog related post than art related post. I almost never get any comments on my posts but I get emails from readers. Isn't it easier to just post your comments on here than by going all the way to my website and finding my email address? Anyhoo, this is not to say I don't' appreciate the nice emails I receive (keep them coming).  It's good to know someone is looking at my work.


Ah, ok, one mention of art related thing. http://metmuseum.org/ has a few very exciting exhibitions up right now and I'm going to try experience them a few more times before they're down. I haven't seen the renovated American wing yet, I haven't seen the Sargents in way too long.

j.

blog!

Like an angry Arnold Drummond.

blogs!

Hi Friends, as I mentioned in previous posts my computer/scanner is out of commission so I'll try to use my old laptop to update my illustrated blog. Unfortunately I don't have dreamweaver on this laptop. I'll post what I have on here in the meantime. After everything is fixed I'll put these where they belong. I'll space them one each day so come back often! new entry every day for the next few days.  

sketchbook pages

I don't Like doing things one way. Doing things one way is boring. Sketchbooks for me are for experimenting and finding.  My scanner is down and i'm a little too lazy to use my good camera so take pictures, but you get the idea.  This first page was started in a park. Horse faces and angry pigeons. or the bastards of the skies as I call them.  

This next page was done 2 days ago in a subway train. I get them when they sleep. A little more realistic but still a quick sketch. 

 This final sketch is complete fantasy and made up.

If I get a good response I'll post more of these.

Testing the new layout.

I'm going vegas in February. I'll bring my camera and a sketchbook. So look forward to those sketches and photos. So yeah, I'll be spending the week of Valentines day (with my camera, geez that sounds sad) and a few days after then (hbj) in sin city. And since I don't gamble or anything I'll have more money to spend on shows and time to spend on photography.

  

sketch process 2 of 2

part 2, I'm using a brush pen. It's a great tool for the lazy clean up artist.

I enjoy watching these demo videos if you enjoy them too I'll make more with better production value.

sketch process 1 of 2

doodling while watching tv. This is part 1 of 2. My computer is still buggy so I wasn't able to fix the color and remove the sound.

My craft is my love

I LOVE to paint. Oil painting from life.
The paintings are never easy and almost never go "as planned". The most intimidating part is looking at the blank canvas after looking at the model.
The most exciting part is moments later when you attack the canvas with the slightly thinned paint, a couple of guild lines. Blue circles, red triangles, sienna lines. A little dripping but not too much, too much dripping would mean you've put too much turp on your brush. I measure the features, I make notes in my head. The direction of the surfaces, which way will I direct my brush stroke. Fat over lean, thin then thick.
This is more than just drawing, you are feeling the figure with your eyes, this is sculpting with paint. As much as you have built up your figure, your portrait, this is when you have to lose it to find it again. Never be afraid of not being able to find the figure again. Lose the detail, lose the edges, then bring them back, but accurately.
As the painting continues, the brushes get smaller from a flat and a filbert to a bright and a round.
The paint gets tacky and drags more the longer you paint, usually an hour or two into the painting. Now you can build up the paint. It is not as buttery as it was before. You can stack for an impasto look if that's what you're going for. The highlights are thick, the shadows transparent. This is when you add your color. I like letting the viewer's eyes mix the colors. Doing as little mixing as I can on the wooden palette and most of the actual mixing on the painting itself. The colors are relative so as long as the tones are correct you're golden. Constantly adjusting the proportions, your eye is having a conversation with the model.
The most interesting works of art reveals artist and involves the viwer. The great designer milton glazer says it should "Inform and Delight". I could go with that too.

stop sopa and pipa

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

https://www.google.com/landing/takeaction/

sketchbook page

Here's a page from last week. One of my favorite things to do is to sketch sleeping people on the subway, it usually takes me 2 stops to do one face. Fine point pen.

life drawing.

life drawing from college. These arn't great drawings at all. I had just started taking a class called high focus drawing. The man who taught it was Jim McMullen It really helped me with seeing the movement in the figure and direction of the poses. I enjoyed the class a lot.

here's some drawings from a little while after.

did i ever

Here's two things from my college days. I wish I could do this one over again, I like parts of it, but it's so disjointed. eh.


This one is from my sketchbook. Hand made sketchbook. ballpoint pen. I love making sketchbooks. I've made a bunch with only one unaccounted for.

4 horsemen part 2

Part 2.

Here comes some adjustment curves and color layers. And some more rendering. Usually this is when I start playing the Beatles songs. Most of the brushes and shapes I used in photoshop are default brushes with maybe 2 or 3 custom ones.


At this point I wanted to make that cape really be a focus to the viewer so I went to town on it.



And here's the Final image, I wanted to add a few more 2d design elements just to bring the image together a little better. I was going for creepy and but don't look away creepy.


I hope that was helpful!

4 horsemen part 1

While cleaning up my hard drive I found these. This was done for an art forum. The topic was the Four horsemen.

Here are the sketches from the book. I keep things loose and usually these sketches are just a starting point, I will almost certainly change things.

This is is a color sketch. After scanning the figures and just doing quick color. Seeing what might work and what might look interesting.

Still working on the characters, but now in much higher resolution.

Let the rendering begin! Well not rendering, just adding some depth.


Just more coloring and painting. Still trying to find the painting. I like to lose the painting and then find it back as I paint.
You can see how I've changed some elements and designs from the beginning to this point.
Stay tuned to part 2!

8 years ago

This painting is a portrait of my cousin's daughter, done 8 years ago
This is a simple illustration for a story I wrote.

I did this drawing 8 years ago.

Rejected.

This image was rejected for a magazine. But I did enjoyed creating it. One of the things about being a freelance illustrator is getting use to rejection, it's never fun (I'm still bummed that it didn't get picked) but at least it still means you still care about your work? It just makes me try harder next time.
This is part acrylic, part digital and even a little gouache if I remember correctly.

Process.

Ok, get ready to read, no seriously.
Two years ago I did a little comic called Team Kat-O. It was a fun little learning experience. Here is how I usually approach drawing characters for a book. First I try to do as many sketches as I can in pencil (some of these drawings are on newspapers, tracing paper backs of pizza boxes). Mixing and matching which features look best for the characters. Depending on how much time I have, I would then sculpt the character. If I had a lot of time I would use clay, either Super Sculpy or Paper clay ( I like paper clay because I don't have to bake it, I hate baking when i can't eat it at the end)

These are typical paper clay sculpts, not much detail, but enough for reference. The middle one is just acrylic gesso with a grey tone, the one on the left is partially colored and the monarch is fully colored.

Now if I don't have much time to work on a project, I would skip the clay all together. This is the main villian, 100 percent zbrush. I love using zbrush for these quick character sketches, where as clay can take 3 or 4 hours for something usable, this zbrush model probably took me about 30 minutes. The cat model took about 1 hour tops, maybe less.
Using these models I would refer back to the sketches and pose them accordingly. Photograph the clay, screen cap the zbrush model. And that's pretty much all I need to maintain the continuity of a character.

Noodles!