New Year/End of the year

This was a quickish sketch...the last one of the year.  I haven't made all my artistic goals this year,but reading about Maslow's "Hierarchy of Needs" allows me to give myself some slack.  If you have never read about it, it basically says that one's basic needs must be met before one can attend to higher needs.  I am hoping in this next year I will be successful in meeting basic needs so that I may be free to be more creative and artistic.

Figure Drawing - Oct. 2012

Mermaid Update

Finally found some time to work on this digital painting.  It's still pretty messy at this point, but I am liking where it's heading and having fun painting it. 

Brochure Design

Just finished a brochure for an engineering company. 

Figure Drawing - July 1st 2012

Drawings from today's open model session. 
I haven't had a lot of time to draw in the last 2 weeks so this was a much welcome session. 

Figure Drawing Show

One of my drawings is in this show.  The reception was held this evening and had a nice turn out.  What makes this show intriguing is the variety of ways the figure is approached.  Some of the work is very literal while others more abstract or purposefully exaggerated.  It's definitely an inspirational show. The show was put together very quickly which did not give the artists (myself included) much time to get work ready for hanging.  This makes the presentation of each work a point of interest as well.

Figure Drawing - May 2012

I finally found an open model session in my area.  It's been a couple years since I have been to one, so today was a real treat for me.  Here are two sketches from today.  The first one is a warm up in charcoal, and the second one is a more detailed sketch in graphite (note: I didn't mean to run her off the page so drastically).

Photography

I love many different art forms, including photography.  Recently, I had the opportunity to shoot a good friend of mine's wedding.  I always go into a wedding shoot a little nervous, and a little excited.  I feel that wedding photos are extremely important as they stand in testimony of the covenant that a couple makes on that day.  I also prefer shooting candid shots as my goal is to capture the moods, emotions, and actual events of the day.
Here's one of my favorite shots from my friend's wedding shoot. 
 

I am also in the process of overhauling my photography website to make it easy to update as well as include a blog-like structure to better organize data. I am still in the design phase at the moment, but stay tuned and I will let you know when the new site is launched.

Bridgman arm studies and a revision

 

Some anatomy review for this week. 

Also if you remember a few weeks back I posted about some of my abandoned work.  I had an epiphany about how to salvage one of the pieces enough to move it out of the trashed bin and into the working on bin.  Only problem is finding the time to actually dive into working on it (pun intended).  I have a few other large projects going on at the moment along with a lot of computer troubleshooting issues. Below is the extremely quick sketch revision, but once I really start working on it, it will still probably be revised even more.

Finally Finished

My newest illustration for Lamplight Media is finally complete.  I thought I would share some close ups as well.

Dragon vs. Knight

Artistic balance

The top image is a sketch I created this week of the Mad Hatter, Doormouse, and the Cheshire cat. The second image is a close up of the unfinished illustration I am currently working on for Lamp Light Media.

Whenever I am working on a tight detailed piece, sketching quick, loose simple drawings becomes almost imperative.  It's all about balance.  Art is a language through which I communicate thoughts, ideas, and emotions.  Even on commissioned work, the artist's fingerprint is clearly visible.  However, I find that if I was only making loose quick sketches or if I was only working on a detailed illustration, then I would be leaving out part of my artistic expression.  It would be like only writing half a sentence.

Workstation Improvement

I'm so excited about this.  My brother works for Intel and he surprised me on Saturday with some new hardware for my workstation.  Not only am I ecstatic about getting to utilize Intel's newest, fastest processor, but I'm also elated that it's a processor my brother worked on.  This processor is beating everything else on the market right now.  It took most of Sat. to complete the hardware installation.  I never knew a Dremel could be so handy for such things.  I also highly recommend utilizing an Intel employee ;).
This upgrade has also forced me to switch to Windows 7.  I've had some difficulty reinstalling software, and some of it is still in process.  But for anyone who is trying to install Corel Painter 9.5.  I was able to do so by temporarily turning off the "User Account Controls" under the control panel. 

Abandoned Work

Here are a few of my favorite "abandoned" work.  I have found that a lot of the work that I put on a hiatus has some sort of intrinsic issue that I haven't solved yet.  Some of them, I just know I am capable of coming up with something better, and they are just not worth the time it would take to finish them up.  However, that doesn't mean they are simply forgotten.  I have occasionally been able to cannibalize old abandoned work and give it a second life. 

I've also been working on updating the look of this blog.  Hopefully it will be more visually appealing and easier to read through.  I am going to try to post more consistently (once a week). 

Some things are worth falling for...

A fun little sketch for Valentines Day that is a play on words.  :)