Feather Thief!

"Bitter Green"

It is little known in the world at large that some fairies smoke pine needles. 

"Dandelion"

"Dandelion"

One of the best art discoveries I made was in art school when I stumbled on a volume of Cicely Mary Barker's "Flower Fairies". It led to research into her and her life and other artists I also admire, mainly Jesse Wilcox Smith and Margaret Tarrant. I love the playful, beautiful ethereal versions of fairies out there, but I am interested in juxtaposing the prettiness of nature and it's endless color schemes with an anarchy and punkiness in character, which is closer to how I understand Nature, anyway. I have so many more ideas; hopefully I will be able to realize them throughout this late summer and fall. Thinking I might even try "inktober" this year. 

Thanks for taking a peek!

Cheers!

"Meditating", fairy series

For a few years I've been sketching fairies in my sketchbook. Here is the latest, painted.

"The Little Mermaid" update/Viking Prince

UPDATE: I am in the throws of writing the script for this story this summer. Hoping to have my story locked down by mid fall, October, so that I can finally start penciling! 

For some time now I have been developing several stories of my own, but have decided to focus solely on my version of "The Little Mermaid" told in the Viking era. Originally I set the world in the Samurai era, which I still think would be pretty cool, but since I have roots in my Scandinavian heritage, I decided the project would be a cool way to learn more about the era of my ancestors. 

I am planning thorough research on my little mermaid character, but I really wanted to design the main viking character first, since he would firmly set the era in place for my story. I'm really glad I spent so much time working on him since designing the character brought to mind some interesting story twists and ideas that I hadn't thought of previously.

I imagined he is a prince of the village (if vikings really had "princes") and expected to help navigate and organize raids. He is reluctant, however, since he has a strong interest in music. He would be much happier roving around with local musicians but his father does not approve.

Here is some exploration for the character:

And finally a story painting. I spent a lot of hours on this painting, but in the end, I am still not sure about this style and color palette. I may go back and repaint this more graphically after I finish my Little Mermaid designs.

CTN Ad and Quick Animation

This year I took up the opportunity to advertise in the CTN Sketchbook, a collectible printed sketchbook you can buy. I created this ad using some of my art. The book is in black and white, and because of that I submitted this piece in black in white. The 2015 sketchbook should be available in a few weeks at the CTN STORE.

I liked the composition a lot, so I also created it in color, too. I also made a bookmark of "The Act". I will have both color bookmarks while at the show. If you see me ask for one - they're free! Ping me at @Paintkatt on Twitter if you're at the show and want a bookmark!

The other day I also messed around with the animation timeline in Photoshop. It's changed a lot over the years, the old ImageReady version being pretty clunky. The new version allows you to change the frame rate and add transitions and effects. (All of this would have been fantastic back when I used to create little gif animations in Photoshop for the Pogo Mini's when I worked at Pogo.com/Electronic Arts.) The Photoshop animation timeline also allows you to add sounds files. I played around with that in order to get a feel for it and came up with this silly little test. Pretty fun to play around with sound files!

In the next month I should have some more updates with personal illustration art. Updates are a little slower than anticipated this summer. I have been taking a Gnomon Workshop online Maya modeling class. The homework has been pretty time consuming but I gotta say, it's really fun to model things! So far I've modeled a 1950's era ray gun and am currently working on modeling a vintage vespa. Our teacher, Disney Feature Animation modeler James Schauf, has been the most fantastic teacher. 

Thanks for reading!

Pacific Marine Animal Studies

Some more studies from our recent trip to the Monterey Bay Aquarium. I spent most of my time trying to capture a gesture or general feel for each animal, then tightened up my sketches later using photos I took and in some cases video, the puffins being the most difficult since they were very busy beasts! 

The jellyfish exhibits are like nothing else I've seen at other aquariums. Absolutely stunning.

Moon Jellies (above) are in abundance in the Pacific Ocean, however because they are white they look very similar to white plastic bags. Sea turtles have mistakenly eaten plastic bags and died as a result, one more reason to go from plastic to paper. 

I really loved these gentle sharks. Conservationists are concerned about them becoming overfished due to sport fishing along the Pacific Coast, where they live, mostly along kelp forests and rocky areas. 

Tufted Puffins are in abundance along the Pacific Coast, especially up toward the Aleutian Islands in Alaska. I loved watching them - this guy was very curious about us! 

The light shining through the water in the Kelp Forest exhibit made the anchovy schools look magical. Anchovy schools tend to gravitate toward long columns of kelp in a swirling spiral upward. Sublime! I did these studies from some video footage I shot and then painted various parts of different shots to make it all work together as a portrait of the habitat.

*****************************************************

Next week Jamie and I will be busy sketching over Memorial Day weekend, so I will delay posting until the following week. Thanks for visiting!

Digital Sketching | Leveling Up my Tablet

For a while now I've been sketching around town using my iPad. I like using a tablet for sketching when I am in situations where I cannot bring my usual pastel kit or oil painting kit for plein air studies. The iPad is light weight, fits in my bag, and can be whipped out without questions or funny looks just about anywhere.

Sketching at the Art Institute of Chicago

Until now I've been making good use of my iPad. I use the Wacom Stylus 1 (not 2) and the fantastic Procreate app. My only on-going frustration was the sometimes lag of the stylus and inaccuracy of the pen tip, as well as brush sizes and other issues that have often felt like painting with a giant crayon that I don't have complete control over. 

Frankly, I have been frustrated with Apple's lack of support and indifference for third party vendors who make styluses to use with their sketching, writing and painting apps. (Having worked in mobile games I know quite well Apple has rigorous internal checks before any app can be launched in the App Store - so why not rigorous checks for 3rd party devices intended to use with their products?!!) Additionally, it seems, I've been waiting forever for Apple to upgrade the iPad to run OS X so that it can run Photoshop or Painter, and - dare I dream - have it's own digitizer stylus. The iPad is cool, I suppose, but a tablet that can actually run Adobe software and be brought along in a bag is powerful stuff. 

Jamie painting in Golden Gate Park

***********************************************************
 Here's The Skinny

Since about 2013, rumors have swirled around the internet about the secret development of the iPad Pro, which would run OS X and have a custom stylus. 

Most recently, rumors were that the iPad Pro would be announced this March, but the iWatch trumped that as Apple leaps into the wearables market. Still, rumors continue to swirl that the impending launch of the iPad Pro will be announced later this year, fall 2015. Still others are skeptical of a launch this year or even next. Ugh - I am tired of waiting. There are already several tablets on market available right now with a few being relatively inexpensive. Whenever the rumored iPad Pro does launch, one thing is certain, it will be an expensive version of the current iPads. Most likely more than I really want to spend for sketching around town. Even my plein air oil and pastel gear each came in around $500-$600 for the equipment.

Given my quest and budget, I identified what I'd like in a tablet and then set out to find one. 
I wanted these attributes:

between $300 - $600 max
light weight and slim
good battery life 
can run Photoshop
stylus with a thin and more precise tip, and good response with no lagging

Best Options:
Wacom's Cintiq Companion, $2000
Microsoft Surface Pro, starting at $800
Samsung Slate, a retired line which can be purchased new or refurbished around $450-550 on Amazon Marketplace. (I've seen it even cheaper on eBay and B&H Photo)

I know there are other tablets, but many of them get poor reviews, so I narrowed my choices down to the three listed above. After a lot of research & recommendations from friends, I opted for the Samsung Slate. 

**************************************************************

Samsung Slate 

Out of the box I spent an evening fumbling around the Windows 7 OS, which I am not accustomed to. After I watched the on-screen tutorial for a few minutes, I was able to navigate around the desktop with the excellent digitized stylus. After I connected to my wireless account and accessed the internet, Windows promptly updated. 

I was then able to load the Creative Cloud app at $10 a month to run Photoshop. Since the Slate also has a usb port, an older version of PS can be loaded if you prefer. 

While I was researching the tablet, I found a great plug-in for Photoshop that enables two handed use in order to use the hot keys without a keyboard. This plug in, Art Dock, is also customizable and can be configured for either right or left handed use. 

When loaded, Art Dock allows you to work with one hand using your stylus for painting/sketching/drawing while the other hand hits hot keys - a very nice workflow compared to the iPad/Procreate model, where the stylus alone must choose everything from brushes, layers, colors, brush size in addition to painting.

The link for the Art Dock plug in and instructions for left and right handed docking is HERE.

For saving art, you can, of course, keep your files on the desk top (not recommended), upload your files to Dropbox (or another cloud based service) or save everything on a thumb drive using the USB port. Incidentally, I found the cover on the USB port difficult to remove and ended up using a sharp knife tip to remove it. Seems to work just fine now.

I also like the size of the Samsung slate. It's longer than the iPad, closer to the 16:9 ratio, which I like for studies, especially when studying film shots. The tablet also comes with a Sim Card slot and a camera, though not capable of video. That's ok with me as I usually carry my iPhone or a camera with me that can record when I need to.

Side by Side size comparison

Because the on-screen keyboard is awkward to use, you can also get a bluetooth keyboard and also a docking station if you'd like to use it as a casual computer.  I haven't purchased either of these yet and probably won't since I don't plan to do a lot of typing on the machine other than saving files.

When I finally got down to painting I felt like I was in HEAVEN! Using the Art Dock plug in plus sketching directly on-screen using PHOTOSHOP and my own custom brushes (uploaded from Dropbox) felt like I had been liberated from all the clunkiness that I was trying my best to be patient with. Pressure sensitivity is not that of a full blown Cintiq, but frankly, it is good enough for me to complete this sketch, below, without any complaints, lag time, or inaccurate brush calibration. The only noticeable oddness was that the screen sometimes changed brightness when the light changed, but that was due to the extreme changes in brightness of the television screen that was also in the room. This might be an issue later; if it is I will surely update this post. 

A quick process video using Flipagram

The final piece. I worked in my bedroom at night in three 45 minute sessions was able to finish this sketch. 

I don't know what your needs are for tablet sketching, but you might want to consider these options. If you have a budget, the Cintiq Companion 2 looks amazing. If you are like me with a pretty limited budget (this was already a splurge!), you might want to look into a refurbished tablet or take the Microsoft tablet for a whirl. Whatever you choose, I hope you enjoy a new avenue for plein air sketching practice. Please leave comments if you have additional info, good or bad experiences or questions.

Thanks for reading!

A Couple of Plein Air Digital Paintings

For awhile now, I've been trying to come up with an easier take-with-me-everywhere method of plein air sketching. I have full plein air kits for pastels, oil and watercolor, but often I find that even though I keep one of these kits in the trunk of my car, I usually don't feel inclined to bring it all in to a restaurant, coffee shop or on an afternoon trip downtown. I wanted something MUCH more lightweight and accessible - and the iPad has been it.

Here is a sketch from a recent day trip to the ferry building in San Francisco, a busy tourist-heavy area of the city. 

My main objective with iPad sketching is to mimic plein air oil paint using the alla prima technique, direct painting, as opposed to more labor intense methods. The idea is to work quickly on site and get it all down in about an hour or so of working. That means everything from gesture, composition, hue, value relationships and light relationships.

About the hardware: I have yet to find a stylus I am completely comfortable with; I am currently using the Wacom Creative Stylus 1. I am not keen on recommending it, however, because it feels like painting with a giant crayon. I unfortunately purchased the Wacom Creative Stylus 2 and found afterwards that it is not compatible with many painting apps, including Procreate. A few friends have given good reviews of the Jot Adonit Stylus, which is far cheaper and compatible with a lot of apps. 

In the Procreate app, I created a set of swatches in the color picker that are the standard colors of my basic oil painting palette, plus a few white convenience colors so that I don't have to constantly mix the same color over and over. Using these swatches helped me in getting a similar look to traditional paintings, although I think I could still fine tune the set. 

In addition to that, I am still trying to refine my brushes to find a working method that mimics traditional brushes. Procreate provides a set of brushes that you can then customize, but  I have yet to find some that are to my liking.

************************************************************

I recently purchased a refurbished Samsung Slate series 7 because it can run Photoshop, Painter, Zbrush and other programs that you usually run on a full machine but on a tablet. 
I plan to merge over to that in the coming weeks. 

Also, I have some really exciting projects I am currently working on that I can't post about. Soon! Please stay tuned for more stuff! 

Cheers!

Composition Breakdowns

In a recent class I took at the Animation Collaborative with the inspiring and seriously talented Armand Baltazar, we had an assignment to break down the compositions of narrative illustrations from visual development artists. 

We had to 

1. write one sentence describing the story of the piece, 

2. describe the point of view (POV) of the piece, and 

3. describe the emotion intended by the piece. 

After that, we drew over the composition breaking down these elements:

 4. the division of the graphic plane (the graphic shapes that make up the composition),

5. Redline the division of depth and mark the foreground, middle ground, and far background,

6. Mark the center of interest,

7. Redline where the eye moves across the piece.

This was an excellent exercise in understanding the architecture of a picture and the thought that goes into guiding the viewers' eye directly to the center of interest. I highly recommend analyzing compositions in this manner for anything from drawings, paintings, and even sculptures to increase your own narrative compositional chops.  

Although the exercise appears simple, I learned a great deal by analyzing each piece. There were some pieces that I haven't posted which failed compositionally; the artist meant the eye to go to one place but unfortunately the eye focused elsewhere. 

**********************************************************************************

In other news, I am still working on painting illustrations, about 20 in all, from three personal projects that I am really excited about. My paintings and development pieces have been on pause since January because I am designing on an exciting unannounced project at Ghostbot. 

In the mean time, I've been doing some digital speed paintings which are akin to exercising. I usually dedicate about 3 hours a week to either digital speed painting or alla prima plein air sketches done traditionally, either Friday morning or Saturday morning, and then spend maybe about an hour for editing video and posting. Starting in two weeks, I'll begin posting my efforts once a week on Mondays here and on my youtube and vimeo channels.

Please stay tuned!

Year of the [Electric] Sheep

In 1968, Philip K. Dick wrote a groundbreaking book, “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep?”, which was later turned into the film, “Blade Runner”,directed by Ridley Scott. Perhaps the best (at least to me) science fiction film and story of all time. Douglass Trumbull designed all of the practical effects, a profound inspiration on science fiction film and myself all these years. In honor of Year of the Sheep, I did this speed paint.

An auspicious year. 

Year of the [ Electric ] Sheep. 

Enjoy.

Credits: Recorded with Camtasia Studio. Edited in iMovie. Painted in Photoshop CS 6. Initial base layer texture from Cgtextures.com. Custom brushes. Observational study of a sculpture I photographed in the Louvre in 2012, a marble vase originally in Versailles. Music by Vangelis, "Blade Runner".