New Project: TROLLS!!!!

Recently, a few of us went and saw TrollHunter, an amazing movie from Norway. A documentary style film, it follows film students who think they are making a documentary about bear poaches but it turns into so much more. It's hilarious, and the trolls are fantastic! It inspired our next project -  Trolls! This project is for Owen and Lis, as everyone else is busy on personal work at the moment. If anyone else would like to join in, feel free!

The due dates are as follows:
Thumbs - Friday July 8
Sketches - Wednesday July 13
Final - Wednesday July 27

Summer!

Hello everyone! As you can see, there hasn't been a post in a while. Everyone has been super busy this summer on various personal projects, commissions, and exciting travels. Becca is even getting ready to start her MFA! You should check out all our blogs and websites for updates.

I recently finished a painting that you can check out over at my own blog:


We may start up a new challenge again soon, those of us who aren't ridiculously busy. Until next time!

Becca's Unicorn

Hey all! Here's my unicorn! I had a great time working on this one. It was a challenge, but I got it to a place where I'm happy with it. I looked a lot at Charles Vess and James Jean's work (esp his Fables cover art) for color palette ideas and general inspiration on this piece.

Question - the colors look a bit dull on my monitor - how do they look to you?

Owen's Unicorn

Finally I have finished my Unicorn painting.  I really loved working on this piece, so I wanted it to be the best it could be, I reworked and repainted far more than I usual.  There should be a second layer to all my paintings, but I rarely have the time.  I hope this comes off as a good young adult or children's book type piece.

Lately I have been using a very limited palette of Raw Umber, Ult. Blue, Yellow Ochre, Naples Yellow,  a bit of Burnt Sienna, Titanium White and Ivory Black, and maybe a few other colors for the flowers.  The outcome feels very natural to me.  

If anyone looks at the Unicorn in Captivity Tapestry from the Metropolitan Museum of Art, you can see that I modeled the flowers, unicorn, and pomegranate tree on that piece.  I still think that's probably the best, most sophisticated unicorn.  My fiance has a poster of it in our living room.  What a great piece.

The Unicorn, 21"x16", Oil on Paper on Masonite, 2011. 

Lis's Final: The Light in the Weald

Hey! Here is my unicorn final. I actually ended up using acrylic, and I really enjoyed it!! I printed the image on watercolor paper, put a green wash down, then covered it in a few layers of matte medium. I then worked with washes of acrylic (and some opaque acrylic in the light areas), before spraying it with varnish. Took a little longer than my watercolor work, but overall I am pleased. I want to work this way again! Unicorns <3...

It ended up quite different from my color comp... but that's how it goes with me. I always get more saturated with my colors than I intend. I guess that's my style? It's not as ominous in feeling... more Disney-esque. But I love Disney so it's cool. Tried color correcting in photoshop to make it more like my comp, but I like this.

Craig's Unicorn Color Sketch

I have my copy mounted on board. I wanted to see my color idea before I dove in to paint. The first idea is very straightforward white sunlight and blue skies with shadows falling into grey-purples. The atmospheric perspective will just be a fade into pale blue. Pinks on the girl and gold-yellow on the horn and hair will bring attention there. Right now the sea needs a little more brightness and glitter. Maybe too tame? Try storm filled sky or deep golden light?

P.S. I'm on the header! Thanks, header maker person.

Craig's Unicorn Drawing

Here's my drawing. Sky and sea and a small island peeking through at the right. This will need a color sketch to figure out color and values. Should be a challenge with a white dress, white birch trees and a white unicorn.

Owen's Unicorn Sketch

Sorry I'm so late with this, I finished it saturday but for some reason I thought monday was the due date, and then I realized monday night I had to go to a passover seder.  Anyway, this is my sketch.  I really like it, I tried to incorporate as much of the unicorn tapestry as I could: the pomegranate tree (I'll paint the leaves in later), all the different flowers, and I tried to make him less a horse and more a hybrid goat-horse.  I do need to know what you all think of the girl.  I made her looking at the unicorn as a compositional thing, eyes going toward the center of interest.  But technically she can't be looking at the unicorn.  You could make the argument that she is reacting to the hoof noises on the roof, or plants growing in from her ceiling.  Should I change her face to be looking at the hoof prints on the side of the building (which will be growing flowers and grass as well), or keep her as she is? 

Craig's Unicorn Thumbnails

First of all thanks to Becca for inviting me to be in on this Unicorn "assignment" and thanks to everyone for letting me be part of Running with Paintbrushes! Let me dive right in ...

I like the upshot of the Unicorn. For some reason I think a unicorn should be with a young woman, maybe a "barbarian" girl?A much more active shot. The woman has just jumped on.

But I think I like this more. A little "posey" but I like the interaction of the unicorn, woman and landscape foreground and background. I'm going to start drawing this up but there's always room for input.

Becca's Unicorn Sketch

Well here it is! I am pretty pleased with how it's looking so far, and excited to play with the color - the top part with the bull will be done in reds, the bottom part in blues/greens... I think I'll try to do some sort of color comp like Lis.

My new goal is to do better thumbnails. I definitely didn't spend enough time flushing out my idea initially - I was impatient to get to the 'real' drawing I guess. I'm curious what ya'll think about my horse anatomy (esp you Lis, as our horse expert). I want the unicorn to look dainty, and not totally realistic (tiny hooves) but still plausible.