Julia Lundman

Studying the Loacoon, Plein Air Sculpting

2012-01-18T10:15:00.000-08:00

On Thursday nights I sculpt with a group of friends who are passionate about studying the figure and sculpting. Recently, when we set up our model, Jennings, we decided that the poses he was gravitating toward reminded us of "The Loacoon". We decided to go with it and have our fabulous model take the pose of the famous sculpture.

If you are unfamiliar with this sculpture, there is a wealth of information for you to learn about this incredible example of sculpting history. My brief summary is as follows:

The Laocoon comes from the Hellenistic Era, about 50 BC, when Greek sculpture evolved from a rational and classic art into a passionate and emotional expression whilst still retaining the idealization of the human figure.

The group depicts a scene described in Virgil’s Aenid. The Trojan priest Laocoon and his sons are set upon by serpents at Poseidon's command as punishment for Laocoon warning the Trojans against the wooden horse. Three sculptors are credited by Pliny to have sculpted the group: Hagesandros, Athanadoros and Polydoros of Rhodes.

The sculpture was lost until it was discovered on January 14, 1506 during an excavation in a vineyard of Felice Fredi at “Sette Sale” on the Esquiline hill in Rome. When the sculpture was found, the raised arm was broken off. Michelangelo believed that the missing right arm was originally bent back over the shoulder. Others believed it was more appropriate to show the right arm extendeded outwards in a heroic gesture. The Pope held an informal contest among sculptors to make replacement right arms, and the contest was judged by Raphael. The winner, in the outstretched position, was attached to the statue. In 1906 a fragment was discovered and believed to be the original arm. This arm sits on the statue today.
*summarized from Wikipedia

Pope Julius II placed The Loacoon Group in the Vatican where it still resides. Many casts were made of it subsequently and acquired by museums around the world. One of those casts sits just outside the Legion of Honor Museum, tucked away on a quiet path, making it accessible for study.

"Loacoon and His Sons", outside of the Legion of Honor, San Francisco, California

Our Thursday night poses are typically set up for six three hour sessions. We decided that when this pose was over, we'd take our sculptures to the real Loacoon and work from the actual sculpture for comparison.

WOW. What an education...

I found that when I sculpted my block in from the live model, I interpreted the muscles of the back VERY differently. The back muscles I sculpted from our model Jennings were anatomically correct and logical but not simplified or idealized in a way that communicates strength and agony. My block in did not communicate this essential truth of the original and was merely an unemotional study of anatomy.

In addition to the enlightening exercise of sculpting from life and then from the actual sculpture, I found sculpting outside to be incredibly FUN. With a few careful preparations and perhaps fingerless gloves to keep hands warm, it would be possible to sculpt other outdoor studies of other sculptures in order to learn how to interpret and idealize the form.

Practically speaking, an artist must come prepared. Blocking in the figure ahead of time either from the live model or photographs is helpful and necessary. Once there, you can use your hands to warm up small bits of clay and add to or take away as necessary. We used our plein air painting boxes placing our studies on top of our stands. My friend Lenny used a sculpting stand called "Hercules" that he recently bought, which seemed like a great option for indoors and out.

Hercules Sculpture Stand

***A note, however: although the stand is called "Hercules", it has it's limits regarding strength. The bolts at the bottom of the tripod are not strong enough to withstand heavy weights, I'm guessing over 50 pounds. However, for smaller works it is fantastic. The top has a rotating base that you place your board and sculpture on which sits upon a tripod, making it easy to transport or put away in a closet when not in use.

After I got home from hours outdoors and defrosted my frozen fingers, I took a long look at my block in. Before we went to sculpt the original sculpture, I knew something was not working in the torso and back, but I was unsure of what. After seeing the original sculpture live, my vision became more clear and my understanding about what to aim for about the entire piece understood. A sculpture (or a drawing or painting) is not about the individual muscles but about the whole. Each area is important and can be idealized, but it makes no sense if the gesture is not working. All of those individual muscles will be meaningless if they are not working together to communicate the idea.

In addition to the gesture and over all idea of the piece, there is an enormous amount to observe and learn about how to idealize various areas of the body. It is unlikely that one particular model looked like this man. Rather, several models were used for various areas and each form made to be "the best" way to depict an area of the body. There is so much information in this one sculpture group to learn from.

I will continue to work on my study of Loacoon here and there over the next few months bringing my block in with me to study the idealized figure. This will be a long term project, taken in slowly, allowing the beautified form to seep into my consciousness a little at a time.

For drawing practice and sculpting study and reference, I may also purchase this Mask of Loacoon's head.

http://www.giustgallery.com/sculpture-reproductions/detail/laocoon-mask/item-46/

and also his torso:

http://www.giustgallery.com/sculpture-reproductions/detail/laocoon-torso/item-135/

Two Portraits

2011-12-25T00:00:00.000-08:00

I have been inspired lately to use conte, pan pastel, and pitt pastel pencil on Rives BFK paper. I love this particular mix of materials with the velvety texture of the paper. Even with all smudging I did, I found that Rives BFK paper was able to withstand multiple layers of conte, smudging and erasing. I can't wait to draw more!

"Walter", conte and pastel pencil on rives bfk paper

"Christopher", conte and pastel pencil on rives bfk paper

My kitty Maggie watched me during much of these portrait sessions. She's a great studio companion except for the occasional snoring.

This past year I have spent almost my entire life outside of my full time job taking workshops. Although my personal schedule was definitely pushed the max and at times stressful, at the end of this year I am looking back and feeling hopeful, energized and inspired. For about ten years after I left Chicago to move to San Francisco, I stopped painting outside of my illustration job because I was too busy making a living. This year I've made connections back to what truly inspires me; I've been studying Nature closely and all the while looking deep within my own heart, thinking carefully about what I truly find beautiful.

I am eternally grateful to those artists around me, right here in San Francisco, who generously choose to pass on their wisdom and support!

With so much gratitude, thank you!

Classical Realism with Sadie J. Valeri

2011-11-27T20:03:00.000-08:00

Last January, I took a two week Classical Realism workshop taught by Sadie J. Valeri in her San Francisco studio.

At the time I took the course, my interest in Classical Realism was purely practical. I paint at home nights and weekends, which for me has meant that the Alla Prima (wet into wet paint) method I was trained in at the Palette and Chisel and American Academy of Art, has required immediacy and speed, a process not well suited to my current working full time life style.

I thought perhaps the layered and methodical process of the Dutch/Flemish indirect process might provide me with a better working method, allowing me to work in stages rather than all at once, better suited to coming back over the course of several days and nights. While all of this is true, what I found after taking Sadie Valeri's course was far more enriching and enlightening than I'd expected.

For those unfamiliar with the term, Classical Realism refers
to the contemporary rebuilding of a legacy of art instruction which developed from the Renaissance ateliers up through the 19th century Academies, which was nearly lost in the anti-figurative philosophies of the 20th century. Sadie uses a process of indirect painting that was developed by the Dutch and Flemish painters, but many ateliers use a two or sometimes three step process.

For further reading, you can find extensive information HERE at the Art Renewal Center website along with many examples of past and present works. (also a huge array of articles and information on schools)

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Construction Exercises and Value Control

The first exercise we worked on was a value sphere. I wrote extensively about this exercise, the terms and lighting effects HERE. At first glance this exercise might appear simple. I assure you, it is not! Like practicing scales on the piano, the value sphere is the equivalent for artists.

After we we practiced the value sphere, we studied the principles of organic form in Nature, contour and shape, perspective, and how best to construct objects, including a fantastic lecture on ellipses. **note: for this blog post I will focus primarily on the painting method and will outline in later posts the important information regarding structure that I learned.

We began our still life painting by taping a sheet of mylar (vellum) paper to a board on our easels which were leveled in direct line with the still life set up. Using a viewfinder, we mapped out our composition by making small thumbnails. We then went over principles in construction of objects, breaking down our subjects into shapes using the straight line block in technique rather than sight size. **note: the two links are 1) example of a figure drawing using straight line block in from Sadie's blog and 2) a discussion on wetcanvas.com about sight size vs. other methods with good comments about non reliance upon sight size.

Each student's easel was set up almost at eye level with the still life. Our easels were set far enough away to make the set up just under life size, in this case about 4-5 feet away.The reason for this is practical; comparing side by side makes measuring and comparing easier rather than guessing and translating on to the page the size you would like the objects to be.

Also important to note here is that Sadie's studio is set up for North lighting, the most consistent form of natural light. We did not use any form of artificial lighting whatsoever for this course.

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Materials for Painting

After we transferred our completed drawings to the gesso panel, we began painting. Here is a list of materials we used which can also be found on Sadie Valeri's website HERE:

Brushes:

Robert Simmons "White Sable" brushes with the maroon handles and white bristles (very affordable)

Filberts, 2 each of sizes #10, #4, and #1

Rounds, 2 each of size #1 (one brush for the light areas, one brush for the dark areas)

Mediums:

Refined Linseed Oil

Stand Oil

Odorless Mineral Spirits (Turpenoid)

Natural Turpenoid (ONLY for cleaning brushes, never get it into your paint)

"Silicoil" brand brush cleaning jar filled with Natural Turpenoid

Paint Rags:

Shop cloths are used (can be found at Home Depot) for the reason that other paper towels have too much lint - especially the popular Viva brand paper towels that many impressionist painters employ.

Palette:

classic wooden artist palette with thumb hole so we can pick it up or clip it to our easels.

(If it's brand new, brush on thick coats of linseed oil every night for several days/weeks and rub it into the surface or it will absorb oil paint.)

**note: when I was in art school we used untempered masonite panels cut to size at Home Depot, which we coated with linseed oil in the same way. these have no thumb holes but are great palettes and can also be clipped to an easel if needed.

Panels:

smoothly sanded gesso panel with no texture. Sadie makes her own panels (detailed blog post on her site HERE). You can also use Ampersand smooth panels or make your own.

**note: Daniel Sprick mentioned in his workshop that he coats untempered masonite panels with shellac, then five coats of Golden brand gesso, the last few coats he sands with a belt sander, and then applies Alkyd white to obliterate the texture completely making a smooth surface.

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First Stage of Painting

The Open Grisaille Layer

"Open Grisaille" means "dead grey layer" in French. The idea of this is a basic first pass of values that also creates a surface for later layers of paint to adhere to.

We began by mixing a thin layer of burnt umber, a touch of ultramarine blue, and small amount of white, thinned down with *only* turpentine. We used two brushes: one with paint and the other with turpentine on it which functioned as an eraser for mistakes.

We began by washing in the darkest dark in a thin layer. Rather than "swiping" in big strokes, we used small strokes, building our darks. This stage is called "open" grisaille because the white is the white of the panel - not white paint. This stage seems similar to watercolor in respect to how the paint is used, staining the paper in varying degrees of saturation, the white of the paper being the highest value. Here the "stain" is thinned oil paint on a very smooth panel. Thinking of it this way helped me through this layer.

This layer will eventually be completely covered up in the very next layer. However, skipping this step is not advised as it will help the oil paint bind to the surface of the very slick panel. I also found this step a good way to make "pathways" into the brain for understanding the nuances of how the light is working on the set up, kind of like a "warm up" for subsequent layers of paint.

Usually the open grisaille will take about six hours to dry. The panel must be dry before moving on to the next layer of paint.

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The "Couch"

After our panels dried over night upon completion of our open grisaille, we came back the next day to apply the couch. In fact, after each step is completed and dried, it is almost always necessary to apply a "couch" layer of underpainting medium on to the panel. A couch layer on a dried panel aids the application of the new paint layer and helps the paint absorb into the panel.

The underpainting medium (linseed oil + turp) should be applied in the thinnest layer possible using a clean large brush. Sadie will also sand between layers after applying the couch, (which is called wet sanding) using the finest possible sand paper tooth - #600 - in order to remove dust and lint that adheres to the panel over night. Many artists have various recipes for the couch - Sadie uses underpainting medium.

Also, we applied the couch only to an area we were working on that day because if we oiled an area we weren't painting, over the course of the day the oil would drip or become gummy.

**note: a good source for information about couching is in the book, Oil Painters Handbook, an encyclopedia that documents time tested techniques for oil painting materials and methods.

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Closed Grisaille - The Black and White Value Layer

After the Open Grisaille step, we moved on to the "Grisaille" layer or Closed Grisaille stage. More information on the history of this method can be found HERE. This layer involves white paint and is completely monochromatic.

The colors we used to mix this grey are French Ultramarine, Burnt Sienna,

and Titanium White.

We mixed seven values, counting white as value one and near to black as seven. This in itself I thought was an excellent exercise for understanding how best to boil the infinite value scale down to a workable palette.

**Side Note: These black and white values are really warm greys. If you are not familiar with the differences between true cool greys, neutral greys, and warm greys, I highly recommend going to the art supply store nearest you and looking at sets of markers or gouache sets. You will notice the difference between the shifts between them, and it will help you gain an understanding of how how cool, neutral, and warm colors work. You could also buy some sets in three values of each marker and do some exercise sketching. When I worked as a background painter in the 90's, very often I would do value studies using these three greys - it is amazing at how "full" the color can look when really there is no color at all (or very little chroma, which is what is really going on).

After mixing up our value strings, I was more than eager to cover up the open grisaille layer. Again, I found interesting information regarding how best to apply the paint that was quite different from the Alla Prima technique I was trained in. A lot of artists learn to apply paint in values that "band" together and then blend those value bands. Sadie instructed us that this methodology does not produce a truly accurate and nuanced representation of the values and causes loss of control. It is better to instead think of the paint as small tiles that move across the form, painting each as a very small "dab" - not swiping at all - moving across the form rather than up and down. It is important not to rush or feel like you need to get it all down in one day. The importance here lies in getting as accurate as possible the values of the set up before moving on to the color stage.

I love the look of a palette at the end of the day, although I don't recommend having your open can of diet hansen's ginger ale next to all those solvents. :) However, Sadie also instructed us to always keep the lids on our solvents and mediums while we painted to reduce the toxic effect in the air as much as possible. I was amazed at how six students were painting and yet the room barely smelled of paint at all! (a nice thing for anyone with asthma like myself)

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The Color Layer

After working a couple of days on refining the closed grisaille, black and white layer, we moved on to color.

the colors on the palette below, from left to right: Titanium White, Alizarin Crimson Permanent, Cadmium Red, Cadmium Orange, Cadmium Yellow, Yellow Ochre, Sap Green, Cobalt Blue, Ultramarine Blue, Viridian Green, Mars Red, Burnt Umber.

At this stage in the workshop, Sadie lectured about COLOR. Instead of getting into the ins and outs of this chart, I will post the Munsell chart. If you are a digital artist using Photoshop, you will find this easy to understand since Photoshop uses this color wheel system. If you are new to this concept, I suggest reading more about this HERE:

When I began laying in the initial color, I found it difficult to get the paint to adhere to the black and white layer with out picking up some of the black and white paint, which was muddying the color. To make sure this doesn't happen, make sure the closed grisaille layer is completely dry before applying color. I did appreciate the black and white layer, however, because I felt it made the color layer easier to focus on. Because the values were already noted carefully, I did not have to think about the value as much, which left me thinking about chroma and saturation instead. Nice!

Here we started by mixing up the dark color of an object, the light color and a mid tone. We painted thicker in the lights and thinner in the shadows, commonly referred to as "thick over lean", concentrating on the lights rather than the dark colors. We typically mixed a "string" of color before painting an object.

Another important difference I discovered between Alla Prima and Classical Realism was the handling of the highlight. Typically in Alla Prima, I would paint the warm tan-grey of the bottle first and then lay the highlight on top of that layer. When faced with the highlight in this set up, that is exactly how I began to do until Sadie intervened, explaining that in Classical Realism everything is painted right next to each other. In other words, the highlight is painted right next to the bottle color rather than on top of - sometimes referred to as "windowing".

** note: In addition, when I attended a Timothy Jahn demo at Sadie's studio in October of this year, he also mentioned this same thing: that he paints only a small section of a painting at a time, bringing it to full completion and then moves on, moving out and around the painting from there. (Visit his website here)

In the above photo you can see the black and white layer was mixing with my color. I found the next day when the layer had completely dried, the color went on cleaner without picking up the layer underneath. Be sure that b&w layer is dry!

My set up included a crumpled brown paper bag, which I was not able to complete. I mainly focused on the egg and dish, bottles and two glasses. I quite enjoyed this step and could have worked on it for much longer, but at this point the two week course was finished.

My semi-finished painting, above.

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Demonstration and Lecture Photos

Sadie J. Valeri lecturing while she demo'd the grisaille "dead layer". I noticed how light her open grisaille layer was compared to mine. You can't tell in this photo below, but the paint barely made any texture at all on the surface.

Three eggs in three steps, by Sadie J. Valeri. First, the pencil construction, second, black and white value layer, third, full color (although there is an open grisaille step before the black and white stage):

Here is Sadie's finished egg from the demo she started in the above photos. As you can see, her skill is well honed! It looked even better in person.

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Final Thoughts

The methods used in this kind of painting were commonly taught in Ateliers in Europe and America, but diminished during the late 1800's through 1900's during the age of deconstruction in Western Art. (which happened in all the arts, including writing, dance, architecture, sculpture, poetry, etc) A revival has been taking place over the last thirty years for artists who wish to learn Classical painting methods driven by those who have a deep desire to depict Nature in it's true visual state. As a result, Classical Realism has become a richly poetic form of visual art in recent years thanks to the many Ateliers popping up all over the US and Europe and support by collectors world wide.

But what if you don't have a desire to paint in this manner? While I see a lot of painters begin at workshops that are loosely structured and sometimes even stylistic, I highly recommend that students begin with Classical Realism. Additionally, if you have already attended art school, Classical Realism studies will solidify accumulated knowledge and enhance an understanding of visual principles. Every form of painting, Impressionism, Alla Prima, Naturalism, even Abstract Expressionism is an off shoot of this hundreds year old tradition. Modernist avant guard schools function as a reaction to and against Classical Art tradition. Knowing this, why not fully understand the founding principles of technique and explore the truths of Nature? Once an understanding is mastered and practiced, along with the philosophy and historical context, exploring areas of visual expression is borne out of a place of understanding and relevance with a nuanced and intended expression of a visual idea.

As for me, I have spent most of this year using my vacation time and weekends to take workshops of all kinds, and truly enjoyed them all. Because of this, I have intentionally put off my personal work. I still have a great deal of questions and interests to explore, which I hope to address in my own paintings next year. I will definitely be using this technique for many of my studio works and am very eager to start!

Bowie the Greyhound

2011-10-31T11:24:00.000-07:00

On Thursday evenings, I attend a sculpture workshop with some friends. Usually we hire a model for figurative work. This time, however, we thought we'd tackle something different, the greyhound of one of our favorite models.

We set Bowie up on a sleeping mat while we sculpted. Occasionally she would get up and walk around the room or go outside for a quick run.

While I was making the armature, I observed the incredibly graceful movements of our model. I noticed the long flowing s curves repeated throughout her form and her incredibly "springy" stride. I wanted to somehow capture that kinetic grace in the pose.

I didn't make any gesture drawings, but instead decided to just mess with the armature until I found a pose that worked. I put a base layer of clay on the armature, adjusted it several times, and after about two sessions found a pose that had movement. I had trouble with the armature because I used aluminum wire where I should have used steel; the clay is heavy and can bend the aluminum wire. To compensate I decided to make a sturdy base at the bottom and balled up aluminum foil for the rib cage.

Eventually, our Thursday night sessions ended and our model was no longer available. I decided to take the sculpture home to work on it little by little after work.

The truth is, I am not really a sculptor. I am a two dimensional artist studying the 3rd dimension, sculpture. In the 3 years since I have been learning about sculpting with my friends each Thursday, I have found that the practice aids my understanding of depicting nature in two dimensions greatly. My mind is better able to process how form turns and how light falls on those forms far better than if I hadn't.

My underlying interest in visual language is the idea of making something, anything feel alive to the viewer, whether it is realistic or fantasy; I want to be able create an illusion and spirit of life, the sublime. I strive to transcend technique in order to create something beautiful that reflects Nature in a visually poetic manner. It is this idea that keeps me pushing forward, wanting to learn more, improve my abilities and become increasingly skilled at how I might do this. Sculpture has helped me understand in a different way how to think about how to capturing "aliveness" of a creation. While I am certainly a lesser sculptor than others, I feel exploring this medium has helped me solidify ideas about visual illusions.

At this point, I decided to place a black board behind Bowie so that I could see more clearly the lines of her form. I started to soften the muscles and add some areas of compression along with skin folds. I came to the conclusion that although some of the sculpture might not be entirely "correct", it was my choice in serving the design at this point; I enjoyed rounding out forms and accenting areas I found the most beautiful.

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My "finished" sculpture, at least as finished as I want it to be:

"Bowie", oil based clay on wood base.

s curves in motion:

While I worked on this sculpture throughout the summer, I took breaks to attend the Weekend with the Masters painting conference, which you can find in some of my previous posts, but, perhaps more interestingly, during this time I immersed myself in the work of string theorist Brian Greene, author of "The Hidden Reality". *

Aside from ideas about the shape of our questionably infinite universe, one fact about Greene's work stands out as entirely relevant to every day considerations:

"Nothing in the laws of physics points to free will. Therefore, like time, it is a useful illusion. We are a bag of particles governed by the laws of physics. And that’s it.”

(from an interview with screen writer Charlie Kaufman)

Really? Assuming Nature created these complex particles, it also created the desire for some of us to want to recreate it in art. Why? To understand it? For what purpose? Maybe meditating on Nature's beauty is somehow important in the grander scheme. It certainly is for me at least.

*You can also watch a fantastic PBS dvd series based on his book by the same name, "The Elegant Universe", which explains quantum mechanics in layman terms and is pretty enjoyable regardless (among numerous articles and speeches published all over the web).

Weekend with the Masters - Daniel Sprick Demo

2011-10-10T18:08:00.000-07:00

On the last day of the Weekend with the Masters, hosted by American Artist Magazine, I took a one day workshop with an artist I have admired for years, Daniel Sprick.

The painting conference was structured so that students could take several one-day courses, choosing one instructor for each day (look to my two previous blog posts for other instructors courses I attended). All twenty instructors were master painters on the Realist fine art scene; quite an impressive roster with a wide span of approaches and philosophies ranging from the alla prima direct painters, to the Rembrandt school of thought, to the Classical Realists of the East Coast atelier scene to the many noted plein air painters of the West coast.

I was surprised and delighted when I saw Daniel Sprick's name on the roster since I had never before seen offerings of workshops taught by him in the past; this was a rare treat to meet the artist I have admired for so long. I was not disappointed.

An excerpt from an article written about him on his website:

"A Vermeer-like glow infuses many of Daniel Sprick’s paintings, often falling on objects from some unseen source. It spreads arbitrarily through his interiors, picking out this tangerine and that bottle, causing their color and form to bloom, submerging other parts of the painting in warm shadow. From Vermeer too, comes the suggestion of worlds within worlds. Oriental rugs imply distant exotic places (and perhaps Sprick’s obsession with flying via magic carpet as well). Paintings and fine art prints tacked to walls, tantalizing reflections in a blank television screen, figures half-seen through distant doorways enhance the notion of time and distance. Daniel Sprick also revisits the tradition of the still life as memento mori. Yet again, in these contemporary works, the traditional images of decay and dissolution –faded flowers, broken china, eggshells, a human skull---are leavened with humorous elements such as nibbled cookies and a seeping stain that spreads from a paper bag to the book it stands on. "
-- Jane Fudge
Jane Fudge is assistant curator of modern and contemporary art at the Denver Art Museum, and a visual art and film critic.

Daniel Sprick, "Passage", 36x30, oil on board

Two interviews, the first from the Denver Art Museum, and the second, below, an excerpt from American Painting Video Magazine:

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Because the conference was expensive to attend, I appreciated Sprick's thoughtful note on the supply list that mentioned that we could use whatever supplies we already had. He provided a list of his specific materials also, and indicated that we were welcome to use those if we chose but that it was not necessary.**

His supply list can be found here.

However, for this demo, Sprick was using Royal Talens water based oils that were provided as samples from a representative from Royal Talens/Canson at the conference. He used them all weekend in order to test them out, and seemed to like the results.

Sprick explained his process for preparing panels at home, which are Masonite panels primed with golden sandable gesso. The medium he uses with his oils is Liquin.

He began by drawing out an accurate silhouette of the head using angular lines rather than curves. After he figured out the height, width, and overall shape, he then filled in the shape of the head with a thin wash of a warm sienna-like tone. This under painting technique is called a grisaille or dead layer, which many artists use as a base for subsequent paint layers.

He intentionally left the area around the head whitesince he has been creating a lot of figurative works in his studio with a white background as a compositional element. Sprick's aesthetic for portraits and figures often employs stark white backgrounds foiled against a fully painted realistic portrait or full figure. He explained some of his influences in this direction, referring to a Renaissance painter, who's name I unfortunately did not catch, that also played with this idea. Additionally, contemporary print media often make use of photographed figures photoshopped against a white background, a visual motif surrounding us today.

After he finished the flat, wash of the silhoutte, he began to paint on top of the grisaille, filling in the shadow areas as one connected shape all over the head (below) with a thicker consistency of paint.

Sprick then mixed up the colors of the light in big piles from which he also used as a base for mixing middle tones.

At this stage, he began to lay the paint on thicker and in a "dabbing" manner instead of blending brush strokes together, carefully modeling the forms of the light.

He continued in this manner, slowly building up the light, mid tones, and adding further shape to the darker values.

It wasn't until this stage that he added the sharpest, darkest values and the lightest lights.

After he added these accents, it seemed to be a matter of adding a few very small accents in the highest range of the light in order to shore up the accuracy of the portrait.

It may look as though there are a lot of meticulous brush strokes on this portrait, however up close I noticed the painting was far more economical than I'd realized. Sprick has such command of the figure that he is able to make incredibly exacting choices.

The finished demo, Daniel Sprick, 2011

Below are two additional demonstrations he painted from other sessions:

During the break at lunch time and before we painted from the model, Sprick showed us a slide show of his STUNNING portrait work on his ipad. He also talked about his interests in lighting for his still life paintings, using unusual sources of light including hot, artificial spotlights (on occasion) and interesting bounce light effects, like mirrors with blue gel on top, which bounces back into the set up. He also glazes areas of his paintings after they are completed if he finds the composition is not working the way he prefers, using the glazes to either push back or pull forward specific elements of his still life.

It was truly a joy to be in the same room with Daniel Sprick, talk with him and paint. I will not soon forget the experience!

** The Weekend with the Masters was quite expensive (for me), considering the cost of the course, $1200, the fee for the hotel (I shared a room which came to about $500), PLUS additional supplies for each chosen instructor and dining fees. Thankfully I traveled by car, saving on air fare and cutting the cost. I suggest to the hosts at America Artist Magazine to increase the attendance among the student population, that they include a discounted student rate much like the CTN Expo does for the Animation industry students.

Weekend with the Masters - Quick figure painting with Susan Lyon

2011-10-01T13:36:00.000-07:00

A few years ago I had stopped fine art painting entirely due to a very busy illustration work schedule, which took me very far away from my practice of life drawing and painting the figure. It was around 2006 when I visited Susan Lyon's website, a former classmate at the American Academy of Art and Palette and Chisel Art League friend, that I became inspired again to continue to push forward and develop my observational figure painting and drawings.

I was so happy when I found that Lyon was also getting into oil quick sketching on vellum, a medium we used in art school to save on canvas, and even happier to learn she would be teaching her approach to oil quick sketch at the Weekend with the Masters, hosted by American Artist Magazine, in Monterey, California!

Here are a few samples from her blog:

All of these are oil on vellum, 45 minute poses. Also on her blog is a link to a video she made further explaining her technique.

I also have the pleasure of owning a few pieces by Lyon. While we were in school at the American Academy of Ar t, I posed for my classmates on Friday afternoon. (clothed - I'm not THAT brave) At the end of the session, I was surprised when Sue gave me her watercolor painting (below, left). I still have it on my wall at home along with a pastel drawing (below, right) that I purchased from her in 2006.

It was so fun to see her again after all these years. Susan Lyon is a delightful and energetic teacher who gladly shares her process with students. Below are a few shots and notes from her one day demo at Weekend with the Masters. Enjoy!

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On her Open Box M glass palette, Lyon mixed big areas of color with a somehwhat limited palette, variations on red, yellow and blue. In this session she used a convenience color for the flesh, Caucasian Flesh, Charvin Rubine Lake, Ultramarine Blue, Cadmium Yellow and Cadmium Orange plus Titanium White. Lyon explained that the small amount of cadmium orange was for sharper richer color accents which are usually found in the hands and feet where the flesh typically becomes more reddish.

Also, as far as medium, the only one she uses is mineral spirits to wash her brushes when switching colors, which you can see on the bottom left in the photo below. To wipe off the brushes, she uses Viva paper towels.

She proceeded to mix up a few big piles of paint so that she didn't have to worry so much about mixing during the 45 minute pose. She then tapes a 14x17 piece of vellum (she has tried many variations and feels an artist needs to find which one they prefer) to a white board, and then proceeds to paint the largest shadow mass with a large bristle brush using the warm brown tone she mixed on her palette.

Lyon explained that after she lays in the shadow shape rather loosely, she then defines the color mass of the light areas using a loose sight size method which has become like second nature after painting for many years.

She simplifies her brushstrokes as much as possible, using only mid range values, feeling that the middle ranges tend to give a more life like feel for the figure. The only dark accents she adds are very small touches toward the end of the session.

Lyon said that she tries not to stress out too much about the exact hue on the model, and that her color is not super exact "true" color. Rather, it is relative to the palette that she sets up, working within the context of those colors. For instance, the green cloth depicted in the photo below was actually black, but she wanted to show the warmth of the skin tone against a cooler color.

Susan Lyon's finished demo, oil on vellum, 45 minute pose.

In the afternoon students did three 45 minute poses. I had a hard time getting used to the vellum; it's literally been over 15+ years since I've painted on it. By the third pose I started to get the feel of it. Here is my 3rd 45 minute quick pose.

I would really like to get a group together to practice quick poses in oil. I currently attend a Tuesday night figure long pose session and Thursday night sculpting, so adding one more night is pushing it...still, I would love to do this. Quick poses in oil would be good practice for getting the form down quickly while also abbreviating color, only putting down what is necessary. I imagine after a year or two of weekly practice, an artist would make huge leaps!

Weekend with the Masters - David Jon Kassan demo

2011-09-25T18:12:00.000-07:00

David Jon Kassan is an artist I was really excited to meet and study with at the painting conference I recently attended, American Artist's Weekend With the Masters, in Monterey, California. Aside from his technique and acute observational abilities, Kassan has been an artist I've admired for his subject matter and unusual juxtaposition of realist figures against street art or other interesting abstract textures.

I've also enjoyed the videos he has put together, particularly a portrait on an ipad tablet using the ArtRage app as well as traditional portrait sessions of people around where he lives in Brooklyn, NY. If you haven't watched them yet, be sure to check out his blog and enjoy.

From Kassan's artist statement on his website:

My influences are understandably just as contradictory as they have fed and connected my perspective on painting. I am constantly seeking out work that is congruent with my own which has led me to explore the work of life size old master paintings, urban stencil and graffiti street art, Marcel Duchamp's found objects, abstract paintings by Robert Rauschenberg, and finally the sheer conceptual and executed realism of Caravaggio.

A flexible and open mind. I like that.

Notable supplies for the day included pan pastel in black, Generals charcoal pencils in blacks, greys, and white, a custom maul stick he made using a collapsible tent pole and coat hanger, and binoculars...

Kassan's drawing supply list can be found here.

He began the demo on toned paper in a mid range moving up or down the value scale in order to model the form. He started by massing in the key darks of the eye sockets, under the nose and mouth with black Pan Pastel.

After he laid in the darks, he refined them by looking into a set of a binoculars at the model (not the drawing) to find the exact edges of these shapes and adjusting with an eraser. I had never before seen an artist use binoculars and was really curious to know how he was using them.

Kassan explained that the binoculars aid in finding the exact edges of shadow shapes and help in observing specifically where forms turn. He told us that occasionally students find this device controversial. His view is that while yes, binoculars are an optical aid, the mind and the hand are still creating the work; an artist still has to understand the form well enough to know what to look for in the first place as well as translate what is being seen on to the page. I have no problem with this myself. I wear eyeglasses for the same reason so binoculars to me feel like essentially the same thing.

After he adjusted and refined the shadow shapes with a tuff stuff eraser, he used a white General's pencil employing crosshatching, another departure from my own training and one that attracted me to Kassan's work.

As he continued to refine the form in the light and add more depth and accuracy to the darks, he explained further about his use of crosshatching with white in the light tones. He follows each form around the face according to the natural grain that grows on that particular feature, something he learned from Costa Vavagiakis, with whom he studied at The Art Student's League in NYC. Years later Kassan learned from a doctor who was also a student of his that there is a medical term for this concept, Langer lines !!!

Kassan's finished 3 hour demo drawing:

It was cathardic for me to hear about Kassan's use of white pencil, crosshatching and langer lines. A seemingly innocent thing like cross hatching has become a bit of a flash point in my personal art.

Many years ago, while I was in high school, I became completely obsessed with Langer lines, although at the time I didn't realize that is what they were. I had been at a local book store and discovered the Dover Press Alphonse Mucha's Figurative Decoratives, a book which remains incredibly inspiring to me to this day. I stopped experimenting with this technique when I went to art school because I learned that lines do not exist in Nature, that light illuminates volume creating tones rather than lines. Additionally, when I began to study at the Palette and Chisel during the early 90's, this idea was reinforced quite powerfully as tone being the best way to accurately depict light in Nature.

While this concept might be actual fact, it does not take into account that visual language is a human way of depicting our world on to two dimensional surfaces. During a lecture given by Quang Ho, he mentioned line as a part of visual language - and it caused a bit of an on stage controversy. (more about this in subsequent posts)

I have always loved the line work in Mucha's life drawings throughout the years; It was the addition of using white plus line work in the lights that attracted me to Kassan's work and in my personal life I know so many comics artists who use line ONLY to create absolutely stunning work. It was a relief to hear from another artist in the fine art Realist community who is intrigued by cross hatching and line work and makes no apologies about it.

Further, during the above portrait demo, Kassan mentioned that he felt it was a good idea to try out various techniques in order to find what fits your personal temperament - also an idea that resonates with me.

a nice flickr set of Alphonse Mucha's Figurative Decoratives can be found here.

Here are some of my more recent experimentations using Langer lines:

"Bilge" pastel pencil on Strathmore paper, 9 x 12

"Tiffany", brown and white pastel pencil on Canson's Mi Tientes paper
*note: this might have been more effective had the lines followed the forms on the face and body - and if the hand were more accurately drawn.

What I've learned over time, perhaps more than anything else, is that the art community is rife with opinions about the 'right' way. It is quite easy as a young and eager student to be overwhelmed by a Master, especially as I was genuinely blown away by some of the artists around me and wanted to paint exactly like they did.

Later in life, I have begun to realize my own internal temperament is different than those who influenced me in school, but they are still difficult to to ignore; I want to explore the idea of drawing with lines and yet I feel horribly when I do because it is the opposite of what I was taught. The only way I can address it is to break away from that line of thinking completely and put my fine art work "on hold" while I experiment with whatever I seem to gravitate toward.

So far it has been an interesting journey in finding my original influences, the things that attracted me to drawing before I even went to art school which are still deep within like a burning ember that never went out.

”…pay attention to the urges that motivate you…it’s your job to make it yours…not to judge it or compare it to other expressions…no artist is pleased…it’s just a divine dissatisfaction…a blessed unrest that keeps us marching…and makes us more alive...”
Martha Graham

Words of Wisdom

2011-09-20T12:38:00.000-07:00

"I want to paint like a pig eats."

Last week I attended the Weekend with the Masters, in Monterey, California. The weekend is a conference with some of the top American Realist painters in the fine art scene.

Painter Richard Schmid kicked off the event by giving a fabulous lecture about his adventures through a life time of painting, during which he stated that he wanted to paint like a pig eats. He explained what he meant: without holding back, without feeling self conscious and indulgence in the act of painting.

This phrase, "to paint like a pig eats", was repeated throughout the workshop days mostly joking around by student painters and instructors. On the last day I took Daniel Sprick's demo, during which he said that in a later conversation Schmid elaborated that the statement was derived from a critic's quote regarding Spanish painter Joaquin Sorolla when his paintings were exhibited at the 1933 World's Fair held in Chicago. The critic scoffed at the direct painting method Sorolla used and wrote, "He paints like a pig eats!"

Walk on the Beach, 1909 - Sorolla

To which Schmid is clearly stating that indulgence in painting is OK. Why shouldn't it be?

Overall, the Weekend with the Masters was a lot of process and philosophy from various top fine artists. However, most interesting were the panel discussions that tackled ponderous big questions and definitions around what Realism really means. (as a Sci Fi fan, I love contemplating what reality is - and was surprised to find many Realist painters think about such things too!)

Please stay tuned over the next couple of weeks for my notes, photos and discussion. I am eager to share!

September 11th/Ten Years Ago

2011-09-05T23:07:00.000-07:00

Ten years ago I was working as a full time freelance illustrator from my home studio here in San Francisco. I had moved here the previous year with my ex husband, Mike. I had been working happily as a background painter at Calabash Animation in Chicago and Mike was a lead animator and Director. In addition to working in animation, I was also painting and selling work in a gallery but the money I earned was not enough to make it a full time venture. As traditional animation turned toward cg animation, we were forced to look elsewhere for jobs. Mike and I both applied for jobs all over, and ended up in San Francisco when Mike landed a great position directing at Mondo Media.

San Francisco was not as giving to me, however. As it turned out, the first year and a half we lived here, 100% of my clients were from New York, Chicago, and Denver. The client I was working with the weeks before the attacks was the Art Director I worked with at Enesco in Illinois, with whom I had a professional relationship for about seven years. When she moved to another giftware company, she contacted me. My first assignment was to paint some beautiful angels, which would first be made into greeting cards and figurines if the paintings were well received. The project held the promise of royalties and long term expansion of my career into a field I always enjoyed - collectible sculpted figurines.

Although I am not the kind of artist that typically paints angels or spiritual themes, I was excited about this job because it was figurative. Much of the work I painted in commercial animation was background environments, color design of characters and props, and color scripts of story boards. I fell in love with animation during my time at Calabash and was eager to continue working in the field, but found I did not have enough experience when I moved to San Francisco, and also had no digital skills whatsoever. Although I applied to animation studios around town, the answer was always the same. They wanted digital work, not traditional.

So this particular job held much promise for me as a new direction. I threw myself into the project. I spent long hours thumbnailing various poses, made studies of decorative elements from Art Nouveau designs, and researched costuming that I felt would work for this theme. All of my research sketches are lost, unfortunately. In addition to the pencils below, I had also rendered close up details of the edging along the bottom of the gowns, sketched out wings, and had designed specific flowers for the hair.

The pencils above are the first versions I sent. She requested that I change the faces to look at the viewer, and have a slightly happy expression. I felt angels would look more heroic, as they are intended to be, if they were not looking at the viewer, instead looking toward the heavens. I tried to convince her but she insisted on a friendly appearance and felt my pencils were too serious.

I have two versions of this pencil (below). One is flipped. I can't remember which was the final version of the painting. Also, the reason there is tape all over the pencil is because this was the pencil rendering I used to transfer the design to illustration board. I painted all of the paintings in watercolor and gouache, my preferred medium that I had a lot of experience using as a background painter.

On Monday, September 10th, I had gotten final approval for all of the pencils and the go ahead to start painting. I spent all of Monday transferring the pencils to illustration board. I was set to begin painting the first angel on Tuesday, September 11th.

The morning of Tuesday September 11th unfolded - and like the rest of the nation, I was horrified and consumed.

My deadline came and went. I found myself unable to paint. Every time I put my brush to the illustration board, a flood of images and thoughts raced into my head - the artists who lived in studios in the towers, the pastry chef from San Francisco, the firemen who rushed in, the people in the Pentagon, the people on the planes. Painting angels felt so terribly ridiculous. I could not - would not - feel a sense of peace and hope while so many were lost in such a horribly violent attack. I explained to my Art Director that I would not be able to deliver the assignment on time. She was very upset with me and told me, "life must go on."

I eventually finished the assignment. However, I lost the client. The original paintings were never returned to me. I never received samples of the finished product. I did get paid, thankfully. I never heard from my client again. I rolled up these drawings and put them away.

The next year was difficult. War protests took place here in San Francisco almost daily as the country was slipping into a dark period. I was worried that my father could be called back into service as a retired Major in the Army, and my step mom, a retired Captain, and was worried about the attacks happening again possibly in Chicago, where another famous skyscaper lives along with my brother in law who is a Police Officer. Also at this time, I developed a rare eye infection which caused me to lose my eyesight for three months.

Across the country, work completely dried up for freelance artists, causing great financial hardship for so many artists. The only silver lining for me during this time was that my father bought me a copy of Photoshop and a Wacom tablet for my computer. I spent all of my time learning how to paint digitally and rebuilding my portfolio, which led to a background painting contract at the Learning Company, a contract I was so grateful for.

Although it is natural to look for meaning in events, I still cannot make any sense or connection with these images of angels I was assigned to paint at this particular time. My art director was right in saying that life must go on. However, I feel strongly that we must pause to grieve for the loss the victim's families suffered that day and remember the soldiers who were called to war in Afghanistan and Iraq.

Peace.

Weekend with the Masters

2011-08-22T02:22:00.000-07:00

The second week of September I am taking a four day intensive seminar called Weekend With the Masters, organized by American Artist magazine.

The seminar is in Monterey, California, which is about a three hour drive from San Francisco. The location is a major plus because the seminar weekend is expensive, running about $1200 for four days plus the hotel and materials; saving on the additional airfare makes it more in the affordable range.

It is going to be a grand weekend and a reunion of sorts too. Some of the painters teaching at the seminar are friends that I went to school with at the American Academy of Art and the Palette and Chisel - artists who really raise the bar for this kind of intensive. It will be so great to see my friends who have gone on to lead successful fine art careers and catch up, while also learning a little more of their well honed painting skills. As you can imagine, I had a difficult time choosing who I would study with.

In the end, I chose to mix it up a bit with artists I am already well familiar with and artists that are entirely new to me, who come from differing schools of thought than what I have been trained in.

Here are a few of the artists I will be studying with:

A full day lecture by Jacob Collins, the founder of the Water Street Atelier, The Grand Central Academy of Art and Hudson River Fellowship. I am so excited to finally be able to meet him and attend this lecture. He will be lecturing with Daniel Graves of the Florence Academy and Joseph McGurl:

An evening painting demo by master alla prima painter Richard Schmid. I had the honor of attending the Palette and Chisel in Chicago while Richard Schmid was president of the art league. Schmid's lectures and demos changed my life...what more can I say? Richard will be painting artist Alexy Steele:

A full day of quick pose paintings with Sue Lyon. I have been a fan of Sue's since meeting her back in art school. She was always a really nice friend and even helped get me into the Palette and Chisel long ago. How could I ever forget! She was a great painter then and even better now (I even have a watercolor portrait she painted of me in art school. I'll post it someday.):

Drawing the portrait with David Kassan. Who can forget the famous you tube demo David did on the ipad - http://www.youtube.com/user/DavidJonKassan#p/a/u/0/5OLP4nbAVA4. It will be really cool to learn from him. I love his work:

Lecture with Quang Ho. Of all the direct/alla prima painters out there, Quang Ho is one of my favorites. His still life paintings have not only a fresh feel but also incredible composition and sense of Zen. I dream of owning one of his works someday. Listening to his unusual philosophy about painting is bound to be an amazing learning experience.

Here is a little of his biography, in his own words:

"Realism and abstraction—it's all the same to me. The real essence of painting is the dialogue between shapes, tones, colors, textures, edges, and line. Everything else follows—including light, form, concepts, personal beliefs, and inspirations. For me, painting is a marriage between the mastery of those basic visual elements, the discoveries and understanding of visual statements (the search for what is true on a personal level artistically), and the trust in one’s own intuition and inspiration. Understanding gives rise to higher understanding. Working this way allows me to open the door to new ideas and inspirations. One day I may be interested in a color statement, the next perhaps a relationship of simple shapes, and the next an extremely complex arrangement of texture and edges—with every painting there is a singular visual thought to be completed." :

A full day of painting the figure with Daniel Sprick. Sprick is another of my favorite painters. I am really excited to paint with him!

I will break down my notes on this blog and show the work I did for each day. If we are allowed to take photos, I will post those too. I am eager to learn about the different philosophies and approaches to observational painting.

I am still continuing to work on my "Spring" painting, but my busy schedule has forced me to put it on hold until after this course. I have booked a model for the pose and will be taking reference photos. I am interpreting the form into an stylized figure with some bits of fantasy, which is my intention with this subject, but will explain why I need reference for this particular painting.

I also have two sculptures in the works, which I will post about once they are complete. One is a portrait of an older man and the other a greyhound - the first animal sculpture I've ever attempted. I'm not sure if either will turn out to be successful sculptures, but I'll post about it regardless.

I am eager to continue sharing the things I learn and experience on my blog.
Thank you for visiting!

San Diego Comic Con & Trickster!

2011-07-19T22:35:00.000-07:00

BOOTH 1329!

My Sephilina pin up that I painted for Jamie Baker's comic, "Sephilina the Nauti Girl" will be on sale at his booth, #1329. The print alone is $15, but the book + the print are $20 - a $5 discount on the print!

ALSO only available at TRICKSTER:

FREE GIFT with Purchase of one of Jamie's books!

I've been spending all week in the lab with ROCKET RABBIT AND THE PROFESSOR brewing up their secret special recipe ROCKET CARAMEL CORN! With every purchase of one of Jamie Baker's books or prints at Trickster, you will receive a FREE bag of Secret Recipe Rocket Caramel Corn! Available only THIS SATURDAY at TRICKSTER and while supplies last!

I will be splitting my time between helping out at Jamie's booth and helping out at Trickster. Please stop by and say hello!

Bill Cone Plein Air pastel workshop

2011-07-14T22:28:00.000-07:00

For Valentine’s Day this year, Jamie gave me a three day weekend trip to Bill Cone’s pastel plein air workshop in Idyllwild, California. :))

If you are unfamiliar with Bill Cone, he is a Production Designer at Pixar and has worked on many of their films. His position at Pixar is similar to that of a cinematographer, but since the medium is cg animation, his concepts for lighting and atmosphere are painted and usually include both environments and characters for the film. This process helps not only the director to visualize, but also aids the production down the road when scenes are built and lit. In addition to his stellar filmography and illustration history, Cone is an accomplished landscape painter who passionately studies the behavior of light and color. To see some of Cone’s work, check out his blog HERE. (I highly recommend reading his thoughts and insight on the blog in addition to looking at his beautiful pastel paintings)

I have admired Bill Cone’s work for a long time being familiar with it through the various “Art of” movie books, and became more impressed when I went to his one man show of pastel plein air works at the Studio Gallery in San Francisco. I was delighted to learn that he also teaches workshops, and have since wanted to attend. I was so surprised when Jamie gave me a Valentine's Day gift of signing me up for the workshop, especially since I had tried to sign up myself and found the class full! :)

Bill’s approach to pastel painting reminds me of the impressionist style of thinking capturing the LIGHT and SHADOW, as opposed to the Classical Realist approach regarding documentation of exacting detail. Precise placement of detail is a lower priority in this workshop, the emphasis on capturing the light patterns, color temperature, atmospheric effects, composition and over all impression of the scene. Focusing on placement of each and every branch or leaf might be better suited to studio work afterward if one chooses to create a highly precise work, but while out in the field, prioritizing everything ELSE seems to work best. In fact, the scene really cannot be observed properly unless you squint down, do some interpretation, a few edits, and simplification to a degree.

(In fact, Scott Christensen's blog "Flow" also posted about this kind of editing and interpretation in landscape painting: The Fiction of Art.)

In addition to listening to Bill's approach to landscape painting, I learned what a fantastic medium pastels are for painting out doors. One of the best advantages is the physical property of the medium, large square pieces which force you to choose big shapes and commit straight away. The most difficult aspect for me was this very thing because I am so accustomed to fine detail work in figurative drawing and illustration at my job. I also like the idea of laying in color all around the picture for the purpose of being able to judge how correct each area is against another and adjusting as you continue to develop the scene. Much like alla prima painting, the first statements around the picture are increasingly accurate as experience is gained.

Bill recommended that we purchase a set of hand made landscape pastels from Terry Ludwig. After trying them, I see why; the feel of them is so rich and buttery, and make beautiful opaque marks in addition to softer more subtle ones. I bought the basic landscape set which seemed to have each and every color I need. A great buy!

Bill also required us to work on Canson Mi Tientes toned paper, Twilight and Tabacco (shown above). Some students mentioned that they like to work on sanded and toned pastel paper called Waichilus because it is more forgiving. I might try it in the future, although I rather like the Cansons (I also use it for life drawing). It took a few tries to get used to working on toned paper outdoors, as I was unaccustomed to using a dark surface. The best way to regard the brown surface is the think of it as your mid range value and work either up or down from there. Same with the blue paper, if the scene in front of you is higher key then it most likely requires the lighter blue toned paper.

I must add here the rich brown tone might also work well for portraiture, as often times the shadows are a nice Transparent Oxide Red or Burnt Sienna-ish color. Most organic form has an undertone of warm, which is a good starting point for laying color on top.

Here are some of my plein air sketches from the workshop.

This painting was the very first I tried with pastels. I was uneasy and nervous considering that I had not ever used them before (except for ONE homework assignment way back in art school) and was used to working on white canvas rather than a deep brown color. Bill helped me punch up the contrast and showed me some ideas regarding technique with pastels.

I really struggled with this painting of the water and shore of the lake we visited on the second day. Bill does a lot of beautiful paintings of water and it's lighting effects (in fact, I'd say he's an expert on this). He helped me in a few spots, like the ground and gave me some tips in trying to get everything in all over the picture rather than in just ONE spot so that I can judge colors against each other and correct as needed.

Regarding composition, I learned that a distant view is more interesting when a sense of scale is achieved. In order to accomplish this, many landscape painters add a few foreground objects that we know are smaller than the thing in the distance. In this case there were a line of evergreen trees at the bottom of this scene. The scene might be more dramatic had I included them, giving the viewer a sense of how large and how distant the mountain top is.

This was one that I had to paint! I can't resist a figure in a landscape. Not sure I captured the scene, but it was certainly a joy to paint.

I've thought since coming home from the workshop that I might expand my set of landscape pastels and add more colors. I am currently working on my "Spring" studio painting and would like to try a color study of it after I am finished with the pencil design.

Bill's animation experience and pastel work got me thinking about the concept art for Disney animated movie, Fantasia. When I got home, I went through some photos I took (secretly) from a recent visit to the Disney Family Museum in the Presidio. I have seen these very paintings in books over the years many times, but was quite moved when I saw them in person. The technique is the same, focus on the LIGHT and shadow, done in pastels on toned paper. Inspiring, beautiful, and most importantly, connected to naturalist ideas. In fact, the reason I think these work is exactly that, because they are not only caricatures, but also based on light and natural form. (and isn't a caricature also based on natural form?)

If anyone noticed that my last post on my studio spaces has gone missing, there is a reason for that. I found more photos and decided to write a longer post. Will post again sometime this summer. Next posts will regard further process on my painting, "Spring" and also notes on "Structure/Form," which will include how I am trying to learn/think/approach the human form in sculpture and also some notes on flower painting and organic subjects.

Thank you for visiting!

The Seasons, "Spring" - Work in Progress, Butterflies and Bees Sketches

2011-07-02T17:14:00.000-07:00

I made some progress on my "Spring" painting this past weekend by studying butterflies and bees. I have not previously studied either insect up close had some questions about how wings look in various positions.

After studying some photos, I found three axises regarding perspective of the wings.

and here is a better illustration of the perspective lines:

I noticed that sometimes one of the blue lines moves closer to the main axis while the other stays farther away, usually the wing that is closest to us. Using this trick helps to draw wings in perspective, although I have not tried it in every wing position.

I also did some bee studies.

I will incorporate some of my favorite sketches of the butterflies and bees into my final pencil rendering for "Spring". But in order to finish the pencil rendering, I need to work on the main figure, which is what I will work on next. After I have finished some studies and finalize the figure, I will compose all of the elements in photoshop, print that out, and draw one final drawing, which will be the blue print for my painting.

It might seem like a lot of work before making my final painting - and it definitely is. Experience has taught me that the effort is worth it in the end. I enjoy the process of learning and discovering while working on a painting; the things I learn always stay with me.

Please stay tuned for more progress on my painting, "Spring". :))
In between posts about "Spring", I will also be posting about the workshop with Bill Cone I'm attending, and also my long promised post on some notes I've taken regarding Structure.

Thank you for visiting!

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Here is a documentary about bees that looks fantastic. "Queen of the Sun, What are the Bees Telling Us?" In theaters now.

http://www.queenofthesun.com/

The not-so-silly art of sharpening pencils

2011-06-25T14:11:00.000-07:00

I went to the American Academy of Art, in Chicago, where I quickly learned the art of sharpening a pencil, charcoal, china marker, and any other writing instrument that can be sharpened to a point. At the time I thought it was over kill to sharpen my pencils to such an extreme as required by my professors. I soon realized the reasons and advantages for doing so.

The methods taught to me at the American Academy of Art were passed down from the previous generation of professors, most notably William H. Mosby, the academy's master artist professor and graduate of the Belgian Royal Academy, and the great Andrew Loomis, who also taught at the school during the 30's and 40's. Some of Mosby's notable students include artists Gil Elvgren, Bill Parks, Ted Smuskiewcz, Howard Terpning, and Richard Schmid, who credits Mosby as his most influential art professor. (I had the good fortune to study under Bill Parks and Ted Smukiewcz while at the Academy, and learned a lot watching Richard Schmid paint and dispense wisdom at the Palette and Chisel in Chicago - an amazing learning experience!)

It is the influence from Mosby and Loomis that no doubt caused my generation's professors to require their students to sharpen their charcoal sticks and pencils in such a particular manner. I am still amazed the information lived on in our era of deconstructivism and forever grateful that it has. As silly as it might seem at first, sharpening drawing instruments is an important feature in mastering dexterity and refining technique, and I encourage everyone to try it at least once or twice regardless of final intention, be it illustration, "fine" art, cartooning, or whatever.

I try all kinds of pencils for sketching, but particularly love col-erase in various colors (mostly brown or red) for preliminary drawings (a habit I picked up while working in animation) and Staedtler Mars Lumograph 100 series in 2H, H and HB for final lines. I don't care for electric pencil sharpeners because they will not go far back enough into the pencil. I like to expose a good portion of the lead, say just under 1/3 of the way from the writing end. Part of the reason for this is because once the lead is exposed, I can also use the side of that exposed lead for blocking in or textures. Pencil sharpeners, electric or otherwise, just don't do the job as nicely as a utility knife or razor blade does. I also find it quite meditative and zen to spend some time getting my drawing instruments ready and have come to love the process.

My typical drawing/sketching materials are from left to right:
staedtler sanding pad, col erase pencil, staedtler mars lumograph pencils in 2H and H, papermate tuff stuff eraser stick, olfa brand snap off utility blade, kneaded eraser (top right).

I have tried many different types of utility knife over years, mainly using raw razor blades. Recently when I took Sadie Valeri's classical realism painting course, she suggested we purchase an Olfa brand snap off utility knife, one that I had not tried before and now quite like. I always carry these materials in a small bag in my purse and a sketchbook and at home I keep them in a bowl on my desk that I can sharpen the shavings into.

The technique is simple. Shave away the woody part until the lead is exposed.

Once the lead is exposed, sand the tip of the pencil using a sandpaper pad until sharp. By sharp, I mean really sharp, like a needle. The sharpest you can get it. It takes some time and practice to get it just right and there are bound to be broken points, which is completely frustrating. I always trudge ahead knowing that having those sharpened points will give me one less thing to worry about while i'm drawing.

I use the same method for drawing with charcoal. I like to use Nitram Fusains, medium to soft, but mostly medium. When I sharpen this, there is no need for a razor blade or utility knife, just sand paper. I always sharpen at least two pieces to a fine point and keep a raw square piece for textures and block in of large areas.

I've also recently started using sharpened pastel pencils, Faber-Castell Pitt brand. Same methods apply. However, this pencil is quite soft, being a pastel, and therefore when sharpened does not keep it's point as well. That's ok however, because usually when I'm working with pastel pencils I like to smudge a bit.

And when I'm sketching gestures or quick 5-10 minute poses, I like to use a red or brown china marker which I sharpen, unwrapping the paper around the wax lead. It was in art school, again, where we learned to draw with a china marker as the great illustrators did. China Marker (not sure why it's called by this name) is really fun and produces a lovely line. I like to use red and brown tones because those colors are usually the undertone color of organic material.

So many artists are passionate about materials and quite specific about the type and methods used. It makes sense, after all. Pencils, charcoal, pastels, inks, feel like extensions of our hands. We channel all of our energies into whatever tool is being used; I sometimes feel like the pencil is a part of my hand.

Toronto Comic Arts Festival: Pencil it In from Toronto Comic Arts Festival on Vimeo.

Happy drawing! :))

2011-06-15T17:20:00.000-07:00

I am honored to be featured in this video with so many talented painters I admire! Thank you to artist Michael Guilmet for putting this together!

My painting, Peonies, is the first image on the video. It was a painting I did after finding incredible inspiration at an ikebana flower show here in San Francisco. Later, I painted some similar peonies I saw at the show from life. I never sold the painting (or many others on my website) because I chose to stop showing my work in galleries for many reasons. I still keep the passion alive for alla prima painting while I explore other facets of interest. Will come back to it someday soon.

Here is a list of the artists featured (notably the late Jeffery Catherine Jones):
http://www.feastpaintings.com/

One more Thumbnail...

2011-06-08T21:31:00.000-07:00

I just wasn't happy with where i arrived after a round of thumbnails in my last post. I had a feeling of uneasiness with the thumbnail I said I liked the best. Over time I've learned that if something does not feel right, listen to my instincts, go back and rework. I think what happened is that I lost my vision as the weekend came to a close, and I just became sad and worried that I would not have time this week to make progress on my project - so out of frustration and fatigue I made a decision to move ahead with a thumbnail that was not the best one.

I let it swim around in my subconscious for a few days and came back to my drawing board tonight. Somehow it seemed easy to work out the design issues I am seeking; this thumbnail has a good flow. Although some of the elements at the top of her head might be a bit too symmetrical and busy, I can adjust to make it work. Over all, this is the feeling I would like for the "Spring" painting. Now I can move forward knowing that I have worked out some important ideas and arrived at something that feels good.

The Seasons: "Spring"

2011-06-05T19:53:00.000-07:00

Last fall I began working on a series of oil paintings, "The Seasons". I completed "Fall" and posted the entire process, here.

I meant to continue on during the Winter and early Spring, but was delayed; I am a Senior Artist at the game company Zynga and am now on the Cityville art team, which means I need to dedicate a lot of my attention to work. Before I moved to the team, I had enough time during my off hours to complete a complex freelance project for a tv show proposal called, "The Royal Ladybugs" and also took a fantastic classical realism painting workshop with Sadie J. Valeri in January, where I also attend open life drawing sessions once a week. All in all, I've been pretty damn busy! SO much so, that I decided to set aside life drawing for the summer and get back to my painting "Spring" so that it is ready for the APE festival in October.

There is always a silver lining to putting projects in my art drawer for a while. I crave time to work on them, but often when I put my work away and come back to it after a several month hiatus, I find that I have fresher eyes on the subject. When I took out my thumbnails for the series out of my drafting table drawer for the first time in months, I immediately saw that they needed some work.

All of these are "post" thumbnail, meaning I had developed several versions of each and landed on these designs, which I had meant to take to final pencils. There are two "Summer" ideas, and the "Winter" piece I was not happy with at the time - mainly because she is a full body and I had decided to only include 3/4 of the torso in each painting. (one of the "Summer" pieces is full body too, which I also nixed). For now I want to focus on redesigning "Spring". Part of what bothers me is the expression on her face as well as placement of the figure.

Over the Memorial Day weekend, I began by tackling some new thumbnails. Here are (some of) my new thumbnails.

The thumbnail I like the most is this, however I've lost something in the original and want to make sure that the style and feel of the piece matches the others, including the finished "Fall" piece.

Next, I will now move ahead with some more development; I need to match the style as mentioned, play around with the design a bit, and also want to do some small studies of bees and butterflies. I will also take some reference photos of the figure to make sure the anatomy is making sense. even though this is a stylized figure, i want to be sure to have reference from reality so that i can simplify and interpret from an accurate starting point rather than guess.

I am inspired to study the way plants and flowers grow by a book I picked up recently, "Botony for the Artist" by Sarah Simball.

The pen and ink drawings inside, are gorgeous studies. The book however is not simply a picture book filled with drawings; it contains several chapters on categories of plants, and explains the structure of each type with some pen and ink examples. What really makes this book interesting is the addition of the historical scientific process of other highly regarded artists and examples of their work.
Sarah Simball also discusses the interesting materials for her pen and ink line work: diluted Chinese ink in two shades of gray, a pen nib and Japanese brushes. For a thorough understanding of botany and how it applies to the artist's needs, I highly recommend "Botony for the Artist".

Which brings me to my next post. Structure. I took down extensive notes and did some additional research about the subject and will be posting about it soon, as stated. It seems to me that working on studies of bees and butterflies is a great parallel with some of my notes. Please stay tuned and thank you for visiting!

2011-06-03T00:13:00.000-07:00

i was supposed to go to my sculpture workshop tonight, but i had car trouble, so i could not go. so frustrating.

so after that mess, i came home. drew this.

she is part of a larger book project i'm developing. it's going to be a long term thing, very long term, considering that i basically have maybe 2 hours a week to work on it. but you know, chin up. hopefully she'll come to life in sketches and paintings, story outlines, and all that stuff. i might clean this up in diluted chinese ink and traditional pen.

you know, while i'm here, i may as well confess, sometimes when i see work exactly like this from others, i think, oh gawd...that's so cliche. then i find myself at my desk banging out sketches that look cliche. i think about this phenomena all the time. perhaps my heart is filled with nothing but cliches. i dunno. whatever the case, i think it's better to let all of those ghosts out rather than bottle them up. there are already so many forces that prohibit creativity to thrive, so why add to those forces?

yes, once i have a pile of sketches and development material, then i can go back and make sense of it and do something interesting with it. for now i am just letting it happen as it bubbles up.

the weird thing - and you may have noticed this - is that i cannot work in a linear fashion. for some reason, perhaps due to hyperactivity/enthusiasm, i need to work a little bit on many projects all at once. the only danger to that is not ever finishing anything. i am pretty determined. i like to put projects to bed, so i will finish this book someday. just not saying it will be any time soon. so i'll post bits and pieces here and there, in between other posts, and maybe...just maybe...

the end.

2011-05-24T21:40:00.000-07:00

A couple of quick sketches I did in my moleskine this weekend while visiting Mendocino. I used three watercolors: Vandyke Brown, Anthraquinone Blue, and Titanium White gouache.

My approach for these sketches was based on the previous post; I drew out the line work in light pencil, found the shadow areas (terminator lines), and painted only shadows.

My only regret in this exercise is that the moleskine sketchbook version I bought was not made for watercolor. The paper rippled a lot with the amount of water on the page, causing me to be annoyed and distracted from the details. Oh well...next time! All in all, Mendocino is an incredible place to spend time, especially when you are there with someone you love.

The Value Sphere, an exercise worth trying

2011-04-24T17:19:00.000-07:00

I was reminded of how important rendering the sphere is when I took Sadie J. Valeri's two week painting workshop last January. Sadie had all of us render a sphere using graphite pencils on the first day of the workshop, and also as homework. Some of us rendered several by the end of the week. After the workshop ended I began some research on lighting conditions and thought I would share the details.

In lighting, there is a simple division between light and dark that is important to understand.

The term for this lighting effect is THE TERMINATOR. Regardless of whether you are interested in observational art or imaginary work, this simple lighting principle can be applied to great effect.

Once the terminator is indicated, there are several more effects to observe and understand, which I have indicated in the chart below. Many effects within the shadow can be observed, but does not necessarily mean they need to be rendered. Simplifying shadows into two values has a pleasant effect when rendering form because the eye does not dwell in the dark areas. Logic tells us that if the eye does not dwell there, then calling attention by over rendering shadows will break the believability of the form. That is not to say that the shadow areas are not important; they what hold a picture together (more on this concept in later posts):

I did this exercise with pencil two times, and then digitally in Photoshop. I found both very difficult and challenging in unique ways. I think my digital samples above, for instance, still need some work - and I will continue to try perfecting. I highly recommend doing both analog and digital; the traditional method helps build motor skills and sharpens the eye and digital is a good way to refine your wacom or cintiq skills. (I recommend using the soft airbrush at 30-50% opacity to build up tones)

1. BEFORE YOU BEGIN - traditional method: sharpen two graphite pencils, a 2H and H. Sharpen your pencils with an xacto blade taking off the woody part of the pencil and then use sandpaper to make a very very fine point. Use a pad of strathmore 400 lb paper with the cream surface, widely available in art supply stores (also great for drawing in general and also inexpensive). If doing this digitally, use the soft airbrush and follow these steps exactly using the smallest diameter of brush.

Finished sphere can have a foil behind it and an edge indicating a horizon line for a sense of place. Do this exercise more than once or twice! I have seen a noticeable improvement in my drawing/painting skills since having incorporated this exercise into my routine. There are other concepts about light and shadow that I have learned about that I would like to share and will do that in coming posts. In the mean time, have fun trying this! Not as easy as it looks ;)

Good luck!

Update: "ONE" Art Auction Benefit for Japan

2011-03-31T12:43:00.000-07:00

The auction was an enormous success! In Sho Murase's words, who helped organize the event:

"One,ひとつ was a HUGE success. All of 50 pieces of art work were sold and hundreds of people came to the show. This was where artists came to unite to help Japan. Our final number was $30,605, well over our goal. Considering we only had a few weeks to prepare, it is an amazing success!! Many thanks to all the volunteers and special thanks to Vaughn Ross and Sho Murase to lead this event and Seiji Horibuchi of New People to give us space at high end Superfrog Gallery. Many more events are coming. Stay tuned! "

Thank you to the person (I don't know who it was) that purchased my piece, "Peace Pagoda", and all who bid on the drawing! It was made with the greatest love and the proceeds will help so many in need.

Fairy Castle Freelance Project

2011-03-26T20:05:00.000-07:00

and here is a version with no characters, background only. I could mess with this forever, tightening up areas, simplifying shadows, etc. I wish I could draw and paint backgrounds again for a living. I love it so...

I recently worked on a freelance project for Michael Borge, who has created a show called, "The Royal Ladybugs". I was part of a small team consisting of a few artists, all female, who contributed really wonderful art for the show. Here is my contribution, the establishing shot of the Morning Castle.

You can see from the progression that I made quite a few changes along the way. The castle is part of an animated sequence as a reel to sell the show, so I needed to make the layout large enough and long enough so the camera can push in while some overlay pieces pull to the sides, an effect we used all the time when I worked at Calabash. I'm still a HUGE fan of multiplane. Anyway, when I am finished with the overlays I'll post those too. I think it will be really neat! This entire project was seriously FUN!

Maverix Art Auction Benefit for Japan Relief

2011-03-20T11:13:00.000-07:00

O N E - ひとつ SuperFrog Gallery

1746 Post St , New People building , top floor

San Francisco, CA
Saturday April 2nd

Join us for the upcoming silent auction party , for the rare chance to
bring home original art from celebrated artists in the animation & film industry
(Pixar, Lucas, Dreamworks, Nickelodeon to name a few ),
including:

Dice Tsusumi, Robert Valley,
Ronnie Del Carmen, Enrico Casarosa,
Scott Morse, Bill Presing,
Lou Romano,Cam De Leon, Tooru Terada,
Daniel Simon, John Waishank,
Patrick Awa,Joey Chou, Ed Bell,
Todd Ueminami, Marcos Mateu,
Mari Inukai ,Yoriko Ito, Jackie Huang,
Soosa Kim, Jamie Baker, Alina Chou, Oren Haskins,
Sei Nakashima, Julia Lundman, Le Tang,
Ted Mathot ,Tom Rubalcava, Derek Thompson,
Sho Murase, Sergio Paez, Vaughn Ross...

100% of all proceeds to Artists Help Japan Fund with Mercy Corps.

I will be donating this piece, "Peace Pagoda, Japantown, San Francisco". It is a piece I did for the 30th World Wide Sketch Crawl last January. Maverix site here:

It's about the LOVE.

2011-02-17T20:32:00.001-08:00

The beautiful and wise words of John Stevenson, director of Kung Fu Panda, Animation Director at Colossal Pictures, and kid artist on the Muppets with Jim Henson. Jim Henson still touches us with his work, and John tells us why that is in this wonderful speech given at the DICE Summit 2011.

Watch HERE

Sadie J. Valeri's Two Week Classical Realism Workshop

2011-02-16T23:37:00.000-08:00

my still life painting (unfinished), Sadie J. Valeri's workshop results

At the end of January I took a fantastic ten day long workshop with Classical Realist painter Sadie J. Valerie. I regularly attend Sadie's atelier on Tuesday evenings for open studio life drawing sessions. It was by happy accident that I learned last year of Sadie's Tuesday night long pose sessions right down the street from where I work, a new classical realist atelier - absolute true fate! I began attending the Tuesday night long pose sessions, continuing my attempts at life drawing.

It was on one of these Tuesday nights, Sadie mentioned she would be holding a ten day painting workshop, in the manner of Classical Realism, which she practices to great success. Now, I have been studying observational painting for many years now, first at the American Academy of Art in Chicago, and then at the Palette and Chisel in Chicago during the late 80's and 90's, a time when Richard Schmid was president there, a great painter to whom I am undeniably influenced. His teaching has shaped everything I know about color and light, and even the way I apply paint on a canvas, watercolor board or digitally for work. The reason I bring up my influence of Richard Schmid is because there is no doubt that his teaching shaped the way I have been painting for many years. Art schools at the time I went had pretty much thrown out the book on hundreds of years of research into how to actually paint and draw reality. For me, Schmid was and has been a life line in this regard (as well as a few amazing teachers at the American Academy of Art). For a while I sold paintings at the P&C, was in group shows, and was represented by a gallery, Jody Kirberger of the Talisman Gallery. Although I am ever grateful for my introduction to the lessons of realist painting and earned my living as an illustrator because of it, for many years I felt a strange lack of progress and improvement with my work that accumulated in my consciousness, eventually causing me to stop painting for about ten years only to focus on my professional life as an Illustrator.

It was with this background I began life drawing on Tuesday evenings. I began to feel curious about Classical Realism after having the privilege of seeing Sadie's paintings in her studio once a week. Her paintings have mesmerized me; they look more real than real, and yet also painted. I wanted to learn exactly how she is able to achieve such crispness in her work and get a general overview of what she thinks about when painting, so I signed up for her workshop.

The content of the workshop course was a true surprise to me. The first week began not with painting a still life, which I had anticipated, rather, with the fundamentals of drawing, beginning with the shading a sphere, from which all organic form is derived, then on to constructing a simple man made object, and finally, a crumbled paper bag. I must admit, at first constructing the paper bag was daunting and quite time consuming. After all, my painting goals do not necessarily include painting crumpled wax paper still lifes, as much as I appreciate Sadie’s. However, after working on the bag for an afternoon, I found the lesson enlightening on many levels, and, dare I say it...I fell in love with the complexity of form in this exquisite paper bag, thanks to Sadie’s insight into construction, a method different from the sight-size method I learned in art school.

As the class continued through the two weeks, surprises like this were often the case; my Alla Prima conventions were definitely challenged as I learned about the differing Classical Realist method regarding edges, value, chroma and hue. The second week was spent entirely on painting, two days for the black and white under painting and three days spent on color, a slow building crescendo toward the last day, when that "ah ha!" moment struck all of us workshop attendees.

All in all, Sadie's class was absolutely worth it, considering all that I have taken away. Although I am not necessarily a realist in the classic tradition, I feel that I now have a grander and more full understanding of how nature works, as well as a deeper understanding of a different Realist philosophy, a descendant of the pre-salon methods, as opposed to Alla Prima and direct painting, which descends from Impressionist ideals. I came away from the workshop with a semi finished still life, abundant notes to fuel my research for future pursuits in picture making and many, many thoughts and questions about the choices I will make in my own pursuit as a fine art painter.

In addition to all of that wonderful stuff, I’ve found that immersing myself in classical realist tradition has had an unexpected effect on me; my eye is sharper, my appreciation of artists' work more discerning (including not only realist paintings but also a finer discernment in interpretive and cartoon based illustration, which I also love), ideas about a direction for my own work have become more clear, and my love of Nature has become more profound. How fortunate to have this experience. No doubt, I am a better artist and art lover for having taken the class and the fire in my soul rekindled.

As a way of continuing my own research and studies, I thought I would document my notes from the class, expanding on each topic with ideas from other artists and schools of thought. Even if you think you do not want to paint in this very mannered, methodical approach, or do not wish to make highly realistic renderings of reality, or prefer to stylize imaginative illustrations, please stay tuned. I assure you, there will be something in these posts for you, as there undoubtedly has been for me.

Peace Pagoda, 30th World Wide Sketch Crawl

2011-01-23T16:33:00.000-08:00

This weekend, about 100 local San Francisco artists met at a cafe near Japantown for the 30th session of the World Wide Sketch Crawl, led by and organized by Enrico Casarosa of Pixar. Although the idea is to sketch around the chosen neighborhood, I thought I would spend my day studying the beautiful monument at the Japantown mall plaza, the Peace Pagoda.

It was a challenge, to be sure. I have always admired the structure; now that I've attempted to construct it, my appreciation of the architecture has deepened. All of those ellipses stacking up toward the heavens...each entity existing in it's own harmonious and continuous form. I wonder if the artist meant to suggest that all of them together, stacking up in diminishing degrees, points toward a greater peace.

This plaza was filled with the hectic noise and bustle of the city. I edited out bus stops, street lamps, ugly steel fences and even edited out the large crowd. I felt this structure, the Peace Pagoda, deserved to be honored as it's own statement as a focal point. Although, I couldn't help myself - I took a few irresistible artistic liberties with the top, simplifying and exaggerating the shapes. They reminded me so much of the kind of thing the great Mary Blair would have designed. Fitting, I thought, as it really is a small world, after all.

A few backgrounds

2011-01-11T17:48:00.000-08:00

I thought I would post a few images from work to show what I've been up to professionally. I work for the online gaming company Zynga, maker of Mafia Wars, Cityville, and Farmville. For a short time I worked on the game Petville. Here are a few images from that game that I am most proud of, especially since I worked so hard on them. All are published last summer in the game Petville. Painted in Photoshop.

I was pretty happy the clouds in this - I worked really hard to make them transparent and luminous. I wanted them to look a bit reminiscent of the San Francisco fog.

Below are some images that I designed and painted for a Fairy Meadows release in the game Petville. The green flowery oval is a magic door. Below that are two more background images. They are populated with items in the shop that users can purchase to decorate their Petville homes.

all images property of Zynga.

Go to http://www.zynga.com/ and have some fun!

Happy Holidays!

2010-12-19T15:24:00.001-08:00

Merry Christmas Everyone! I hope you all have a fun and relaxing holiday. Peace!

Christmas Card Sneak Peek, Work in Progress...

2010-12-01T18:10:00.001-08:00

trying to finish this tonight...

CTN Expo Wrap Up

2010-11-25T10:28:00.000-08:00

The CTN Expo was a lot of fun again this year, although the attendance was about three times the size of what it was last year yet the floor space was the same, making it very crowded. Jamie and I didn't get to see any of the panel discussions this year because we were manning down his both, selling prints and books, and answering portfolio questions to the many students who were seeking advice.

It is difficult to give advice actually, given that the animation industry has changed so very much from when Jamie and I both began our careers. Well, to be fair, I'm not sure my 'career' in animation ever 'started' - I worked at Calabash Animation for many years in Chicago on many commercials and short films, and then went into games after I moved to California, while Jamie began his career in 1981 at the age of 17 working at Hanna Barbara...big difference! Even so, I think we both have some perspective on how to survive as an artist; it was nice to share some of that perspective with the students and new grads. Jamie's advice is so good that HE should have a panel discussion. He's certainly talked me down off a ledge more than once (actually more like twice a week). I imagine students would benefit from some iron clad Jamie tips for how to protect your fragile artist soul.

Speaking of fragile artist soul, here are a few life drawings from the past few weeks. I have been very busy at work lately. I have been contributing design work to game pitches, mostly background game board paintings and a few other things.

I was going to crop these in Photoshop, but I kind of like how noir the the photos turned out. haha

Some of the things on my desk right now are: a Christmas card, a reworked sketch for my Seasons piece, "Winter", a sketch for an elaborate blog header illustration, and some fairy and faun sketches.

HAPPY THANKSGIVING to all my readers. I am truly GRATEFUL that you visit my blog. It encourages me endlessly and feels so good to know people are actually paying attention. THANK YOU.

CTN EXPO!

2010-11-15T21:24:00.000-08:00

Jamie will have a BOOTH at the CTN Expo this year! # T-05. The convention begins this FRIDAY and runs through SUNDAY evening in Burbank, CA. I will be there helping out at his booth and answering questions. Since this is an animation based convention, we are excited. Last year's event was fantastic! This year should be just as amazing - lots and lots of panels with leading animation industry legends. It should be pretty inspiring!

Please stop by and SAY HELLO and pick up an Elephant print or copy of Jamie's latest *awesome* comic, Sephalina The Nauti Girl! :)))

Reliquary Class at Ulla Milbrath's Studio!

2010-11-12T08:11:00.001-08:00

This past weekend I took a class taught by the talented artist extraordinaire Ulla Milbrath, whom I met taking classes at Castle in the Air. Ulla teaches regularly at the Castle in the Air and also at her incredibly inspiring home studio, filled to the brim with handcrafted projects and antiques of all kinds.

I was inspired a few years ago by the reliquaries I saw on her blog after googling 'reliquaries'. I found these amazing pieces Ulla made, and discovered, even better, that she sells them at the Castle in the Air and other places, AND...she teaches classes in how to MAKE THEM.

She finally offered a class that fit with my too busy schedule, this past weekend. I couldn't wait! What a treat it was! Ulla taught me how to make each one completely from scratch using illustration board, mica, pieces of my own art, hand dyed ribbon, and - a new skill - soldering the pieces together. If you aren't familiar with a soldering iron it's like this: a very hot iron, who's tip is as hot as volcano, which you use to melt pieces of metal wire, which you then manipulate into pools of molten hotness and try not to spill on either your hands, clothing or art piece. How thrillingly DANGEROUS!

Details below each piece:

"Luna, Reliquary portrait"

Luna is a painting I did a few months ago and sold as a print at the APE festival. For this application, I printed her out on heavy stock and cut carefully with an xacto knife around the edges. The original has fairy wings and extends to a partial view of her torso, but since this is a small piece, I sacrificed those areas for the reliquary (Perhaps sometime it would be cool to try making another one with real cicadia wings!). The cut out illustration is sitting on top of a blue fabric I lightly dusted in clear glitter and on top of that a few pieces of luscious moss. Tucked in between the moss and Luna are a few vintage flowers and a few pieces of dried baby's breath. The outside is soldered metal, which attaches the mica covering.

Learning to solder the outside was a bit challenging and intimidating, but also dangerously FUN. I can see how it becomes addicting. Melted metal is so SAUCY! haha

"Daisy, Reliquary Portrait"

This is the very first piece I made, also using a painting I cut out and altered in order to fit the reliquary. It's still not quite working the way I want it to. But learning is all about making mistakes and trying new things. I hope to try alternate versions of this one too!

"Mossy, Reliquary Portrait"

The tiny painting of a woman inside this piece is something I painted a few years ago. Again, I cut her out very carefully, made the box, glued together...AND, for this one, cut some glass for the very first time to make the covering. Honestly, I am in awe of the vast knowledge Ulla has in all manner of techniques! This one is a bit bigger than the others, so I thought I'd show the context by photographing it in a few places. I left the edges un-soldered (is that a word?) because I like the way the copper tape works, but also because I plan to go back and tidy up the fabric edges and trim in the back.

Displayed next to my very small collection of Ephraim Faience hand made pottery and a pretty photo of my sister. :)

I am really excited about making more reliquaries. At the moment I don't own a soldering iron or other materials. The way I'm feeling is that the strongest one is the "Luna" portrait. I would like to try her with some cicadia wings. I also hope to make several more fairy portraits and reliquaries - maybe I'll even be able to finish some by WONDER CON! :)

Thank you so so much to my friend and inspiring artist Ulla Milbrath for spending an entire weekend teaching me the techniques involved. She worked really hard - I imagine it must be difficult to be teaching others while in your own studio, resisting the urge to make your own creations! I am deeply appreciative.

Clover and Luna concepts, close...but not close...

2010-11-07T12:51:00.000-08:00

"Luna", 8.5x11, pastel and gouache on paper

"Clover", 8.5x11, pastel and gouache on paper

These are two experimental concepts for characters in a book I am working on. They are fairies, although they don't have wings in these portraits.

I have been obsessed with face painting and floral adornment for some time now, and would like to apply the idea to my story; for me portraits are a good way to figure out mood until I land on something that feels right for my story. I'll also do the usual character proportional line up sheet, etc, but for now I'm feeling out mood and experimenting with technique.

And, these, sadly, are not quite what I'd like. :( They are a bit too cute, a bit too young. Back to the drawing board.

But, having said that, they were totally FUN to draw, and I may even do some more. In fact, next weekened I am taking a reliquary class at Ulla Milbrath's studio, and have thought about making LUNA, into a reliquary.

Purrcasso Charity Benefit

2010-11-03T16:57:00.000-07:00

I made my first donation to the Purrcasso Art and Craft Gala benefit for the Berkeley Humane Society. This year is extra special due to the tragic fire that damaged much of the shelter and killed many cats and dogs. Please come by Saturday evening for the auction on ORIGINAL ART by bay area artists!!! ALL proceeds go directly to the shelter.

November 6-7, 2010
Saturday 6:30-8:30 p.m.
Sunday 12-4 p.m.

2865 Seventh Street, Berkeley

Learn more at BerkeleyHumane.org

Here is my contribution to the auction.

"The Good Ship Purrcasso", 8x10", gouache

Booth at APE!

2010-10-20T10:49:00.000-07:00

One of the many things I struggled with in getting my booth together for my debut into the convention world was how to present myself at my table. What font to use, what color scheme, is this really 'me'?, how much glitter to use...too many butterflies? Do I like scroll banners and should I add glitter flowers to it? All of these pressing questions led to a lot of panic and stress in the last few days leading up to my first con. Thankfully, well, more than thankfully, Jamie was there to talk me down off the ledge and help me organize what I needed to get done.

Besides the booth prep, there is the art itself, printing... what sizes to print, how to scan, what paper to use...and then: ordering clear bags and backing boards, then bagging all of them, figuring out pricing, signage, attaching the signs, and more. PHEW! It was a lot of work getting set up, but absolutely worth it.

But the VERY BEST part? At the beginning of the show, a little girl was excited about my fairy print, so I gave her one. The next day she came back and gave me her creation. Her gift filled me with JOY and makes me feel really super excited to continue working on my Fairy Conservatory project. What a GIFT!!! :)))

The next convention I am signed up for is the San Francisco WonderCon, in April. From now until April I will be working on my "Seasons" series (new pieces coming before the end of the year) and probably fleshing out some details regarding the Fairy Conservatory by that time, too. I'm also donating a piece of original art to the Purrcasso Art and Craft Gala, which I'll post when I finish (next few weeks). Good times and lots of creating!!!

Alternative Press Expo - Table #102

2010-10-03T11:02:00.000-07:00

Hello! I am making my ***DEBUT ** this October 16-17th at the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco - BOOTH 102! I've been outlining and designing a few long term projects that I plan to work on incrementally over the course of a few years. At this years' APE festival, I will kick off by selling 4 prints (and some original art) that represent a piece from each project that I will be expanding upon:

"Fall" - the first in a series of art prints entitled "The Seasons". This series will continue with "Winter", "Spring", and "Summer".
"Daisy" - this is an art print from two self published children's books I am working on. The first book centers around a little girl who imagines herself to be a flower. In the second book, she imagines herself in an aquarium. The books will have no words, only illustrations.

"Luna" - this is a preliminary character exploration from a book I have outlined entitled, "The Fairy Conservatory".

"Sephalina" - this print is a pin up of my boyfriend Jamie Baker's character from his comic book, "Sephalina". Jamie self published a full color comic which will also be on sale at APE at his booth 108, a few doors down from mine. His book is hilarious, plus I love the way Jamie draws - I am honored to have a pin up in it! If you enjoy: Sci Fi, comics, humor, hot space girls, and art, you MUST pick this one up. MUST!

Please stop by BOOTH 102 to check out my prints, say hello and sign my guest book! I am so excited and *VERY* nervous! It is so, so ON!

2010-09-21T22:28:00.000-07:00

"Terry", pastel pencil on paper.

On Tuesday evenings I attend the long pose life drawing open studio over at Sadie Valeri's studio. If you haven't seen her work, check out her blog. What an awesome artist to have discovered among my web of friends this year! To draw with a group of women on Tuesday nights, all practicing in the same classic tradition, is... well, I am grateful.

When I graduated from art school in 1993, I went into deep despair knowing that with working full time I would no longer be able to devote my days to improving my skills and perfecting the craft of drawing and painting. Over the years I adjusted and realized that what truly matters is the joy of drawing, learning, discovering in art - and that it never ends. There are still opportunities to learn and grow outside of work, nights, weekends, vacations... It's funny, too, because I swear that even in short bursts, one or two evenings a week, my skills have improved faster than I would have guessed. I'm not sure why that is.

At the same time I cannot deny that having a year or two off from working in order to dedicate my time to creating all the art I have in my head and take workshops would be great. It would. In fact, I'm not even sure how much longer I can hang on not being able to do so. But what eases the yearning a little is life drawing, sculpting, painting, and being able to do so with fellow artists. I am really grateful to be drawing over at Sadie's studio - it came along just when I needed it.

"Fall" work in progress, Part 5

2010-09-19T11:14:00.001-07:00

I made a little more progress yesterday, although not as much as I would have liked. Hopefully by the end of today I will have finished all the birds and leaves in the hair so I can move on to the bottom half and background. One more week to go...

"Fall" work in progress, Part 4

2010-09-16T13:25:00.001-07:00

This painting is taking forever. I only have nights and weekends to work on this, so progress is very, very slooooowwww...... so many little details yet to paint, two weeks left to go before I need to scan and make prints for APE.

The birds are cedar waxings, which have a field day in the fall pulling berries off of branches. My next step is to finish all the birds, add blowing leaves, branches and berries, and finish up the background, which I would like to be simply stated and soft. My process is pretty straight forward: block in the big shapes in a thinner mix of oil paint, breaking down light areas and dark areas first. After the basic shapes of light and dark were applied, I built up thicker areas on top, with more value transitions in between. For thicker areas of paint, I use less thinner and more medium, which is 5 parts rectified turpentine, 1 part linseed oil, and 1 part dammar varnish. I like this medium because it allows the oil paint to get a really nice sheen to it as it dries, which is the look I'm going for in this one.
I realize the entire painting looks very orange. It is intentional. Since this is a series of four paintings, each painting will have a dominant color. I felt the Fall painting would be predominantly oranges, yellows, burnt siennas and reds. The birds are a bit more gray, so once they are put in I will add some more gray tones to balance out the color throughout the painting.

"Fall" work in progress, Part 3

2010-09-02T22:07:00.000-07:00

I used acrylics to do a rough underpainting. I tried not to get too crazy with this; it's meant only to be a little color underneath the oil paint so that bits and pieces of it show through. I brushed in warm tones of raw sienna and burnt sienna on top of a thin base layer of unbleached titanium.

"Fall" Work In Progess, part 2

2010-08-28T21:10:00.000-07:00

I decided after transferring the drawing to a large board that I needed some more elements like birds and blowing leaves. So on a separate piece of tracing paper I drew out some leaves and birds, then transferred them to the drawing using Saral Wax Free transfer paper.

Btw, I highly recommend Saral brand Wax Free transfer paper. I've been using it for years - I discovered it back when I painted background environments for Lucky Charms and Trix cereal commercials. I needed a way to transfer the layout drawings very accurately on to a board before I began painting. I initially used regular transfer paper but quickly learned that the waxy surface of the transferred lines resist paint.

After I finished the transfer and was happy with the drawing, I moved on to a value sketch and a color sketch. The light pattern in this painting is important in portraying a sense of mood and time of year in this series, so I felt it necessary to fully work out a value sketch before jumping into the final. The planes here are simple: Foreground, Midground, and Background (sky), which are painted in three separate layers on top of my line drawing in Photoshop.
After I spent some time experimenting with shadow patterns and values, I messed around with a color scheme, which I painted in new layers on top of the value sketch. I decided on mixtures of three hues: yellow, orange and lavender. I also kept the color very saturated in the foreground to reflect a certain emotional tone I am aiming for in this series.
This is a rough color sketch, so i omitted any details, wanting to concentrate only on the color scheme and figuring out my palette. To go any further would not serve me well because I would burn out on the idea and not feel as excited about finishing the final.

Next, I'll begin on the final painting. I will post the next steps as soon as I can!

"Fall" work in progress

2010-08-24T23:07:00.001-07:00

I am working on a series of four paintings, emblems of the Seasons, as I envision them. I sketched out all four earlier this year and finally have the time to resume completing the series. These paintings are entirely from imagination, a skill I have always admired in others, and lately have explored more fully myself (and not for portfolio pieces aimed at gaining a job). I really enjoy aspects of designing a picture that I cannot get from posing a model and painting him or her from life. In addition to that, I have this desire to attempt to make beautiful pictures that are pretty, simple, sometimes fantasy, playful in proportion and design, interpretive, and entirely my own.

In addition to this series, I am also working on a series of Elements paintings. I also have planned two small self published books, which I've designed but need to illustrate. I have no idea how long it will take, given that I have a full time job - but I'll just work, work, work until they are done.

Here is the beginning of "Fall": I coated a piece of cold press illustration board with three thin coats of acrylic gesso, let dry, and am now in the process of transferring the drawing (enlarged from my sketch) on to the board via Saral wax free transfer paper. Since the sketch is so small, I am also drawing out details on top of the transfer, making my drawing exactly as I want it. I've added an expression to the drawing as well, which was not present in the original sketch. Next step will be a small color sketch before painting the larger piece seen here. Stay tuned! (may take about a week)

Blue in Sepia

2010-08-17T22:46:00.000-07:00

The model's name is Blue. I love that.

something a little different

2010-08-03T22:51:00.000-07:00

I made this at a class last year. The class, described as "Mother Winter" came accompanied with a photo of a wooden artists manikin and a glass dome attached underneath with a brief description stating something about making 'Mother Winter' - I was intrigued. The class was created by Ulla Milbrath, who instructed us one Saturday afternoon at Castle in the Air in Berkeley, CA. Quite possibly the first store I've ever regarded as a miracle.

Here you can find my figure and a few of the other students interpretations

We spent all day in the second floor workshop of Castle in the Air, all women, contriving our interpretation of the phrase "Mother Winter", crafting with bits and pieces from Ulla's vast closet of paper, clippings, fabrics. We learned new techniques with fabric stiffener, starching and paper molding. Ulla provided sculpted faces that she pressed from a mold she made in preparation of this class. We each painted our own, and applied them to our figures. Each student's Mother Winter figure was distinct; we each had our own projection of this layered archetype.

At the time I made this, I was thinking a lot about an idea I kept sketching, botanicals used as adornment on a face or head, but also to describe a feeling:

The idea is certainly nothing new, many artists have used the theme of objects in the hair, morphing gracefully into something else. In fact, the idea goes back quite far. Check out the book Natural Fashion: Tribal Decoration from Africa:
Beautiful, inspiring, primal. Decoration, adornment, survival, expression, self...

There is something about crafting with women. Why do I find this activity so calming? Maybe it is a distant memory whispering in my ear about our hunter gatherer days, days when we made baskets and pottery or sewed clothing by hand for our families and ourselves, when our 'crafts' meant a means to survival and we did it together. But that seems too distant. More likely, crafting reminds me of something much more intimate: drawing on the floor whilst my mother endlessly sewed, knitted, paper mache'd, painted, molded, quilled, folded, embroidered, quilted creations for holidays, sheer whimsy, and quite possibly her sanity while we moved about the country in a lonely existence, as all military families do. And to think my mother did this growing up and then into marriage and motherhood. Crafting has a purpose. Looking at the cross stitch embroidered pillows and dolls my mother made as a child in the military, I can see this activity has a purpose far beyond frivolous decoration.
How else do we deal with the roller coaster of life, but create? And when we create together we enjoy some sort of primal connection. We have something to make, to talk about, to play with, to have fun with that has nothing to do with anything but exploration of our own creativity. We all enter with our minds engrossed in our daily lives and by the end of the day escape into the art of 'make', giving birth to something new and whole, something tangible that draws from bits and pieces of imagery and textures that our senses regard as important, creating a symphony of Who We Are. It is the grand culmination of sharing, exploring, thinking, and expression. Although this habit of crafting is is not directly or obviously related to painting, my job, sketching, or the like, making frivolous, decorative things, sometimes it just feels good. It just does.

Sephalina Pin Up/San Diego Comic Con

2010-07-13T23:31:00.001-07:00

I finally finished the Sephilina pin up painting for the guest artist section of Jamie's NEW comic, Sephalina, The Nauti Girl! The book will be on sale at Jamie Baker's booth: 1329. Be sure to come by and pick up a copy!

It's a full color digest size comic about his character Sephilina. - I watched him work on it for several weeks, witnessing first hand the blood, sweat and tears that went into the book. It was worth the effort. Jamie is such a creative force. His new comic certainly shows his talents in storytelling, comic book-ing, and draftsmanship. I am honored to be in his book, and his life! :)

And here is the pin up painting I did for the guest section of the book. I'm not a "pin up" kind of artist, but I've always admired them after having seen many original Gil Elvgren pieces at the American Academy of Art where I went to school. This of course is not anything like a Gil Elvgren, but it was certainly fun to paint. I had fun making Sephilina uber-sexy:

Studio Notes: After sketching out my design, I enlarged it with a xerox machine and drew the entire design out larger on a separate sheet of large paper using a light box to see my sketch underneath, finalizing the lines on the larger sheet of paper on top. I then transferred the line drawing to illustration board using graphite paper. After the transfer, I sprayed it with a light coat of acrylic spray.

At this point, I was unsure how I wanted to paint it, so I did a small test in gouache.

I chose opaque gouache because I was already familiar with it; I used to paint backgrounds in the stuff for Lucky Charms, Trix and Keebler Elves commercials every single day for several years at Calabash Animation, in Chicago. For backgrounds, gouache had a great effect, considering the characters were center stage and the backgrounds needed to fade back, due to the nature of the matte quality gouache has when completely dry. In hind site, for this piece I should have chosen a technique that emphasized the full range of tones, like you get with oil paint. I never achieved the luminosity and subtly I wanted from this piece, not to mention smooth tones.

In any case, I went ahead and worked on the painting for several days in my after work hours, building up layers slowly, always allowing the previous layer to dry before adding another layer. It is difficult to imagine how the lighting works on octopus tentacles, so I looked at reference photos for accuracy.

Thanks for looking - please come by Jamie's booth and pick up your copy of Sephilina, The Nauti Girl!

ICON6 promotional postcard design

2010-07-11T18:21:00.000-07:00

I have to have something like a business card or postcard give away for the upcoming ICON6 illustration conference. So I made up these post card sized cards, which is really a preliminary cover for a self published book I am working on in between projects. I think I want to adjust the decorative flowers on the top and bottom, and hand draw a title, which tentatively is being called "Daisy".
If you are at the ICON6 show, please stop by and say hello!

UPDATE: not sure if I would exhibit at this show again. It was promised that over 6,000 art directors would be there, but from what I could tell less than 200 showed up! Some had said it was because the show was in Los Angeles. Most art directors for print illustration are based in New York. I had heard from exhibitors that in the past when the show is on the East Coast, more art directors attend. If you are planning to try this show out as an exhibitor, be aware that this was my experience. If the show is on the east coast, I might consider it again.

LIfe Drawing at Sadie's Atelier

2010-07-07T13:46:00.000-07:00

On Tuesday evenings I go over to Sadie Valerie's Atelier for an open studio life drawing workshop. We extend the pose for four Tuesdays, ensuring that all of us can get the level of finish that we like, thoughtfully observing and indicating anatomy as best we can. I have been experimenting with Pitt brand pastel pencils on charcoal paper and having fun with it, although I do feel the redness of the tone might be a bit much. (and for some reason hard for my camera to photograph)

Lately I have been engrossed in human anatomy while resting between illustration projects . After I finish up my various projects for the fall (hopefully four to five prints, the Sephalina pin up, and some additional pieces, revised website, blog header, and etsy shop...), I plan to fully immerse myself in a rather intense ecorche class taught by Andrew Ameral, who taught at the prestigious Florence Academy (a school I would LOVE to attend...). I want to, once and for all, KNOW what it is I am drawing, rather than just putting down shadow patterns. Shadow patterns are fine and all in drawing, but it's also very helpful to know the structure underneath in order to make a believable picture. Not to mention that knowledge of anatomy for sculpture is extremely useful, as well as drawing from memory and imagination. Solidifying knowledge of human anatomy, I expect, will go a long way, whether I am painting realist or imaginary subjects.

Hopefully by this time next week, I will be posting the finished PIN UP I'm working on at night and weekends for Jamie's new book, Sephalina. I've been taking photos along the way, so maybe I'll include a few work in progress shots to show the haphazard and chaotic way I approach an illustration, tears and all. :)

Submission to ICON6 Illustration Road Show

2010-06-24T23:26:00.000-07:00

This is the piece I am submitting for the ICON6 Illustration Road Show slide show. I will also have a table and promotional materials at the show in Pasadena, CA, on July 15.

Daisy Girl was totally reworked from an old sketch and more fully realized. I had fun working on this. I should say, I had fun after I figured out a technique. For many years now, I have greatly admired the work of turn of the century illustrator Jessie Wilcox Smith and also Cicely Mary Barker. I have tried many times to mimick their techniques unsuccessfully. I finally came up with something (totally by accident!) that seems to come the closest to the aspects of their work I like the best: loose lines, some modeling in the shadows, some texture in the shadows.. imperfection yet still accurate drawing, some invention, imagination. I'm not saying this piece is all of *that*, but I do feel the spirit of the painting is in the ball park. Feels nice to research something for a long time and finally arrive in that ball park!

Technique Experiment

2010-06-19T21:19:00.000-07:00

Today I have been experimenting with painting technique tests for the finish on the Sephilina pin up for Jamie's book.

I want to use the watercolor techniques I've often used in the past, but also preserve the line work. After several unsatisfying experiments, I decided to use gouache with smoothly modeled soft finish rather than a loose watercolor style.

The first thing I did here was draw out a little sample with tuscan red pencil, fleshing out the shadow pattern (which I took liberties with) and added some lines. Next, I applied Golden Acrylic Fluid Matte Medium in a thin layer.

After that, I painted in the local color of the face and hair, very thinly, in gouache, and then began building up layers in the shadows, preserving the white of the illustration board as much as possible. I did find I needed to glaze a little white gouache over some areas and used it for a soft highlight here and there.

After all of that, I used my all time favorite pencil, a brown Stabilo Aquarelle pencil, to add a few lines on top of the color.

2010-06-08T22:52:00.000-07:00

a conte drawings from my Tuesday night drawing workshop.

I am trying to work out simplifying the planes of the head. This still looks a bit complicated and muddy. It's not easy for me for some reason! I also had trouble with this particular shade of conte - it stains the paper which makes it difficult to erase and correct.

what I'm working on lately

2010-05-18T12:16:00.000-07:00

I have a sculpture in the works that is my very first interpretive project. By interpretive, I mean, the model posed for about three sessions, enough for me to get down his attitude and form, leaving me with enough information to listen and visualize the rhythms of the pose, connect with my instincts, my soul, and conjure up something all mine. What will I do with that block of clay his leg is resting on? What is the moment he is living in? What am I choosing to express here?

I'm thinking about these artistic choices throughout my days while at work, hoping I can do justice to this model's absolutely magnificent body, somewhere between masculine and feminine grace. In all my time of working with models, I have only found a few that inspire me to a degree that seems otherworldly. Their work somehow makes a lightning jolt connection to my visual synapses igniting instant images that seem to flow in front of my eyes like postcards or snapshots...they are there, right there. The question is, have my skills progressed enough in order to express what I see and feel? What direction should I take this, I ask myself...should he be fantasy or sheer realism?

I have a feeling my dreams will tell me. Or a few glasses of wine and some music, or perhaps a few life drawing sessions @ Lenny's group or Sadie's, or more likely, my sketchbook and warm bed.

I am also working on my blog. I have not been happy with the layout on this blog, so I'm planning to go totally custom. I have a header and footer as well as side pieces in the sketch phase, which I plan to post very soon as a work in progress.

When I was in art school, no one ever told me that at some point you enter into a phase where wondering what to say becomes all encompassing. Making a statement is harder than I thought. When I was 19 and in art school it seemed so easy. twenty years later making a statement, a true unabashed statement of who I am/was, is harder. Maybe it's the idea that now it 'counts'. Now I have to be real. My ideas these days about art are more complex as I gain a personal history, as we all undoubtedly do. My influences have expanded beyond what they originally were, due mainly to the community of artists I am surrounded by. I am in a state of perpetual evolution; no longer am I only a realist alla prima painter. I am something in addition to that.

reworked "Summer" thumbnail

2010-03-22T13:59:00.000-07:00

I wasn't happy with the thumbnail for "Summer". So, over the weekend I reworked it. I did several thumbnails, but this is the one I am happiest with. I put the old one on the left side, the new one on the right for comparison purposes. I think the new one is a stronger composition.

Next I plan to rework "Winter". I'm not happy with it at all and feel it lacks consistency with the other three season illustrations.

thumbnails for Seasons

2010-03-18T16:16:00.000-07:00

So about a week ago I messed around with a cool online drawing tool and came up with some loose thumbnails for a set of illustrations that I have been thinking about for some time now, inspired by Alphonse Mucha drawings.

Here are the more developed thumbnails from the original loose first drafts. I plan to take these to a larger size, figure out the details and then paint them in watercolor. (I think...) One of the goals in the next step is to make sure the four seasons look like the same person. I also feel the faces and bodies are slightly too on the cartoon side; I would prefer them to look more realistic, even though these are clearly fantasy. The other goal I have is to flesh out the details in the branches and flowers, and also tighten up the borders so they are all about the same size and loosely rectangular in shape. I'll post the next steps when I finish them...if I ever have the time between work and errands and chaos!

I also might consider covering the bodies in tattoos. My intent, with perhaps the exception of "Summer" is NOT to express sexiness, rather express something more impish and spirit like. I might mess around some more and see if I can come up with alternative versions of these thumbnails, after seeing them up there on the big computer screen.

2010-03-16T15:40:00.000-07:00

Here is another anniversary desktop I did for Electronic Arts/Pogo featuring Tex Carter.

Venitian Glass Blowing

2010-03-15T23:19:00.000-07:00

I recently visited my Dad and step mom Susan up in Washington. I was there because my boyfriend Jamie Baker and friends Derek Thompson, Ted Mathot, and Jeff Pidgeon had booths at the Emerald Con Comic Book Convention. It was a successful show for the guys. The last day of the convention, I snuck off to the Tacoma Glass Blowing Museum with my Dad and Susan for one day, and wow was it cool! Actually, a more accurate term would be HOT.

The museum houses a glass blowing studio, a "hot box", where interns and experienced glass blowers who were trained at the Pilchuck School, can go to practice their craft, a school Dale Chihuly helped found in 1971. If you aren't familiar with Dale Chihuly, you might have seen his work on the ceiling of the Bellagio in Las Vegas.

We watched a fascinating demonstration on the centuries old Venetian glass blowing technique, perfected in Venice during the Renaissance. Amazing!

The museum also hold several pieces from internationally recognized glass artists. I did not write down the names of the artists, unfortunately. Regardless, the beauty they channel is stronger than words:

I know it is cool to talk about avant guard art from the 20th century as totally bunk. However, when I look at many of these pieces, I see nothing that adheres to the classical realist tradition that I so love. And yet, these pieces are undeniably beautiful.

Thumbnails on the Web

2010-03-10T16:39:00.000-08:00

I am working on a series of watercolor illustrations of the four seasons, inspired by the enduring works of Alphonse Mucha. A friend on Facebook posted this great online tool, so I thought I'd give it a try. I love the results!

Here is the web link to Harmony, a procedural drawing tool web page. Just select at the top which brush you'd like to use and then start drawing in the white area.

http://mrdoob.com/lab/javascript/harmony/#shaded

SPRING

SUMMER

FALL

WINTER

and a Redo of my pink daisy girl sketch

::updated::: Andrew Cawrse Anatomy Workshop

2010-02-23T21:11:00.001-08:00

I just finished a week long intensive anatomy sculpting course, Andrew Cawrse's level 3 anatomy workshop, Dynamic Anatomy. Because the classes are relatively new, I thought I might report about the class in case anyone out there is interested in learning about dynamic anatomy, whether the knowledge is applied digitally or traditionally.

On the first day we set up the model, Cason, in a kneeling pose. We quickly gestured in his form on a small armature as best we could. After a few hours of this, Andrew asked us to take our gestures off the sculpting stands and set them aside for later use at the end of the week. I thought this was a great idea and feel very happy to have gone through the exercise, although in entering the class I was not aware that we needed at this point to purchase a second, bigger armature and would have liked to know that before hand so as to be mentally prepared for the additional cost. I personally was not too miffed about this aspect since I sculpt on a weekly basis and can always use more armatures. However, I can see how others might have been a little surprised if they were new to the sculpting world. So, if you are to take Dynamic Anatomy, just know that you will need to purchase TWO armatures and probably all of the specialized tools, which end up being about $500 extra, a pretty significant cost added on to the $1500 base fee. HOWEVER, I want to emphasize here - TOTALLY worth it. (Maybe it was mentioned in the description of the class and I missed it.)

Anyway, after the first exercise, the model was posed in a standing position with a leg up on a box to show bending of the knee, a twist in the rib cage and the opposite arm up high, to demonstrate motion in the arm, rib cage and hips. We then spent the afternoon and the morning of the second day sculpting out and measuring the general proportions of the figure as best we could, which is MUCH faster than what I am used to! However, this was necessary since there was so much ground to cover in anatomy lessons. On the afternoon of the second day we began the good stuff: carving out muscle groups and indicating them on the body, specifically the legs. You can see here I didn't finish.

After we tackled the boney landmarks and muscle groups of the legs, we spent a pretty significant amount of time on the third day learning about the scapulae. Andrew and his assistant, Eric -who also assists mega alpha sculptor Richard MacDonald and is an awesome sculptor in his own right- both expressed that knowing the scapula bones are extremely important in understanding how the figure works. The reason being that the bone, although attached to the clavicle, moves and shifts as the arms and rib cage move. In addition to that, a lot of complicated muscles of the back attach to these bones, causing further confusion. However, if you become intimately familiar with the shape and function of the scapulae, the rest becomes easier to understand, and helps in making a figure look far more believable. Great lesson!

We proceeded by measuring the boney points on the model with our calipers, and sculpted out the exact shape of both scaplua as best we could. This was no easy task since both were in different positions on each side!

After about an hour or so of this, with Andrew's approval, we then laid clay on top of the scapulae and drew out the musculature of the back. Unfortunately I didn't take a photo of my drawn out muscles. Here is the initial stage, though.

During this portion of the class, I found it very helpful to refer to one of Andrew's reference figures, which he sculpted and sells on his site, www.freedomofteach.com. He also had a skeleton in the class for reference that had painted landmarks indicated in red and blue to show various points of origin and insertion of muscles on the skeletal figure. Very useful!

After the back, we moved on to the hands and feet (or perhaps we did those before the back?) We learned some simple measuring tips and technique for sculpting the hands and feet, which were incredibly useful. We only spent about an hour on each, so what you see here is the best I could do while rushing to get the planes and all the anatomy in before moving on to the next subject.

Next subject was the rib cage and muscles of the torso. PIECE OF CAKE compared to the back.
The first step was to locate the top, bottom and width of the rib cage using the calipers to measure the model, Cason (who, btw, is a FANTASTIC model - awesome dancers body). Once we indicated these points on our sculpture, we then carved out the planes of the ribcage and drew in the ribs, sternum and clavicle. (pardon me if I'm spelling these wrong, btw)

Once the ribs came in, we then put in the serratus anterior muscles on top. We were very lucky to have a model that had extremely well developed serratus muscles, which he believes might have developed from being on a wrestling team. Makes sense, since these become flexed to stabilize the torso.

next came the external obliques, which attach to the serratus anterior muscles.

and after that, the pectoralis major muscles of the chest, which originate from the clavicle and rib cage and tuck in underneath the deltoids.

Here is my finished, well, half way finished, rib cage with the muscles. Behind my sculpture you can see assistant Eric's sculpture. Having Eric there was extremely beneficial to the class; we all referred to his gorgeous sculpture often to check against for errors in our own.

Next up was some time with the anatomy of the skull and neck muscles. This took place on the morning of the last day, Friday. Andrew went through the key boney points and planes of the skull. We laid in the planes and carved out the skull. Unfortunately I ran out of time and wasn't able to completely finish. Also, I took photos with my iphone. I've noticed there is a slight distortion...I swear! (The head here looks a tad too big and slightly warped)

On Thursday evening, Andrew and his assistant Eric weighed the sculptures in order to calculate how much clay we used, which was then added to the invoice and billed accordingly. Mine weighed 20 pounds.

Finally the afternoon of the last day. We spent this block of time learning how to finesse the figure, add skin and refine the details. Andrew showed us a technique of adding bits and pieces of fat between the muscles and then brushing on turpenoid to melt the clay just slightly to create smooth skin. I worked on the leg and knee:

It's still a bit too defined, but you get the gist of it:

And here is my semi finished sculpture! Yay! The great thing about this is that I can continue to work on it at home referring to charts and books. I hope to get it to a more completed state so I can continue to have a better understanding of how the anatomy works on a dynamic figure. The only unresolved issue I have after the class is where to put it in my studio living room. I don't think Andrew can help me with furniture rearrangement. My sculpt has ended up sitting on my floor next to my art desk. It would be better to have him on a sculpting stand of my own so I can continue to work on him.

All in all, I highly recommend taking Andrew Cawrse's anatomy classes. I had also intended to take the next two classes, which sounded really amazing, too: Mike Murnane's creature anatomy class and Damon Bard's character sculpting class. I think regardless of what application you are eventually using these for, it would be worth the trip, the cost, the time and effort, given that you are studying with masters in the film industry whose knowledge is based in pure traditional art education, a tradition which still struggles to stay alive.

Having said that, since this is my personal blog, I should explain that my interest in sculpting lies in a love of the craft, the beauty of the human and animal form, and very deep passion for artistic exploration. While in the class, someone asked me (and everyone else) what I wanted to do with sculpting, to which I replied with heart felt sincerity, 'nothing in particular!' After a career in illustration for animation and games, as well as a failed attempt to get a fine art painting career off the ground, I have come to a choice in how I view being an artist. That is, if I attach an expectation to where I want to eventually go with a particular skill, i.e. a GOAL or specific JOB or gallery life, I will somehow stumble on career obstacles, create a lot of frustration for myself, call into question who I am, how 'good' or 'not good' I am, and subsequently dilute the passion of whatever it is that drives me to create for MYSELF.

These days, I intentionally continue to practice the things I love in my off hours from work, without any expectation of the eventual outcome at all. I can do this partially because I already AM a working artist with a pretty stable career. So what more do I need? My personal work is just that - personal, inspired, not at all attached to money or a living, and entirely from that pure stuff within the heart that loves to create. These days, the only personal mantra I keep is: develop my passion and the rest will take care of itself. I look forward to seeing what happens, and in the mean time I am happy. Kinda like the little pink flower girl illustration below. :)

Happy Valentine's Day!

2010-02-09T17:43:00.000-08:00

from a Hummingbird, who sometimes dreams of being a flower

Jellyfish Mermaid Concepts

2010-02-09T11:52:00.000-08:00

I've made more more progress on my Hummingbird Goes to the Aquarium world. I want to explore some ideas with mermaids that are different than the usual girls with fish tails. I thought jellyfish mermaids might be more frightening and beautiful at the same time.

I plan to paint the two jellyfish mermaids above using the Bill Pressing technique. I'm excited to try it out!

Character Design sketches/"Hummingbird"

2010-02-04T12:49:00.000-08:00

I have been thinking about what Hummingbird would look like if she were swimming. I'm still playing around with the proportions. I might make her a little shorter.

2010-01-20T14:53:00.000-08:00

A couple of pen and ink sketches.

Almost there.

2010-01-15T12:10:00.001-08:00

I have several passions: alla prima oil painting, plein air painting, watercolor painting, sculpting, animation, illustration, children's book illustration, self publishing, paper craft, vector art, and the list goes on. Which do I choose? I am inspired by everything and every artist around me, one of the hazards of living amongst so many incredibly talented artist friends, I suppose. How do I fit in? Sometimes I feel like asking my friends, "who am I? A painter? A designer? An illustrator?"

In an attempt to resolve all of these deeply personal questions, lately I have told myself that instead of choosing one type of art to focus on, why not choose them all? Honestly, I think I have no choice. Like many artists, I have a visual way of relating to the world, the effect of which is imagery that floats up from the depths into my visual imagination and stays there, bugging me like a child asking 'are we there yet?' over and over until we actually get there. The destination seems to be my sketchbook, scraps of paper, notes taken on my iphone, photo collections on my laptop that reflect a concept, piles of print outs from various sources, collected objects for still life paintings, and on.

First order of business is a little girl who has renamed herself Hummingbird. I am unsure yet how I will paint these - watercolor, gouache, digitally... whatever the case, here are the sketches. My thoughts on this character are complex, although the images do not reflect that, at least not yet. I figure that if I keep working on these, they will evolve into something less sentimental. I am unsure of how old she is - she seems to be somewhere between age 3 and 10, still a child. The challenge in illustrating a child, especially a girl, is in NOT making her overly cute and too saccharin. I suppose these images are such, but my hope is they will become less so as the character develops in sketches. For now, she continues to swim all around the coral reef of my mind, discovering things I didn't even know were there. I hope she doesn't get lost...or do I?

2009-12-21T17:11:00.000-08:00

Just a fun little experiment with Flash.

More watercolors from the early 90's

2009-12-01T19:13:00.000-08:00

A good friend of mine, Gabor Svagrik and I had a two person art show at the Palette and Chisel in Chicago in 1995. Here are a few of my pieces from the show that sold:

The cat's name is Greta, the best cat in the world. She no longer lives with me.

Seeing these makes me feel homesick for the past. it was a difficult time during those post art school years in the 90's. However, it was good. I was doing nothing but painting: painting backgrounds at Calabash all day then heading over to the Palette and Chisel art league at night, and then more painting on the weekends. My mind must have really been in the groove back then. I can see it in the work. Over time, my career shaped my life: I went digital, struggled to make a living, finally got a good job, all of which seems to have changed my personal paintings. I think what I've been doing as of late in my own work has been more tense looking. Maybe it has something to do with the stakes being higher the older I get. What does an artist do when faced with making a living? Art school does not instruct the student in how to protect the heart, much less communicate with it. The desire to paint never goes away; it becomes more intense.

Art school watercolors...

2009-11-24T18:24:00.000-08:00

I have a website for my fine art from over the years. I do not update it primarily because I am thinking about overhauling the site entirely after I finish some personal illustration projects, but that will not be for some time. (hopefully next fall...) So, I thought I might add a few things to this site. I have some watercolors I'd love to show that are really the best of anything I did in art school. I was pretty young, 19 or 20, and heavily under the influence of my fantastic teacher Irving Shapiro, an incredible watercolorist who took the craft to a whole new level. Anyway, here are my paintings from about 1991-92.

I won a fancy Society of Illustrators award for the above painting...it's in a book somewhere. Also, the art school I went to, The American Academy of Art in Chicago, bought the painting and framed it for their walls. To me that was the most incredible honor and still is when I consider the school's walls are decorated with the likes of Richard Schmid, Haddon Sundblom, Gil Elvgren, Howard Terpning and a host of other incredible painters. My heart skips a beat when I think about it!

I gave the painting of the oranges and lemons to my sister.

Jody Kirberger, owner of the Talisman Gallery in Bartlesville, OK bought the lilly painting for her house.

Several thoughts come up when I look back at these paintings. First, this is the work that led me to work as a background painter at Calabash Animation in Chicago, a job that introduced me to animation and caused me to learn sooooo much about painting from memory and developing my imagination.

The other thoughts I have are more esoteric; I can see how I was on my way to a washy brushy look, which with some time and development could have been far more confident and interesting to look at. These paintings are stiff; I was so concerned with drawing things correctly I can see now that it caused me to freak out and tighten up. I am hoping with the new personal projects I am working on (in secret...hehe) to get back to this approach with a more experienced, older eye and looseness of brushstrokes. I can see it so clearly in my head...now if only I could do it in real life. We shall see...

Happy Thanksgiving!

2009-11-12T11:27:00.000-08:00

(click on art to see larger image)
I worked on many games at Pogo, for which assets were needed, such as these icons. All were done in either Photoshop or Flash. (even the koi!)

2009-11-11T18:06:00.000-08:00

While I worked at Pogo, I designed a few games. Here is some of the art I created for the game Canasta. The idea I had for the characters in this game is a 50's nuclear family, with the wild cards being Beatniks. The male Beatnik became really popular is still used today in badges and other Pogo art. All of this was designed in Flash and is vector based. This was a really fun project!

2009-11-11T17:23:00.001-08:00

(click on art for larger version)
At one point, Pogo was playing with the idea of creating a Pogo Kids website, complete with kids games and an avatar system, all created in Flash/Illustrator. This was (and still is, I believe) to honor a deal that Electronic Arts has with Hasbro, who they have partnered with in the online gaming community. Although these initial concepts never came to fruition, I enjoyed designing some interesting characters that would be vector based. I really loved the graphic look we had in mind for the concept. As with many Pogo projects, this was a collaborative effort. The team consisted of myself, and two other artists - I worked on the avatar, avatar selector, and wardrobe.

2009-11-11T17:08:00.000-08:00

(click on art to see larger version)
I had the opportunity to design a few games which needed game art as well as characters. I designed these characters and illustrated these desktops as free give aways to Pogo users.

2009-11-11T16:45:00.000-08:00

(click on art to see larger version)

At one point, Pogo was going to create a new game screen that functions similar to a home page, but with components that are customizable. We had also talked about creating a virtual world, in which the user could chat using their Pogo Mini avatars. For this demonstration, I created a world concept that was under the sea and placed a few Mini's. Here is the design. I also designed the other elements, as well.
Unfortunately the project never came to fruition. It's too bad - would have been a blast to work on!

2009-11-11T16:15:00.000-08:00

(click on art to see larger version)
I also illustrated many mix and match badges for Pogo.com. The users collected the badges as rewards for achieving a certain number of games won. The badge program at Pogo has been very successful for our users, who like to collect as many as they can!

Pogo Mini Costume Designs

2009-11-11T11:56:00.000-08:00

(Click on art to see larger versions)

For the past few years, I have been working at Electronic Arts online casual gaming company, Pogo.com, as a staff artist. I have been primarily designing game art, costumes, backgrounds, and badges. On Monday I was laid off due to overseas outsourcing. I feel sad about this, especially since every single day I came into work feeling excited and happy about the work I was doing. I always took every single project seriously, no matter how 'small' or how 'big' the assignment was. I've always held that if an artist is a good artist, no matter what he or she touches, it should be of the highest quality and taken seriously.

I began working for Pogo/Electronic Arts as a contractor in 2003. At that time I designed some games, Canasta, Pinochle and a few others, while also providing lots and lots of artwork for various other games, like Mahjong, TriPeaks, etc. Eventually Pogo began a program called the Pogo Mini's, avatars for the users that can be customized with faces, skin color, facial expressions, hair, clothing, costumes, backgrounds, accessories, and even pets. I enjoyed this work SO much and always tried to bring interesting and fun items to our users.