Next Project: Flight!

Now that the Witch project has come to a close (we'll pretend we didn't notice Becca), it's time to get going on our next one!

This project will be to produce a cover illustration for a young adult fantasy book. This way we can incorporate a bit of a different age group to our typical images, and open up our portfolios to a slightly different market in the fantasy genre.

The image should be based on the word "flight." It can be incorporated in any way you'd like...as big or as small an element you'd prefer. For example, the character could be fliying, or there could just be a butterfly somewhere in the image...it's up to you!

Dates

Sketches: 4/23

Reference/Drawing: 4/30

Final: 5/15

Through the Woods Painting

This is my retooling of the witch sketch I did.  It's cropped in a bit, and I did a bit of experimenting.  I gave the trees a bit of texture with a bit of sculpting medium, and after doing the ground color I dripped a very thinned out grayish purple throughout the piece to give it an eerie feeling to the atmosphere.  I love the outcome. I will definitely work that into more of my future work; I especially love what it did to the bark texture.  

Since posting this the first time I have realized that I got the colors and levels completely wrong and have thusly changed it to be a bit more close to the actual painting.  Hope this makes it easier to see.

Through the Woods, 10"x 14", Oil on Paper on Masonite, 2010.

Witch Final

Here's my final for the witch project. It was fun to throw this piece together. Most of it is made up from my head...i had some reference for the lighting kind of, and the bird, but pretty much just winged it the rest of the way. It was a nice difference from my usual extensive reference taking and gathering, and instead of just copying I was painting and playing. Is it my best piece ever? probably not, but it sure was a fun little image to make, and gave me a bit more confidence to be more loose with my reference taking and adherence to the exactness of my photos. Looking forward to see the others!

Color Comp

Here's a quick color comp I did last night for the witch painting. I also played with adding the skull on a pike between her hands to deal with the tension issue that Becca had mentioned. Does it work any better? Any opinions on the colors? I want to keep it fairly unified, with her skin being the one of the few non-brown/reddish orange things. I'd like it to be more of a dull deathly purple of sorts.

Witches Painting Project

The Magic Circle by JW Waterhouse

Happy April Fools Day!

While this may be a day of deceit and debauchery, we are not joking when we say that we are starting a new painting project, inspired by our last drawing project, on none other than those wiley, wizened witches!

This is a very open-ended project, and may be based on the drawings done for the previous witches assignment. New drawings may be posted any time, but since we already have some drawings critiqued and done there will not be a sketch phase this time - just a painting deadline.

And the deadline is... April 15th! Tax day!

Stay tuned!

Rust.....Finally

So it's taken me ages to finally get back to work on this, but some more important projects had to be put first. Now I'm glad to say that I've finished my "Rust" piece and i'm fairly happy with it.
I wanted to do an image that was basically black and white (over a Burnt Umber ground that was also mixed into the greys) with one other bright color. This was inspired by a few paintings I saw at the Delaware Art Museum by Howard Pyle from his pirate series. 

Witch's Brew

Well i finally managed to squeeze this one in! I totally winged it and kinda went with the first idea that came into my head...and i'm pretty happy with it! I decided for the sake of time and good ol' memories i'd break out the charcoal. I forgot how fun it is to push and pull the lights and darks with charcoal...not to mention how much faster it can be! I think I'd definitely like to make this one into a painting at some point in the near future....perhaps a witch-paint challenge! Anyways, it's late...... to bed!

Becca's Witches

Well, I decided to just draw some characters, and not try to do a whole scene. I agree with Owen's comment (below) about working in pencil being freeing. It is easier to take risks when working in pencil, it is quick, and when time is short (like most days in nyc) being able to play out an experimental idea quickly is exciting and invaluable. So these witches are straight from my imagination, and were loads of fun. I'll definitely be wanting to do more drawing-type challenges!

Through the Woods

This is my entry for the witch challenge.  My intention was to make her a hoarder type character, she picks up random things on her journeys that she may use in her various spells or otherworldly activities.  I love working in pencil, I want to do more of these types of challenges.  I feel like using pencil is a more freeing medium and I'm more apt to just add random things to the image without feeling bad about getting reference and whatnot.  Saying that I liked doing this drawing so much, I might make a painting out of this piece.

Through the Woods, Pencil, 12" x 16", 2010.

Witches!

And now for a quickie! We've decided it's time to add some black & white work to our portfolios, so for this assignment, we will be doing a b&w drawing or painting on the subject of Witches! It can be based on fairy-tales, reality, legend, or your own invention. You can do multiple drawings/paintings, or just one. It can be a portrait, a scene, whatever. This is about as open-ended as it gets! Stay tuned for some fun! Above are some Arthur Rackham witches for inspiration.

Due date: March 8th