In my world, dragons still exist, knights in shining armour still
rescue damsels in distress, and trolls still live under bridges waiting on billygoats. It truly is a wonderful world.
As you can probably see, I have updated the look and layout of the ol' blog here and in doing so, have added a new header and things, and since "DRAGONS DO EXIST IN MY WORLD" I sort of thought it fitting that there should be one of the old boys at the top.
This not a new painting, I originally did him in 2007, but have done a few minor adjustments for fun and now he is ready for the world at this point.
Well after a long haul, painting left handed, painting right handed, surgery, recovery a few set backs and such, it is finally finished, THE CAVERN OF DOOM.
A few little details, the paintings is 14 X 18, oils on Tracy-nite and available for purchase if you like, there will also be prints available from my Etsy site as well:
Just a quick little update, I have had to slow down a bit and take things a little easier than I had originally planned to, at this point I had hoped to have had this one done as well as another and on my 3rd painting or so at this time in my recovery. Well, we can all plan but regardless of that these things are not on a time schedule and I had to ease off and let the hand come back at its own pace.
The Beholder and the Dwarves have all been painted with my right hand, while all the background had been done with the left. As I continue to paint and heal the hand is getting stronger and things will be progressing along faster and soon will all be back to a new state of normal..
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.
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.
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...
Outside of my wife and art.......I do seem to have an obsession with a certain character or image, THE HEADLESS HORSEMAN, I really cannot say where or when I became fascinated with this image, but I have completed the 4th image of this guy, and it is the 3rd in oils that I have done. There is also a watercolour sitting on my drawing table that is the 5th, as well as 6 and 7 in my brain..the 7th I came up with last night while watching tv with the family.....I also did the ol'boy one year when we carved our pumpkins for Halloween, but anyway with out further ado I give you HEADLESS IV
Prints will be available of this one so if you are interested please contact me via e-mail :
