The Blessing and the Curse

I've been busy this weekend, having the privilege to go with friends to Disney World for a friend's birthday, so I didn't have much time for painting, but I do have a ton of pictures for inspiration thanks to my wonderful friend who let me come. It was awesome, and to those of you who know what I mean, Do you match? ;) Traveling on a road trip with art friends is awesome. Have any of you ever heard of Disneybound? We all participated )all eight of us) and I chose to dress as Megara. Very fun and we all enjoyed the little details Disney loves to throw into their architecture and lines to just complete the experience.

Does anyone else see the happy monkey with a butterfly on his nose? Maybe that one's just me. There are days that I feel some of my non-art friends miss out on life. The beauty is everywhere around them-  in the rain, in the shadow, reflections, refractions, lightings- subtle things. Disney takes advantage of all that- it's just meant to be appreciated by artists. Really, normal seeing must be boring. I would have to say though, that 'great power' of seeing comes with the 'responsibility' of desiring to fix ugly things- or at least relieve the pain of seeing those ugly things by plucking my eyes out. There is a spot to eat pizza in the Animal Kingdom. If you desire to keep your eyes in their sockets, don't go to the room all the way in the back. It has a horrific mural painted on it. It wouldn't be so horrific, except we are at Disney and everything else is so pretty.

Ok. This is the little part in the back. It's a fall scene on the right and a winter scene on the left wall. Above is the corner of that room where the winter and fall scene meet. To whomever painted this mural: what in the world made you think that  the blue snow scene and the the gaudily red fall scene could be harmonized by sticking in a viridian green glowing leafy tree in between them. Anyone??

Secondly. I hate this bear. It is stylized. That's cool. Cubs are cute. However, just to the right of this is the cutest realistically rendered baby seal that I wish I could hug and squeeze. That seal makes these bears look like awkward stick figures.

Disney. If you are reading this: PLEASE LET ME REPAINT THIS ROOM. I will make it amazing and worthy to be in the Animal Kingdom. Til then, please white wash it for me.
  Gaghhh!!! Alright, I'm done with my tirade now.

Gregory Manchess: A Titan of Illustration

Above the Timberline Gregory Manchess

I love looking at the best of the best, but when it comes to viewing inspiring illustrations, I love looking at Manchess. His illustrations are so brilliantly active and- well having seen him painting in action via video- I know that his skills are just as dynamic. Bold solid brushwork, simple, impressive, and swift, it kind of makes me a little jealous. He just put up a post on Muddy Colors and I loved reading his thoughts on composition. Well, I almost love everything he writes about painting. He continually makes me question what the difference is between fine art and illustration. He's made several paintings for National Geographic creating a series on the pirates of the Wydah. Very impressive work. Definitely recommend his latest post.

Landscape Basics

Mobile, Alabama Trip

So today, I get to talk aerial perspective. This won't be rocket science by any means, but here is what I think through. First and foremost when making a landscape, I check to see how much depth is going to be given to the piece and probably because I've been using photoshop for so long, I think of it in layers. This own has three 'layers.' Foreground, Midground, and Background.  Value and Color are the two considerations I constantly keep in mind as I laydown the paint.

Value is the lightness or darkness of a pigment. The darkest and lightest values are in the foreground, so when I putting down paint, I locate where those darkest darks and lightest lights are. In this cause, the sky and the reflection of it in the water is the brightest and the darkest darks in the shadow of the nearest tree.

The midground has darker highlights in the lights and brighter darks in the shadows.

Finally, the background even more diminishes in contrast with more subdued light and shadow.

Color. The foreground has the truest colors in it. True yellows and reds and oranges are most intense in this 'layer.' The more distant an object is, the less brilliant those colors will be, usually. I will say usually because all 'rules when dealing with color can always be broken. That's part of the beauty of painting.

The midground as I've said, loses the brilliance of it's yellows and reds the greater distance (usually). The more air between you and the object you're looking at, the more you can see the effect of it. The sun during the day, makes the atmosphere of our sky blue and it is this blue that tints the air, more and more perceptively the greater the distance.

The background has the most 'blue,' or cooling effect. The saturation of the colors diminishes and more and more white is added as a way to cool the colors and lighten the values.

Finally, there is a crispness to the foreground and loss of clarity to the edges in the background.

As I said before, all those 'rules' can be broken.

Desert Saguaro Sunset, Kevin McCain

At sunset,  the atmosphere and the clouds shift into the red spectrum and affect color similar to the way that the blue sky changes color, that effect increasing with distance. Here the reds are strong in the distance and all those general rules I gave earlier are thrown out. No matter what rules you are given, the best thing to do is observe life and light and how it reacts in reality. If you can, paint it in reality. Photos lose a great deal of true color and value patterns because they are captured by a machine. Trust your eyes and not the machine's. You'll be surprised how much color and subtlety you'll find with them when you look for it. 

Hope that helps. If you want a really good reference for color and such, I definitely recommend James Gurney's Color and Light. It's the best most comprehensive book on color theory and I love Gurney's writing style. Very easy to understand and down to earth. No 'artsy highend' impossible to understand stuff and beautiful, beautiful art. Love it. :)

Muddy Colors

If you're interested in illustration and you want to know what the best of them are up to, I recommend MuddyColors. Sometimes they annoy me because I see more than I wish to see, but their advice and input is very valuable and sound. This week, they've posted what I've known for at least two years now. Artists who are good at what they do aren't actually motivated by money. They do what they do cause they love to do it so they continue doing it and get better because they love it. Putting monetary value or commissioning can make the artist nervous and the creativity dies and with it the quality of the work. Been there, done that. Here's the video from the UK that Eric Fortune posted by Dan Pink. No, I'm not making up the names.

Left brain versus right brain. Outer-motivation vs. Self-determination. Very nice.

Mobile Fine Art Park

Here's another quicky. This one is roughly two hours as well. I was going to tape it, but my recorder failed again, so you'll have to bear with the still of where I left it. I started out with the picture at 72 dpi so I could block in very quickly, and after I got the initial paint down, I brought it up and started detailing what I wanted in the trees and the water.

I would like to add the people to the painting as well, so we'll see what happens, but seriously, this was a beautiful day. The play of the light off these southern trees was awesome and there were far more birds here than I've put in, I just haven't decided which to add in. Creation is an incredibly wonderful thing for those who seek it's beauty.

Goose Sketch

Well, I think I might have been able to pick up a few things from the Sargent exercise. I was trying it out and think that I have and good way to get to the rough sketch very quickly, or at least quickly for me anyway. I was able to go to the Mobile Museum of Art, which has an amazing collection of work, which inspired me to work on this one. There is a park and a couple bridges to explore there which are awesome. Loved it. There were geese living there. I'm assuming they'll be traveling back to Canada now that it is getting warm, but I took some shots of them and this is what I came up with in 45 min. I loved working in the cool colors of the shadow and the light through the trees was hitting the grass just perfectly. My model was very willing to give me his best poses.

KISS

I have this tendency to overcomplicate things, so I've tried to follow my mother's advice and KISS, Keep It Simple Stupid. I've been learning how to do that through Sargent, master of simplicity. Simplicity, is overwhelmingly more complex than it seems. It is exact, calculated, but elegant. I love it, but it is SO hard. I mean, copying him is one thing; being able to make it myself from what I see- difficult- very difficult. This is the end for this one. I have too much going on to finish the grass properly, but it was really fun. I wish that I lived in a world where flower gardens had amazing lanterns that needed to be lit. Hope you like it.

Question though- any suggestion on who to study next? I'm probably going to look up some other digital artists and see who they studied on their journeys. I wouldn't mind ideas.

I Won't Choose Sides

There has always been this battle between pure art and illustration and then there is the battle between digital and traditional media. Let me establish right now, I LOVE both.  I love the texture and expression and variety just as much in one as the other. Most artists line up on one side or the other. meh. I get bored too easily to totally devote myself to one or the other. I understand the perks to each. Traditional has original works- it can't be copied- it's unique and no one can have another one.  Beautiful-  I love digital as well. It's flexible and dynamic. Ideas flow quickly. Nothing stops you from changing those ideas and there's no worry about waiting for paint to dry too slow or too quick. There are giants on either side of the line. Men and women I admire and read up on. Like Nick Harris here. He makes me smile.

Enjoy the art. Keep your preferences, but appreciate the work that goes into both. It's way too awesome not too.