KONG

It is no secret that one of my favourite things to do is to sit and relax with family and friends on the front porch. Some days I sit and play guitar or draw and paint. Most of the time I draw and paint....sometimes something good comes out.

Kong is one of those good things. Done over my mornings coffee, for two days, he is the results and not bad results at that. 

Although it is always time well spent, this time was productive and well spent. Taking the time to enjoy, and appreciate the simple things in life is something we should all do. Drawing doesn't really get much simpler than a 2B pencil and a piece of paper..........and sitting on the porch enjoying the company of family and friends is something to really appreciate, and when I can combine the two with coffee.........it is heaven. 

CROW

Some days you just sit down and draw, had the most marvelous time with this, just a pencil, a kneaded erasure and a sheet of paper.......

This drawing is for sale, please email for information

JUST FOR FUN, I'M NOT LION....

As artists, we spend a lot of time working on our craft, we draw we paint, we sketch we doodle, we work..........but our passion, our love is our work, and at times the fun goes out of it because it is our job. And as it is our job..........we at times loose site of the fact that it should be fun.

So, every once in a while, I will take a day and just draw or paint and enjoy what I do. No worries, no pressures, just doing it because I can. I will do this when we are on vacation or at times in the evening as we wind down for bed, but my favourite place is on our front porch.

Today was just such a day, and today I went out of my comfort zone and painted much much differently than I normally do............I painted Alla Prima.....all in one. 

Normally I work on a painting over several days, underpainting, working on one area while another dries, glazing in areas, painting over things and such....but today I sat down and did the whole thing in one sitting, painting wet on wet.

Here is my board with the drawing on it, it is a little 8 X 10 piece that I had lying about, I couldn't use it for a commercial piece as it had a weird unknown substance on its surface, and I could not risk using it for a client and having the blob of stuff affect the image.

At this point I have reached the ugly stage of painting.......lots of mud and just not looking good at this point. Basically I have blocked in large areas of colour. Normally I would have stopped at this point and let it dry, but since I was going for the all in one sitting thing I kept on going to remove the uglies.

Here we have pushed thru to get a little more work on the piece. He is starting to take on some semblance of a lion and coming out of the ugly stage. He is still a bit muddy but coming out of it. 

Here he is all done and in a little over 3 and a half hours. He is not perfect, a little out of perspective, still a bit muddy, a little cockeyed, but I like him.

It was a blast, I learned a bit that I can apply to my normal studio work, and I will be doing this again. 

My set up for my palette, which is my con palette that I talked a bit about in the last post. I used very few colours on this, yellow ochre, raw sienna, burnt umber, cad yellow light, titanium white, ultramarine blue, cerulean blue, dioxazine purple and cad red deep. 

And here was my company for the afternoon so I didn't get lonely while I painted.........it was sort of like being in the studio as well since he hangs out with me there too.

PALETTES A PLENTY

There are multiple options for palettes out there, just google it and you will see, for a while I tried the traditional kidney shaped wooden one, but found it a hassle, and went back to my ol' tried and true glass palette. They are what I honestly learned on and am sticking with it.

Now with that said, I am throwing out a little quick tip that might just come in handy for ya'll at some point. I use more than one palette.........I do have my main palette on my taboret, which is what I will use for 99% of my painting.

I has a large mixing surface that is relatively easy to clean and work on. It is stable and I don't  have to worry about it too much unless I drop a coffee cup on it and crack it and have to get a new one....barring that hazard it is a great surface.

Now along with this one I have a little wooden frame that holds a sheet of glass as well that I use for a palette as well, it is portable and I do take it with me to Cons at times and use it to work while I am there.

I do also use it in the studio as an extra if I have multiple pieces I am working....which I generally do. I also find it extremely useful for mixing up big blobs of colour for like sky areas and such so that I can paint my sky and then move onto the main palette for other areas of the image.

I also have 2 other sheets that will fit into this little frame that I can use as well, so I don't have to scrape off the paint I am using on the one sheet and can continue to work.

I could use a paper palette, but I don't see the need for the waste, and I do have the space at this time to have all my palettes. 

Is it excessive......I don't thinks so, I find it works well for me and might be of advantage to someone else.

RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOU ALL THE TIME

Early on in the last week or so, I came to a passage in my rereading of The Hobbit, it is where Bilbo is up on a limb saving the Dwarves from the giant spiders of Mirkwood. As I was reading I was drawing images in my head and composing a piece to be painted. When I got the chance I picked up my doodlebook and drew out this little rough:

 After drawing out the scene, I kept looking at the piece and thinking there was something oddly familiar about it.  I let it sit a while as I had other things going on at the time, but it was still in the back of my mind as I was for lack of a better word, bothered by the image.

Eventually I got back to it, and sat down with a bit of ink and watercolours and completed my little rough so I could move on to the next phase and get it to the board as soon as I could.

With that done, I still kept thinking "what is it about this drawing that is bothering me?" 

Now, skip forwards a few days and it is the weekend, weather is warmer and time to set up the front porch for another season of porchsettin, so we spend the day getting the porch cleaned and the cushions all aired out, the blinds and the curtains up........it is a nice relaxing porch for settin, talkin, socializin, and doodlin.

After all the work is done it is time to set a spell and as soon as I plop down in my chair ........... I look at the oak tree I have looked at for the past 14 years and my light bulb goes off.............THAT IS MY LIMB!!! I just start laughing as I realized why the image was familiar and bothering me. 

I drew the limb from a tree that has been right in front of me the whole time and just didn't realize it until I sat down on the porch. I walk past this limb daily as I go out our front door, but never looked up or at the tree. It wasn't til I sat down and looked out that everything was in the right order, the angle the perspective and the whole 9 yard that it hit me.

Now, granted I did not draw the limb exactly as it looks in real life, but it is there, it is the influence for my rough. It has been filtered and stored in the back of my brain to finally come out here as the shot needed for the drawing. 

So, the point of this whole long story, is basically to be observant, watch and study everything, you will retain the information somewhere and it will pop out when you least expect it. Reference is EVERYWHERE, everyday things can be turned into the images you need for your fantasy works.

We are all influenced by the world around us visually and  we do store all this information in our heads and are influenced by it subconsciously. There are many, many tools available to us as artists and illustrators that we can glom on to for reference, the internet has become a valuable tool, but we cannot forget about the world right in front of us. Observation is an amazing gift if we just look at the things right in front of us. Sometimes we see it and just don't realize it.

SIMPLE PLEASURES

Well, it is no secret that my favourite medium to use is the stoic and oft forgotten pencil.......the workhorse of what we do. I almost hardly ever pick one up for anything other than to layout a painting or do a rough much anymore, but the other day decided I want to do a pencil piece, so I scrapped everything I had on the table and went to just draw. Draw for the simple pleasure of it.

I grabbed a sheet of 14 X 17 Strathmore 300 Series Bristol a 2B pencil my little pocket knife, a brass bullet sharpener ( for fine line sharpening ) and a kneaded erasure, and I just sat down, closed my eyes and started to draw, and this is what came out...

MORE PENCIL FUN

Just relaxing the other day and doing a fun little pencil piece..........just to do a pencil piece

A LITTLE NOSTALGIA

It is no real secret........... I love doing pencil drawings, to me the pencil is the KING of all traditional art tools. I have just recently ( today ) finished a drawing that brings back a lot of memories and nostalgia as it were to my brain.

In college, I had a studio class where we were not allowed to use a pencil sharpener. We had to use a knife to sharpen our pencils, and nearly thirty years later, I tried it again..........it is pretty cool, and am not sure why I ever stopped doing this.

What got me to do it again was sort of a silly little thing I saw on Facebook and was honestly quite happy to obtain as well ( thanks Brian ). It was an old Tarzan pocket knife. More so than just an old Tarzan pocket knife, it is exactly like my art hero Frank Frazetta  used to sharpen his pencils...

Franks knife
photo Doc Dave

Once I got the knife ( actually two of them ) a little drawing thing came up in which I got the opportunity to do a drawing of Vampirella......something I always wanted to do, but never really had the time nor inclination to do, but now seemed to be a good time to do so, AND what better way to do her than to do a pencil drawing and to try something I hadn't done in years as well as a sort of homage to tradition and to do her in the way that her creator did.......... I got out my Tarzan pocket knife and sharpened my pencil. I did use a 2B for this and not a 3B .

Here is what I learned along the way: 

when sharpening a pencil with a knife, you retain more lead if you leave it with a more or less blunt tip. 

the blunt tip gives you a softer ore organic line and as you use the pencil, you tend to make sharp spots on it for more finer detaily parts

the softer more organic line is easier to erase and smudge........which works well with the way I draw

the only real thing I didn't like was that if I wanted a really REALLY sharp point I would have to work a bit harder at getting it by scraping the lead down and I am a bit too lazy to do that a lot, so I went back to my brass bullet and another pencil and sharpened it for a fine point.

Will I do this again.........not really sure, but maybe, but it was fun to go back to something I hadn't done in years, and to sort of pay tribute to a Master.

the tools of the trade

the final piece

CTHULHU

Finally sat down a gave a title inking a try for the first time since my hand surgery. A fun little guy and am thinking he might make a nice little painting as well.

CTHULHU

brush and ink on parchment

14 X 17

OGRE DUDE

Ogre Dude, is a working title since I personally need a name to distinguish which image I am working on at a particular time, especially since I tend to work on several different things at once as drying time and such come into play.

Anyways, as I sat down today and started to work on  getting my tonal under painting on, and things in order for the paint, I was reminded of a little thing I do in the rough stage of things. I will take my  my rough and scan it into photoshop and then print out a sheet with multiple versions of the image. I will then take that, print it out and do different versions of my colour comp on this sheet, and use that as my colour scheme for the final painting. 

the rough....

the sheet.....

the colour comps....

the start of the under paint

PENCIL FUN

It is pretty much well known that I love the pencil, it is the King Daddy of  all the media for me, and sadly, I rarely use it except to do roughs, and doodles, but every once in a while I have the opportunity to just sit down and play........here is one of those moments from this past weekend.

LIZARD QUEEN

14 X 17 

pencil on Bristol

$50.00

PALETTE CLEANSE

Not too far back I said that sometimes my favourite part of painting is cleaning off the palette............

Well here is a small example of what I mean:

I did this yesterday morning mainly in one sitting, just playing. Now you may ask yourself what does this have to do with cleaning off your palette, well he was done from paint left over from a couple of days of paint on my palette from another painting that I am working on..........as some of the paint was still viable and wet, I just sketched the face out onto a boar and then started to paint him in with that paint before I scraped down and started back into the other image.   A cleansing of the palette as it were, and not wasting of paint.

Could I go back in and tighten things up more and turn it into a "finished piece, sure I can tighten him up, but for me he is finished, served his purpose and was a good exercise, and to be totally honest, I like him as is.

So the next time you have to scrape down, maybe see if you can lay some more paint down and just play a bit..........it is fun, and sometimes you get something out of it as well besides a clean palette.

THE BEGINNINGS OF THE DWARVES PAINTING.....

In the previous post, Dwarves in the cavern of doom, I posted the work in progress up to a point, at this time I am going to back track a wee bit and give a little insight into how I actually sort of came up with the image in the first place.

A few years back I did an image of a BEHOLDER..........

... a fun little pencil piece that I liked, and thought it would be fun to go ahead and do a painting of this little fella at some point, but I really needed a setting for him to hang out in, and being a creature of the the UNDERDARK.............I had a place for him to hang out, just needed a scenario for him to be there.

He sort of hung out in my head and sketchbook for quite a bit of time, until one day I started to draw some dwarfs......

Once I had these fellows on my mind, it sort of dawned on me...they kind of like caves, and mining and that sort of thing, the next thing I know is I am getting an image of the Beholder and these guys sort of in the same area........

...the first sketch, hated it...........

....so I sort of liked this better but still thought it sucked...

...then I sort of remembered the sketch of the little guy standing at the edge of a precipice ....and I did the little doodle in the upper left hand corner ( 3 ) but didn't like the Beholder being visible to them and below, sow I moved him up and to the right ( 4 ) and sort of combined the two sketches and we ended  up with the painting as we saw in the previous post.

Ok............now that I have brought you up to speed on where we were, I am going to post a few redundant pictures to get you to where we are.................

the piece in the underpainting stage on the Tracy-nite.......

...establishing the background and some of the foreground elements as well......

this is the point where I hate the background,  and really not sure why, so I put it down for roughly 12 hours or so until I figured out what I was not liking about it...........well it turned out it to be a bit of a value and tonal issue for me..... it was creating a weird spacial thing going on in which the column in the back was in front of the one in the mid ground........I am not M.C. Escher  and it really didn't work for me, so I repainted it.....

... well here is the repaint.............

and here is a side by side of the two............i was listening to the Beatles so I ended up labeling it yesterday and Today, plus it was a days difference.

...and this is where the painting stands at this point.... all the drawings were done way prior to my surgery and so are all right ( normal or strong hand ) all the paint is still lefty..........

There will be more images to follow as I continue to work on this and finish it out, so please stay tuned and comment if you wish.

DWARVES IN THE CAVERNS OF DOOM.......WIP

Here is a quick little step by step process of the painting I am currently working on at the moment. This is one of the pieces that I had drawn out and prepped prior to my surgery..........didn't work out as I had hoped since at this point I am still not supposed to be using my right hand, but I am managing and painting SLOWLY with my left. Hopefully by the time I get to painting the figures I will be allowed to use my right hand and get back to business as usual.

Here we go with the under painting....

...laying in the background tones and colours....

...and tightening up a bit of the background as well as laying in the darks for the mid and foreground.

In the next post I will go ahead and scan and post the roughs and prelims for this painting, that is pretty much it for now.

Been too long ...........so here is an update .....

Hi, no I did not fall off the planet, but have been not quite healthy so I am here now to update everyone who my not know what has been going on for the past year.........well 2 years, and most like longer just because I tend to ignore things and press on.

3 weeks ago I underwent surgery to replace to discs in my neck that were compressing a nerve making my drawing hand and arm go numb and placing me also in a lot of pain. At the same time I underwent carpel tunnel surgery in y drawing hand as well.

Although I did continue to draw and work thru all this, I will honestly admit my stuff was not up to what I am capable of, I sort of continued to draw because I had to, it kept me sane and really could not help myself.... I have to draw and paint........if not I really get tense and cranky. You really cannot separate the man from the artist.........we are one in the same.

 This is how my hand looked about a week ago.........although the stitches are out at this point I am still not released by my Doctor to use the hand to draw..........this has not stopped me, I am slowly plodding about doing it left handed.

Before we go there here are a few things I have started and or finished before surgery and the hand got too bad to use

a little pencil of a woman and a dragon......kind of fun and was enjoyable to be doing just a pencil for the fun of doing a pencil

a simple little dragon hunter piece, that I will be back on to shortly...

these are two of 8 pieces that I started to lay out and prepare before I went into surgery...........

this is the last piece I finished before surgery, it is Web, and the cover for another Timothy Ray Jones book

here is Thuvia in the Garden, the last ink I was able to do before I really could not control the brush

here are two versions of Dejah Thoris and Woola, that I have for now stopped until I am able to ink again...

here is the underpainting for the project I have started, the whole of the paint application so far has be left haned..

... a little bit of work left handed as I do the under painting for  my next project....


Well that is pretty much what I have been up too, I will be keeping a little better track and updating more as I heal and do more...