Thursday, January 29, 2015

Final 5 day art challenge post

Final post for the 5 day art challenge, where I show 3 pieces of my work each time. To keep with the "sketchiness" theme overall, I will end with some quick observational exercises. Plain and simple - these are done in a brief sitting and are meant to work the eye out a bit. The top 2 focus on precision and are very slow, the middle are quick, mostly 2 minute gestures from a live model, and the bottom bunch are 5 to 20 minute compositional thumbnails at a couple of Baltimore cafés.









Wednesday, January 28, 2015

5 Day Art Challenge, Day 4

Day 4 of the 5 day art challenge, where I post 3 pieces of my work each day. I missed yesterday. Too bad :)
For today, I am posting some more color sketches, this time purely from imagination. I think these are the kinds of sketches I do most frequently with digital media. Many times I begin these on my tablet when I'm having coffee or tea somewhere, then work them up at home. I am mostly sticking to mood with these, without getting too much into the nitty-gritty. The top one started as a piece I did for a friend's project, which I then decided to take a bit further.
With some rare exceptions like faint glows for fire or fireflies, when making these types of pieces I like to keep it as "manual" as possible, without the use of effects or filters. Often, as I admire other work online, I see what otherwise would have been perfectly good pieces muddled by "color aberration" or other post effects that detract from the original strokes. Sometimes these fx are useful, but most of the time they are unnecessary, which is why I try to keep it simple.


Sunday, January 25, 2015

5 Day Art Challenge, Day 3

Day 3 of the ‪#5DayArtChallenge‬, where each day I post 3 pieces of artwork I've done.
This time I am posting three quick color studies I did. Every now and then I take a trip through streetview and do a quick sketch of something I like (observed, never color-picked or painted over). Then I go in and make changes to the layout and color, sometimes many, sometimes almost none, depending. Again, trying to keep the strokes simple and loose for stuff like this. I realize how little I know when I start to go into detail and it starts to get that "overworked" look. There's always room to grow.


Saturday, January 24, 2015

5 Day Art Challenge - Day 2

Day 2 of the #5DayArtChallenge, where each day I post 3 pieces of artwork I've done.
I am focusing purely on loose sketches for this one. I enjoy doing line work the most - I've been doing it since I was born :)
Veteran animation master Glen Keane, during a talk about his art and passion in general, said that the work he enjoyed looking at the most, and that he found most inspiring, were the line scribbles of small children. There is a playfulness and character to children's line drawings, and it gets lost once our hands and minds get conditioned. I like keeping my line playful whenever I can - it's a nice counterpoint to the strictures and rigidity of everyday "adult" work.





Friday, January 23, 2015

5 day art challenge, day 1

So I'm not too familiar with the "5 day art challenge", but I've been nominated by Steve Ogden to post 3 pieces of artwork I've done, every day for 5 days, so here it goes!
For the first batch, I'll start with some quick sketches that I liked. Two are from life, one is not (as you can obviously tell)...