Wheel of Deluded Existence - starting the painting

I started this thangka for the upcoming horror show. Also referred to as a wheel of life, it is based on classical Tibetan Buddhist imagery. It depicts the realm of existence associated with unenlightened beings.  It may not be the ultimate in the 'horror gore show of hell', but it is the one that the majority of us call 'reality' and that in itself is very scary, indeed.

I started with a 30' X 40" wide profile stretched canvas. I use the width of the profile and the straight edge to create a border around the image since I found my past works crept too near the edge of the canvas.

I need to find the center point and a vertical and horizontal axis. I do this without a ruler, just a straight edge and compass or string with pencil tie to it. I go from corner to corner at first drawn with a red pencil. Once I have a center I draw circles intersecting the lines an creating points of origin for my vertical and horizontal axis which I then draw in with the straight edge.  I also draw circles from the center point for the inset images to be create later on.

The next step is to draw in MARA, the demonic deity that holds the wheel of existence. I do this with graphite (a mechanical HB pencil.) Graphite does not readily stick to the surface well, it is workable but needs to be adhered with fixative, I also coat the drawing with a clear acrylic primer.  I also use various other colored pencils to help me organize additional elements on or around the central figure.

Once the majority of the painting is sketched into place (which takes many hours), I can start to work with paint.  I block in solid areas of color starting with my large brushes loosely working from the largest darkest shapes and  moving toward the lighter colors. There is alot of preplanning here in my head because I already know that the majority of these dark colors will get covered with lighter ones later on to create a bold popping effect. I move inward to the more detailed areas, which tend to be from the outer edge in toward the center, this pulls the eyes focus to the center of the artwork. After the outer MARA figure and background are blocked in I will begin work on the wheels of existence which require finer tools, and concentration.

Stay tuned for more updates to follow this and other current works =;)

Beard and the babe or beauty and the beard

I heard word my good friend is feeling a little under the weather. So I channeled my magickal energies to give him some strength, like conan the barbarian if he were a dwarf. I had this idea running in my head since Valentines and I think I will make another attempt on Canvas in the near future in a cheesy airbrush the side of a van meets Boris Vallejio style.  My wish is that he feels better and that the painting is epic!

 

Hb on paper. 

Here is the head cut out and quickly colored in Adobe Photoshop so said friend can use it as his facebook profile picture. 

 I then decided to tweak the design a bit more. I think he needs a bigger head so I enlarged it on a photocopier and pasted it in my sketchbook.

Pre-code B/W animation characters

KT @ Quickdraw asked me to whip up some early style animation characters for their upcoming course pamphlet. Here are the preliminary sketches done on animation paper and the back of a photo copy in HB pencil.  There is Oswald the lucky rabbit, a few versions of Felix, Bosko, Dinky doodles, some proto mickeys (mice)etc. 

This is my favorite era of animation. The character designs are stunning using simple shapes and bold contrast, having only black and white to work with.

Inking comes next!

Shaolin fighters

I have been super busy and equally sick.  But if you say I'm not holding up my end of life's bargain then I'm gonna sick my two Shaolin bodyguards on you. Here they are, taken from a scrap I ripped from a National Geographic, I think.  All I have left is these HB and slightly tinted with Prismacolor representations.

 

"Mastery comes in finding perfect balance"

Remembrance day - 21 Sketch salute

Here is a blast from the past. In no particular order.

This is my ode to Remembrance day - A 21 Sketch salute of sketches one when I was 21;)
These were made when I was in a period of HB mechanical pencil, free flow surrealistic ideas an straight ahead with ink drawings (no pre-sketch or erasing permitted).





 

 

Exclaim This!!!

Cartoon Curses!

For a while there blogger wasn't allowing me to upload any drawings.
What you see above is how I felt, and what was said during this set back.

Serious ass kicking

Kicked some ass today!
I spent the day repairing some vandalism and improving the 'public artwork' appropriateness of my music box. More on that installation another time, or visit my website and click the NEWS section. I also picke up a tonne of groceries for my B-day bash this week-end. It will be raining, like it is now, so we will see how we do.

Anyhow.....

This drawing started out as representation of an object in my living room and developed until it became a superhero robot flying through the air seemingly after having his ass kicked an his cape lit on fire.  I really liked the position of the angling front arms and the thrown back head. The body I had a few problems getting into position but I am happy how the final piece turned out. It is just a sketch after all;)

HB pencil and prismacolor markers.

Bodyworlds sketches

My town is lucky right now 'cause right now you can go to the Telus World of Science and see the Bodyworlds exhibit. That is where they take cadavers and through the special process of plastination seemingly freeze dead humans in any shape and anatomical level of dissection........ and some with rather artistic takes on it. It is creepy, disturbing and somewhat educational.  Here are some sketches from the foray, I think I'll go again this week and spend a little more time drawing.
These sketches  were done with a .5 mechanical HB pencil  in a small moleskine notebook.

Automata design

This is a free hanging design sketch for a cloud, lightning and rainbow automata I thought up. Then I decided to put the mechanism on the outside to show various mechanisms at work..... perfect for what I have in the works.

I was also asked to be in a show at the Sugar gallery with a theme "genderbender". Now I know I was probably asked because I am good at making "shocking" work. But the theme has me a bit pissed off. My initial design idea is to have Satan with his balls hanging low popping the bird to those who go to the show. "Play Nice." 'Nuff said.

You'll notice at the upper corner an owl smashing down with his powerful talon. Yes, the Illuminati stomp crept it.

I had another idea to create buildings with neon monsters designed on the outside kind of in the tiki style that eat people. They could be on a conveyor or wheel as the mouth opens and closes after they enter. It would make a cool moving art machine indeed.


PS: I have been a bit annoyed by the free scanner (Canon Lide 25 that I have free at my disposal)
and my current sketchbook, bleeds, cheap paper and hard binding makes it difficult to scan.
C'est La Vie, it's what I have.

Zoobilee Zoo

It was a beautiful day outside and I took a short walk over to the zoo to sketch the Giraffes for the Onemilliongiraffes.com  project I saw on facebook.  I brought my trusty tools, and a dragon fruit to snack on.  I felt that my small gestural thumbnails were the best thing that came out of the day.  Heres some scans from the sketchbook. Pencil stuff done in HB with a mechanical pencil.

I then sat down in the dry mud where they had ripped up a whole section of the zoo to build new exhibits. There was these posts that were once a spider web playground. They had an informative panel explaining how spiders spin their webs so I jotted down the steps with my trusty Copic marker.

Dancer and Death

I went to the Glenbow Museum to see the Canadian Nude and Kent Monkman show.  I brought my new sketchbook and saw this beautiful 1938 print by Jean Dallaire. Since you can only sketch with pencil in the museum, I used my trusty mechanical HB to sketch this out.

I was drawn to the dancing skeleton at first then to their expressive body positions.

Mushroom Man

This blog certainly has me working hard drawing everyday just for you, I just hope the pressure increases as more and more people discover my "Opposite Machine".
Tell your friends that there is a rad drawing of a mushroom man today! I saw a mushroom man photo somewhere and before trashing it relegated it to my sketchbook for all of eternity.

It was sketched quickly to get the major shapes in HB and bravely drawn with my Faber-Castell pens. Once again I have foregone coloring with Prismacolor  markers for the time being. Just in case anybody is interested in purchasing the work on spec and dictating the colors they want. Anybody interested in a mushroom man shirt or CD design for their band?

My Art Arsenal. Drawing and Inking. Part 2.

I decided to do a quick example sheet to give you a visual idea of the difference between the the drawing tools in the previous entry.  Here is some of the line work I can achieve with some of my drawing tools.

I added ball point pen at the end to give yet another example of a drawing tool I use.
They are in the general order from the list yesterday. Tomorrow we will delve into Prismacolor Color Markers. Fun, Fun =;)

MUNSTER Monday

I did a self-portrait in HB pencil today.
He. he. he. Grandpa Munster;)

For those out there who are as big of animations fans as me.......a little known fact: 

The idea of a family of funny monsters was first suggested to Universal Studios in the late 1940s by animator Bob Clampett, who wanted to do a series of cartoons. He never got a reply. 

Boo! Intellectual property?

Speaking of intellectual property........Please don't steal this image or any other on this site. 

© Brian Batista 2010

Right in the tinker!

Done while viewing Peter Pan with HB, Copic and prismacolor pens.

My new saying.............

Sugar Pot

I want a little sugar
in my bowl
I want a little sweetness
down in my soul


I bought this chrome covered little sugar bowl at Value Village one day. Last night I decided to sketch it out with an HB pencil in the dark while watching the Crow.

Who put the sugar in the sugar bowl?

It was me, and I put some pieces of vanilla in it to make it taste yummy.

Hot Potato

I started with a very rough HB sketch in the style of Tex Avery. I outlined it quickly with my Copic marker followed by some line work with a pilot Hi-tecpoint V5 grip. I borrowed a red fineliner for a few small details and filled the remainder of the picture in with a bunch of colorful staples brand highlighters.  And all in under 1/2 hr;) Now that is a fun reason to draw!

That would be the face you'd make if you just saw the french fry cutter and hot deep frying oil!