No room to move, just work.

Oh yeah almost forgot, meant to say something last post, but I added a few new people to the people to check out list. Ryan Burosh and Chris Magee are 2 artist I work with at the art store, good peoples, good skillz, and Megan Zoeller is a friend from WAY back, killer tattoo artist. I'll add morre as I go, and hopefully talk a few other people into starting blogs/websites.

I always like seeing what other peoples studios and work areas look like so I figured I'd share mine. So here goes.

Here's the computer set up in my living room. I moved the desk closer to the tv so I can have all three screens hooked up, although I only use 2 at a time, one for the main image I'm working on, and the 2nd for reference, other work ect. I'll occasionally use the tv as a screen, but it's nicer to have it playing music and scrolling through my favorite artist while I work on my laptop hooked up to the 2nd screen to the right.

My easel area, in the dining room next to the kitchen. Most important thing here is to have plenty of room to step back, especially when your working on something large. You can barely see the large glass table to the left with the orange box full of oil paints, but that's where I put my materials when painting.... and I have another small glass table that I'm really tempted to make into a glass palette. Probably will heh. Then there will be absolutely no where for any one to put their things, drinks and such.... not a super inviting environment to hang out in but what ever.

The first closet filled with supplies and such. I need to organize it again, but it's been a while since I did the traditional stuff, so that will be in November.... tomorrow.

More storage space, another closet filled with large area art materials, and old drawings some from classes back in college.

This my bedroom where the speed bag and drying table are. I use this mainly for priming and constructing cradles and boards, as well as repairing and anything else that requires a lot of room and a flat surface. Its a clean spot right now cause I just moved everything around, plus a lot of what I've been doing lately has been on the comp, this next month that will change for the Wheeler show in December.

If you spend a lot of time in your studio, or if your home is your studio I highly recommend getting some form of exercise equipment or something that helps you burn off energy, or work some up when you've been in front of your comp/easel for to long. Of course I picked the nosiest one, so it doesn't help much at 3am when my neighbors are trying to sleep. But it sure is a hell of a lot of fun, sorry downstairs.



Here's the muscle of the operation. She makes sure clients pay up on time, with chips and dip.

Precision to make the decision

Here's one of the finished images for the website update.

More work going on the website

Some more line work of some of the things going on the new site. Hopefully it'll all be up by Saturday night else I might be spending another Halloween inside, which sucks cause I really enjoy the holiday. Had I thought of it earlier and didn't procrastinate on getting my site up I would have started something new this year as tradition. Been really into masks and strange morphed faces, so I figure if I remember to do so maybe I'll start making masks for Halloween next year, but not like latex rubber ones as much as wood carved, various materials, almost like historical and tribal looking. Chris at work the other day suggested that I look for good reference for masks from a guy named Benda. Apparently this guy was the ILM of his day for mask making when theater was more prominent, during the 1920's I think. Looked at a few and yes, they are in fact THE SHIT.




All three are Benda Masks, thx google image search.

To be completely honest it seems like a lot of things from the 20's seem to be real appealing right now. Not a huge fan of the flapper look, but the theatrical makeup and other fashions are so much more appealing than a lot of the stuff we got today. On a side note, seriously, I hate people who wear crocs, have some dignity.
A friend of mine who's getting married in the next few months posted a great picture of what she wants her wedding makeup to look like, just classic, but not even sure if it's 20's.

Also check out the movie " Changeling," Angelina Jolie is rocking the style in there looking proper. Beware though, movie is crazy depressing. Especially if you got kids. Anyways look for the site on Sat.

Karate Zone

Working on some stuff to put up on my website which I hope to have done by the end of the week.... yeah it'll be interesting to see how awake I am by then. Here's a sketch tweaked in Illustrator, gonna color this one tonight. Gotta love late night illustration fests. I'll post what I get done.... if it's not horrible.

I bet your mom knows Karate

Not usually this pleased with my sketches, but for once I feel like I could take any one of these and make a decent image. Draw! More! Go go!



I'm not even gonna attempt to type a lot right now, it's to late, and I'm in to good of mood to make any sense. Lets just say even though I wasn't able to make the modeling session, I had a great time with good company, and some good ideas.

More sketchy sketchy

Don't ask whats up with the top left corner. I was feeling a little silly, but in hind sight, should a goofy ass face really take up this much room? I consider it a lost opportunity, and ponder what kind of person I'd be had I taken the alternate route, the one not leading to suckdom. I hate you silly face, a lot.




I usually go through about two pages of sketches before I find something I want to explore more. In this case I didn't really have an image in mind was just doodling, and I felt a little interested in this one.



Just some sketches that I did last night before getting entirely to drunk. I tried to get some more drawings done after the fact, and well...... hey at least I got these up right? All worth it though, even the hangover this morning, considering I just don't get out enough, so easy to fall into the same old routine. Maybe I just need to start caring a sketch book with me and draw my friends and people at the bar, although I've always had trouble drawing and holding conversation, so that would probably suck for my friends, haha.

On a side note, my dog seems to really enjoy Mastadon as well...... kinda funny to watch a Chihuahua go nuts on her stuffed polar bear that she demolished the minute you put certain types of music on. Just saying, my dog owns all and is hard as bricks.

Late night/ early morning doodles

Got a ton of stuff done sunday by around 8 o'clock so I decided to lay down for a quick nap so I could get up later and maybe do a little more. Woke up face planted in my couch around 3 am haha. Guess I was tired. Then I couldn't sleep so I put on some music (Mastadon is bad ass and kinda funny to listen to when drawing pretty things...) and decided to draw some floral designs.... yeah. Actually been interested in these for a while, had a great stock image book of some design motifs for borders that I can't seem to find, maybe a friend has it. One of the things I did today was a quick color comp for a friend of a drawing she did for a business card, which had a floral design in it, was one of the more fun things I did sunday so decided to do some of my own. Thinking about exploring more symbolism in animals, plants and flowers and maybe using these in some paintings I've been wanting to do for a while. I'll probably do a digital proof before I do the paintings so I'll post those when they're done.

More Illustrator cs4 work

More color tests from the logo job for my cousin.
I just realized this was the cymk version I sent for prints, so the black is coming out gray. I'll try and convert it at some point to give a better image, but right now it's low on the to do list, sorry!



The Fluer DI Ly I made from the previous composites and what attributes were chosen.

Tuesday night life drawing

No water colors or oils this time. Didn't feel happy enough with my initial drawings, so I stuck with dry media the whole night. Over all wasn't a horrible return, I feel so-so about my drawings, it was the first night back after not going for like 5 months maybe? Even longer possibly. Good times, hopefully I'll get back in there with some color, with oils or w/c. Won't be there for Thursday due to work, but hopefully soon.

Blue Alien

Water color sketches

And here's some line work added to this morning exercise to give it a lil more substance. Not a huge improvement, but I'll take it.



Here's the second sketch of the morning, pushing myself to leave line behind in favor of exploration of color. Composition is cheap, I jumped right in with out thinking about it, just saw colors and went for it. I cheated a little bit, added some reds to the right side to even out the color and add a pure red near the middle to stand out more and catch the eye.


Kind of a crappy first attempt, but what ever. Will probably go back over this later with solid black lines with micron pen, and maybe even some color. It was 7 o'clock in the morning, what can I say, I was tired.

Water color is something I haven't done extensively since college, and even then it was mainly for transparent washes. Over the last 5 years I've done a sketch or so here and there but wasn't until this last year and even more recently that I began to look at it again. Artist like Justin Sweet and legend Frank Frazetta made me rethink my approach to it as less of an illustration medium and more of a sketching and concept tool. It's great for final images but for me right now I'm loving it more for the approach you have to take with it, working light to dark, and its flexibility for being good at laying out line and blocks of color. Then an old friend got me looking at it again recently which has made me want to start going back to life drawing for some painting in oil and water color. Almost went last night but unexpected problems arose at work so I stayed to late to make the session, but that just gave me a chance to mess around with a cheap prang water color set this morning before jumping right in. And whats this? My buddy Ryan Burosh saved my oils for me? Oh you jeans wearing fool, thank god your diligent and kept them for me, was almost certain I lost them to my laziness. Can't wait till next Tues and Thurs to get back into the sessions.

Random nonsense

Just a bunch of sketches I was able to sneak in during slow times at work, and a sign I found from over a year ago that I did for the store. The price increased so the sign became obsolete, kinda silly but who hates kids and big ass robots.

Freak

Added two more names I completely forgot to add to the artist links, Jeremy Geddes, and Carlos Huante. Morning sketch got a little weird today. I started this one out as a ballpoint pin sketch, I find I tend to have more fun with my weird contorted figures when I start them with a good 'ol fashion pen and paper. When I start my figures in the digital format I can't help but change, distort, correct, and mold it to look proportional and correct contortion. I hate that, especially when I'm just doing a morning sketch, I want it to be loose, I want distortions, lack of proportion, and just a weird image to begin with.

Variations

Here's some Fleur de lys I'm racking up for a job, just some basic starts and explorations. When one is chosen I'll take it, split it in half in Photoshop to decide which side I like best, then duplicate it to get a perfect mirror image. I start out letting the little differences and changes to each side work for me, you never know what will come of the inconsistencies in life and work, working digitally has taught me to embrace this and use it as an advantage.