Calgary 2012 cover proposal

Here is some of the new design after getting the layout notes for the magazine cover with folding flaps.

The left most panel will be the front cover, the far left the spine. The area to the left of the tower is most likely where they will place the title.

The photos are just off of my iphone and will be true black and white. Below is how the image will look as white writing on a black surface.

I am proposing white paint pen written on black gessoed canvas approx. 54 inches tall.

More to come.

Shots from my Stride Show

All photos below of my "Divine Inspiration" pieces are courtesy of Stride Gallery and taken by photographer M.N Hutch.

Airbrushing workshop

I attended a 3 hour introductory workshop to airbrushing at Swinton's.

I brought my Iwata HP -CH airbrush and got to try a few others like the black Aztec above.

Here is a photo of the notes I took during the demonstrations.

We began with getting the proper flow and creating some dots and lines using the dual action feature on the airbrush.

Then we worked on dagger strokes and playing with the distance and flow of the paint in the airbrush.

We then worked on blending two colours. The paper was a bit unforgiving though.

So I moved onto card stock, I did a blend from bottom to top of yellow.

I blended to red and then topped it off with blue at the top.

I decided to dabble in a bit of the opaque white.

I made two cheesy 80'2 style tests, but my dagger strokes on the palm trees definitely needed more practice. I also vignetted the larger of the two test panels.

Here is the instructor Vince showing another participant how dagger strokes are done.

Here is his demonstration board. He made it look easier than it really is. 8+ years of experience does that.

I did some more practice and experimentation.

The final demo was on the use of stencils, we made space scenes with cut out circles.

Here is the start of my space scene. I like the star burst made with 4 taped together business cards as a stencil.  I sprayed the corner of one of the cards at an angle and held it close to the surface to create the star pattern.

Did some different patterning with the example stencils. We finished up the workshop with  dismantling the airbrush and proper clean up.

If life gives you lemons.......

.....
and some vinegar.....

Make something outta them!

 I squeezed an entire cup out of my gift lemons and put them in a jar in the fridge for later use. Then I took a glass jar and put all the rinds in and filled it up with pure white vinegar. I am going to let it sit, and forget about it for a minimum of 10 days, after which I will have the ultimate in natural lemon scented multi-purpose cleaner.

WINNER!

bird is the dead

Back to the piece I have been developing before the life drawing intensive I completed.

The main focal point of this piece is the skull head on the birds body. I used raw umber, for the outline and shadow elements. I blended titanium white to create shadow. Raw umber goes a bit grey when mixed with white so it is a perfect candidate for bone. I brought in a bit of the red as reflected light and added highlights with some yellow ochre mixed in.

The previous layer of paint is dry so I sanded it down with 80 and 120 grit sandpaper. It gives it a nice worn out feel and allows the under painting to show thru a bit for the next stage.

After the skull had been painted in I painted in the brightly coloured feathers and added some textute to the image.

I then filled in the background making it a very dark burnt umber to pop off the colours.

I drew in a branch for my "angel of death" to perch by scraping away to the under painting and brought in some white to set off the space with some light areas.

The paint is wet and shiny and hard to photograph straight on. I'll let it dry and revisit the piece on my next opportunity to work in the studio.

Draw 'til you drop - figure drawing day 2, final session

It was a long haul but I was determined to finish the day with a stack of sketches under my arm and a sh*t eating grin across my face. I noticed the huge transformation of hand eye coordination and skill after two days. I may have stated out rusty but it's like riding a bike and now I'd like to beat my time, win the race and learn some new tricks.

This one was graphite on watercolour paper. I am much more efficient getting the line work down and with proper proportions. This is a more difficult task when drawing from life. However it is an important skill to develop for any artist.

Working on sculpting mass and dimensionality by pushing my values I also added in the reflection but decided on keeping it looser. To help set off the shape of the figure without relying on line as much I shaded in the dark circle behind her.

With a little bit of time left, I pushed a few more areas and drew some birds and patterns on the blanket below.

There was still a little bit of time left in the session..........
Here is a colour sketch with copic markers. It was drawn from the opposite angle view across the room.

Draw 'til you drop - figure drawing Day 2, afternoonsession

Drawing the nude from life.

Here are two from the morning session done on watercolour  paper.

I like how loose and soft they are and how the charcoal looks dry on this paper when it is not smudged.

 Here is the next model, i a 45min. - hour pose drawn with red pencil on canvas paper.

Here is the better part of this piece up close to reveal the texture of the pad.


This is the next standing pose, drawn first in pencil then the model took a break.

 After the break I felt inspired to use some copic markers, which dragged the charcoal all over the place and wrecked their tips, but it made for an interesting experiment.

 Here is a final piece from this session done on compressed charcoal.

Draw 'til you drop - figure drawing Day 2, morning session

It was tough to get up and out of bed the next morning, but when I did I was super stoked to be undertaking another full day of drawing the figure.  We began with "Diane" and some quick 1 min gestural drawings.

I started by using the side of a 3B graphite pencil.

Then used various Copic markers, because you have to commit when using ink.

Then we did some two minute poses. I like the right one with the arching back.

 Some other quickies to establish the poses in a short period of time.

 Some 5 minute poses in compressed charcoal and red pencil.

Followed by some 5 min. ones that I did in a variety of ink.

What a way to warm up on the first session....back to materials that blend easy.

This lying down pose was done with vine charcoal.

The next were 10 - 15 min poses, done in red pencil. See the reflection in the mirror?

The mirror adds a really nice element and challenge to the task of drawing.

I did this one in Copic multi-liner and brush pen.

Here is the finished page while in the morning session =:D