Ok so I know I said I would be posting more often but got a little caught up with life and work for this upcoming show. I did however pick up some promising freelance work storyboarding for commercials, have worked well into five pieces or so for this upcoming show, and lost 50 lbs(healthily).
So last I updated I spoke of a solo show in June at a local coffee house. That show now has been postponed to sometime in July which couldn't be better. I certainly could use the extra time to finish as much work as possible. Also in the last update I uploaded a thumbnail of the first piece I'd be working on for this show but since then have floundered around a bit and kind of changed the theme the show entirely. Most of my work tends to be fairly biographical and as of recent has a great deal to with relationships. The original theme was going to really play on the weird and almost unseen ties between two lovers and the impact that that relationship has on its surroundings(sort of a lovers string theory if you will). It seemed like a fairly decent idea but I was having a problem with stale repetitive imagery. I realized in my drawing phase that I wasn't going to enjoy the amount of hearts I was going to have to paint. That being said I moved on to the idea of parasitic and symbiotic relationships being a general theme. I find it interesting how often we strive for the perfect relationship, one that is symbiotic in its most simplest form, a very even give and take. More often than not when they fail there's is this element of the parasite that assimilates itself and eventually kills its host(the relationship). I thought more about this and realized that a parasite does not have to be something like a leech where it's ultimate goal is to drain the life out of the host. It could be something so young, infantile, and needy that it necessitates the life force of another to further its growth(ie a panda cub). What I've eventually landed on is somewhere in the between. Thus far most of the work for this series features beautiful and almost fetishized women and humming birds(the symbiotic) and soon to come panda cubs(the parasitic) but enough talk! Lets take a look at some images.
So this is the thumbnail that I upload oh so long ago.
Next I have some progress shots. I had a few problems with this one. I didn't treat the wood so I was having absorption issues which stopped me from painting in very thin layers as per my usual. This is the thickest I've kept my paint and I like how it turned out. What's more I kind of got lazy and repeated the same image(the hearts) which left the piece kind of boring and static. Ok Progress Shots! Go!!
As you can see I removed the hearts. This piece isn't far from a finishing point. The edges need to be cleaned up, her halo needs to be more circular, I need to give her eyebrows so she doesn't look so creepy(Yikes!) and add white feathers falling from her hands and silhouetted humming birds. I'm just realizing now it is 1:00 AM where I am which means only four more hours of awake time to paint so I'll have to cut this update short but I will leave shots of the the other pieces I'm working on.
Coming up on the next update, Thumbnails!!! Progress Shots!!! And so much more.
Wednesday, May 25, 2011
Saturday, January 8, 2011
2011 Excitement!
So it's been a while since my last post but for good reason. I took some time off from painting to begin doing portraiture studies to hopefully improve my portraiture skills and help foster growth in my knowledge of the human anatomy. I spoke to a friend who suggested that I do gray scale digital paintings and only draw from life. Here is one of the studies I did from beginning to somewhat end.
The point of this exercise is to train your brain to think more in the ways of form and value and less in the ways of contour. Drawing without first building some sort of rudimentary construction and contour is something I was really having a problem with which will become painstakingly apparent when you see my first attempt at this.
YIKES! I believe the technical term for work of this caliber, according to Wikipedia, is "Rubbish! Complete and Utter Rubbish!" That aside, you have to start somewhere however crude that start may be. Lets go over exactly what went wrong here. So off the bat, the rendering I've begun here is far too big; much larger than the subject on the right. The scale change ultimately sent me running in the wrong direction. By the way, what is up with that nose? I'll say it again YIKES! I spent entirely too much time in some areas while completely neglecting others entirely. The eyes and nose have been shaped and reshaped again yet the collar bone, the hair and pretty much everything else are almost completely untouched. This was a valiant effort and not without it's lessons.Working around the piece as a whole and more importantly working to scale certainly helped me with my next attempt at this which looks something like this...
Much Better! She actually looks human! Ok, this time around i actually worked to scale and ended up with something much closer. So what's working here? The basic shapes are all there. The hair, however untouched it may be now, is generally the shape of the subjects. The face shape and anatomy is looking much tighter. The eyes are kind of working and my rendering skill has certainly improved. This is headed in the right direction but I'm having some serious angle issues. The angle and turn of the face is off and this is why the everything, especially the eyeline and nose, is not really reading correctly. The values are also off quite a bit. I only really have 50% grays and 100% black which has made the subject look flat.The darks need to be much darker and highlights need to be added. The hair while it's shape is fine, the lack of variance in value just reinforces the flatness of this piece. Es no bueno.Since this is a digital painting done in Photoshop it would have been leagues easier just to adjust the levels and curves and fix the angles with the transform tool. Normally I'd have no problem with this but I'm doing this to improve my painting so I just took what I had and painted over it. Let's take a look.
Now we're in business! My angle and value issues being fixed has really turned this piece around. I starting working a bit of detail into the hair and even into her right ear and earring. This is as far as i took this particular study. All I really have left is the fine detail work but considering the size of this piece and the resolution of my reference I decided against it. Either way, even without it this piece seems to be working.The entire purpose of these studies was to improve my portraiture skills and my knowledge of anatomy. I think this helped a great deal.Directly below this I'll post the gesture drawings I was doing to warm my hands before this exercise and also some thumbnails and sketches to show whatever improvements have been made through doing these studies.

Well, that's all the time I have for right now but just as a bit of a preview of my next few posts. I was contacted recently for a solo show at a nearby coffee shop. The reception is to be in June and my work will be there for just about a month. I'll need to make 10-15 pieces in the course of 5 months which means...........Yes you guessed it! More blog posts, More Blog Posts, MORE BLOG POSTS! Here is the thumbnail I've chosen to work on first.This is proving to be an exciting 2011 indeed!
~Flewk
Sunday, August 22, 2010
From Head To Heel
Ok so just a quick update. I entered a piece into cannibal flower kind of at the last minute. I really only got 4 working days on it but I think it turned out pretty successful. Also it sold! So here were the stages of this painting. This time i didn't thumbnail as I normally do but i at least have my rough sketch, refined sketch and the finished product.



SOLD


SOLD
Tuesday, March 30, 2010
Friday, March 19, 2010
Monday, March 1, 2010
Heterochromia
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