"Lost" Details

"Lost" Underground Art Project Progess

Here's a little insight into the process I went through for this "Lost" piece. My original idea was a rather quick sketch with a marker to put down the essence of the piece before I forget it as I'm constantly being distracted. The good thing about sketching with a marker is that I'm not committing to anything too early. I know that things tend to change a lot from my sketch stage to the final drawing after reference is taken. At this stage I'm concerned with concept and composition mostly.

After refining the sketch a bit I then had my neighbor(great guy) pose for me. Using my photo ref and trying to keep the freshness of my original sketch I produce the final drawing onto watercolor paper.

Note about photo ref. If you are trying to produce a more realistic painting. Good reference is key.........Good reference is key. However, and you'll hear this again, you don't want to become a slave to your reference. You do want to refer to it, try to understand it, and apply the information it gives you to your work. Also, using reference doesn't take away all the spontaneity of the piece at all. It enhances my work and I feel I can still be as stylized as I want and yet have unlimited spontaneous opportunities.

At this point I can use my final drawing to make some value or color studies using photoshop. I produced one shown here that I thought I liked but decided to change. After having a little paint thrown down I'm able to produce a more refined color study(also shown above). This can be very helpful if I find myself not quite sure where exactly I want the piece to go.

Having a good sense of value and color saves a lot of time. I tend to build up these structures slowly with the acrylic. If I know something is going to be black from the get go. I can be more aggressive with my painting. I also gives you a good frame of reference for the rest of the piece.

You can view the final here.

From what I heard people where camping outside of Gallery 1988 the day before the opening! Wow. You can view the show in it's entirety here.

The Lost Underground Art Project Tues Dec 15th

Ronie Midfew Arts and DamonCarltonAndAPolarBear.com are proud to announce the LOST Underground Art Project, an art show at Gallery1988:LA celebrating one of the greatest television programs of all-time. This event will mark the first time that all 16 prints will be seen in one room! In addition to the prints, over 20 artists will be creating original, LOST-inspired paintings and sculptures (all available for purchase!) to commemorate the event.

These artists are:

Alex Pardee - Ben Strawn - Carlos Ramos - Chris Ryniak - Dan Lydersen - Dan May - Danielle Buerli - Edwin Ushiro - Eric Fortune - Jeff McMillan - Jeremy Asher Lynch - Julian Callos - Ken Garduno - Kirk Demarais - Lauren Gregg - Leontine Greenberg - Luke Berliner - Mark Bodnar - Mark Brown - Martin Wittfooth - Misha (from the mind of Paul Scheer) - Ralph Cosentino - Scott Campbell - Wade Schin - 64 Colors - Brent Nolasco - Dave Pressler - Jason Limon - Jeremiah Ketner - Jesse Hernandez - Jon Burgerman - KaNo - Leah Palmer - Lunabee - Motorbot - Nathan Spoor - Nemo - Pocketwookie - Reactor 88 - Scribe - Pretty in Plastic

The show opens Tuesday, December 15th from 7-10PM and the creators of LOST are attending the event. This night will also have MANY surprises.

You might want to line up early for this one!

(This show runs through Dec. 24th, and the Los Angeles gallery will be open on Sundays through the rest of December from 12-5PM, in addition to our normal business hours of Tues. - Sat. from 11AM-6PM.)

15% off Prints

If you're interested in a Print now would be a good time to buy.

Holiday Sale
December 9-28, 2009

All items in the store: 15% OFF

This Christmas, why not give someone you love a gift that will last forever.In the spirit of the holidays, from now until Christmas day, we are offering15% off all items in our store. Order as many prints as you want the discount applies to everything in our inventory.

Choose from a great selection of limited edition prints at www.apapertiger.com and type in the coupon code, "HOLIDAY" during checkout.

"Under a Tree"

Transferring aka The Devil

Back in the day I would make a sketch. If I liked it enough I would take photo reference and do a final drawing. Then I would transfer it on to watercolor paper( via light table, graphite transfer, projector). With all the details worked out it could be tricky and not uncommon to completely leave out parts of the drawing. If you've done this you know it sucks and it's still not ready to be painted at this point. Because it's now the worst drawing you've ever seen in your life. It, again, must be redrawn and refined to make look clean, fresh, and natural looking again. Transferring tends to suck the life from a drawing and the artist as well. Ahhhh, now we were ready to paint:)

So over the years. I've learned a few things to speed up the process and keep things fresh. This may not be for everybody. Probably not even my younger self. But I've grown into it and I'm comfortable with it now.

As shown above, I have scanned and enlarged my sketches. I pieced them together with as little overlap as possible to cut down on dark overlappy areas while using the light table (an old window pane and a lamp works fine) or if you're working away from your studio a window during the day works as well.

I basically make sure I'm happy with the composition and basic anatomy of my sketch before enlarging it. I want it refined enough to communicate the idea or concept. However,I don't want to commit too much detail to the drawing at this point. Because I know when I take my reference it's going to give me tons of great info and random goodness (ie folds, drapery, anatomy etc)

Because the sketch is so loose I don't have to worry about losing vital information. Esp if I'm transferring onto heavier 300lb paper where lines become diffused as it's projected through the paper. I then loosely and softly transfer the sketch with a 2b or 3b pencil. It's dark and soft so it's easy to see and easy to erase. (take about 5 minutes tops) So without much detail thus far I've made a sketch and basically transferred my sketch. I don't think the method of transfer will make any difference.

I'm saving time by doing my final drawing directly onto the surface I work on. In my case it's watercolor paper. So it's fresh and I don't have to transfer it again once I have it worked out and all the details are plugged in.

Something to consider. Because I paint so thin I depend on the surface of my paper. I'm very conscious of my drawing and erasing. I do not want to disrupt the surface too much. Not at all if possible. So don't carve in your drawing with your pencil and don't erase with one of those hard ass pen erasers(do they even make those anymore?). This can be scary so if interested you may want to try it on a smaller piece before committing a lot of time and energy on a larger painting.

Vinyl and Plush

Some cool things going on if you're into toys. On the West Cizzoast a new toy shop TAG(ToyArt Gallery) opened up. And for all the locals here in Columbus I saw a really cool Plush show at Rivet Gallery. Def worth checking out:)

Using Acrylics

"Hello,
I just wanted to ask if you would be willing to help explain your painting process a little? I don't quite understand how you manage to get your acrylics so diluted, yet paint evenly. When I try this (it's hard enough to mix it smooth without any clumps!), I usually get uneven streaks.

A big difference, of course, is that I don't have any water colour paper on hand most of the times. I have been trying to get back into painting in sketchbooks first, a la James Jeans' sketchbooks.

In any case, I haven't much time for painting most nights, hence my using acrylics at the moment rather than oils.

Thanks for any advice!"


Thanks for the question. Acrylic is very versatile. I tend to water it down(I just use water) to a fairly thin consistency. I would try different consistencies to see what fits you. Starting off with a medium viscosity acrylic helps a lot ie Liquitex's Soft Body acrylics or Golden's Fluid acrylics. I usually add a drop of water (an eye dropper comes in handy) mix it around a bit then add more drops and mix, gradually mixing as I thin it out so I don't have chunks floating around within a watery mixture.

Using other wells in my water color palette, I'll have 1 w/a more intense solution, another w/ a medium intense solutioin, and a 3rd with a very thin solution all of the same color. So if I need a more subtle change in my painting I can use the very thin solution.

I paint in very thin washes on watercolor paper. Different papers react differently with the paint (hotpress vs coldpress vs illustration board vs canvas etc) It's not the fastest way to paint. One should recognize this. Don't have expectations to do a great painting in a day. My paintings go through a very unfinished "ugly" stage before they get refined at the very end. If you're just getting started or trying to get back into painting. I would recommend working with a vey simple still life to practice your craft, technique, and observational skills. When you're comfortable with your skills you can apply them to your personal work. If you're trying to be realistic good reference is key. Also, before picking up the brush be sure the drawing is exactly the way you want it. It's the foundation of your painting. If the drawing is off it doesn't matter how rendered something is it's going to be wrong.

Hope that makes sense.

Good Luck:)

"A Place that I Remember" Detail

Limited edition Prints of this image are available here.

"Apart From Falling" detail

Almost forgot a requested detail. For anyone interested there are other details from this piece in April of of this year further down on the blog. On another note. I just updated my website with the new work from the recent "Go East" show. Will post some details, progress pix etc. soon.

Illux Con 09

Illux Con was Awesome! Tons of great artist's and their wonderful work. It's a great opportunity to chat with some your favorite illustrators and to oogle over their original works from just a few inches away. Lots of demos and panels to check out. They even had a live bronze pouring! After hours at the lounge is a gangload of fun. I left physically exhausted(mostly from alcohol and laughter) and artistically reinvigorated. For a little insight from last year's inaugural show check out Pat Wilshire and the Dynamic Duo from SideBar Nation here

Catching Up

I'm still trying to wrap up a few things and catch up from my trip to Illux Con. It was great! I'll post some pix soon. Here's a piece I'm going back into to tweak out a bit. It's nice to work on a smaller painting like this after some of the more recent, larger works that take so long to finish. So another 80+ hours and I should be finished. . . . . . . . . that was an art joke;) I'm not THAT slow. More like 60-70 ish hours.

As I've mentioned I'll be teaching at the Columbus College of Art & Design in Spring. The lesson today is don't bite off more than you can chew. I noticed a lot of ambitious students who were working on giant paintings/drawings but not really finishing them. The quality of the work is more impressive than the size. Or at least that's what I keep telling myself.

New Prints Available!

Eric Fortune and Joao Ruas:
"A Place That I Remember" and "Haunted # 20"

Paper Tiger has just released two new prints from Eric Fortune and Joao Ruas.

Both being successful illustrators, Eric and Joao are starting to really make their mark on the gallery scene as well. We were lucky enough to work with them on pieces from their most recent show in New York.

...and now you can purchase these limited edition prints exclusively on Paper Tiger!

New Painting Vid

It's 300am. I have a lot of stuff to pack still and I have to leave the house at 6am for IlluxCon. Joy. Last year's was really fun and very humbling. Should be good... once I get a little power nap and some coffee. I'll leave you with this hour and a half vid from a piece "Kingdom Lost" that was recently in the "Go East" Show over in NY. The progress is very slow here because I'm gradually building up and tweaking details as opposed to the large, fun to watch, drippy washes I tend to do in the beginning of a painting. See vid here

Go East "Under a Tree" Detail

Things are still quite busy. I'm also preparing for IlluxCon which begins this Thursday in Altoon, PA. In the meantime here's a detail from "Under a Tree". A painting that was part of an opening this past weekend in New York. Thanks for all the support!

"Wanting" Detail

I've included the deckle-edged portion of the paper so that you can get a sense of how I've been presenting the work as of late. Shout out to Frank ;)

"Go East" Opens this Sat Nov 7th

LeBasse Projects in NY
42 Rivington St. New York, NY 10002
7-11pm

See a video Preview here

Go East Gallery Show

"Go East" Facebook Page

Go here to check out a few sneak peeks of some work for the upcoming show.

Date:	Saturday, November 7, 2009
Time:	7:00pm - 11:00pm
Location:	LeBasse Projects NY
Street:	42 Rivington
City/Town:	New York, NY

For a special three-day-only event, Los Angeles-based contemporary gallery LeBasse Projects expands its horizons to the East Coast to proudly offer New York City a collection of new work by some of its best and brightest talent.

“Go East” presents the city with LeBasse Projects' penchant for fresh, innovative artists at both emerging and established career levels by way of this exhibition featuring Yoskay Yamamoto, Tessar Lo, Edwin Ushiro, Joao Ruas, Eric Fortune, Mia, and Nate Frizzell.

"A Muse Among Stars" Detail

I just realized I had posted this previously. But instead of making you search for it here it is again. I'll post another soon. Busy wrapping up my last piece for the "Go East" Show in NY and what I thought would take a few days to finish up is obviously going into overtime. But I think it'll be worth it. Thanks Janet!

"True Self" @ Jonathan LeVine Gallery NY

Here are two of some of my favorites. Subtle Phallic suggestions??? HA! It's titled "Jelly Dong" ..... must...pull self..away from.....shiney...on screen Jelly Dong... And of course Gerard DuBois. Love it! See the rest of the show here.

This Could Be Your Next Detail???

Thanks for all the feedback. Everyone seems to be enjoying the details. So let me know what piece you would like to see a detail of and I'll post whichever piece that seems to be in demand.

"Beyond the Past" Detail

This one is from my "Lost in Light" show at LeBasse Projects Gallery.

"Languish" detail

Thanks guys. Here's another close up.

"A Peaceful Rest" detail

I'm currently busy finishing up work for the "Go East" show in NY with LeBasse Projects Gallery. In the meantime I thought I'd post up a decent detail from my previous show "Daughters of Our Nature" featured at Roq La Rue. I'll post more details from that show soon.

Hi*Fructose Vol 13

Annie Owens interviewed me for the current issue of Hi* Fructose It's humbling being represented alongside some amazing artists in this issue. Joe Sorren, Lori Earley, Sam Weber among others.

Baby Tattooville 09

This looks like a ton of fun and rather intimidating as well. Great coverage by Arrested Motion here

Columbus College of Art & Design

I'll be teaching "Illustration Workshop" this coming Spring at CCAD with Thom Glick. I visit as a guest often enough to talk to the students but this is my first teaching gig. Thom will be doing his thing for the first half of the semester and I'll take over the second. I'm basically going to go over my process and sprinkle what I know about the biz in here and there. Hope to have some serious, motivated students.

"Go East" Opening Sat Nov 7th

LeBasse Projects presents:
ʻGo Eastʼ group exhibition in New York

LeBasse Projects NY
42 Rivington St.
New York, NY 10002
November 5th – 7th, 2009

Opening reception: Saturday, November 7th, 7-11pm
New York, NY – Los Angeles based contemporary gallery
LeBasse Projects expands its horizons to the East Coast. LeBasse Projectsʼ temporary exhibition offers New York a collection of work by some of the galleryʼs best and brightest talent. “Go East”
presents the galleryʼs penchant for fresh, innovative artists featuring Yoskay Yamamoto, Tessar Lo,
Edwin Ushiro, Joao Ruas, Eric Fortune(that's me! Hip Hip................hello?), Mia, and Nate Frizzell.

New York Show ...

As much as I hate to admit it. I've really been struggling with this particular painting for the past several days. Last night I finally had a break through. It's really helping me to stay focused and motivated. Although, there's much more work to be done. These newer pieces are for my upcoming show in New York Nov 6th-8th. I'm aiming to have all the work done by mid Oct...yikes.

Some new shots

Art Out Loud

aka the day after. Sam Weber, Donato Giancola, Greg Manchess, James Gurney, Charles Vess. Watching these guys work was outstanding! Very inspiring and informative.

Spectrum Exhibition!

Spectrum's Exhibition was Awesome. Met a lot of great people & outstanding artists. Had a lot of fun and came home totally inspired and ready to work:) Just wish I had more time to hang out with more people :( Big Thanks to everyone involved in setting up this great event!

More progress

Progress

At this stage I'm just laying down lot of loose washes. Building up the background slowly. After a few washes this piece went a different direction than I expected which is kind of exciting. Certain elements, usually in the background, have flexibility for happy little accidents to happen. Establishing the dark of the hair gives a good reference for value within the painting.

Been a while

Made a new video today. I thnk I'll do another when I'm at a point where I can actually talk about what I'm doing without all the waiting for stuff to dry.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n7r4k7LnZLg

Today I paint.

Spectrum Exhibition 2 Sept 11th

It's official. I bought my tickets today:) I'm sure it's going to be another ridiculously amazing show. And!...Art Out Loud the next day. I totally need this.

Good Weekend

Wrapped up another drawing and here I'm bringing my next one up to par. Once all the drawing is done I'll have several paintings I can work on simultaneously. This is helpful in keeping work fresh. If I get burned out on one I can switch up. Or paint on one while another dries. I think it has sped things up for me a bit. Esp in the beginning when I'm doing large washes. Just getting to that point seems to take forever ughhh.

New Print Available

"A Want to Believe" giclee print on watercolor paper now available from Gallery Nucleus. Interested in purchasing? go here

To see other print available check out
http://www.ericfortuneprints.blogspot.com/

Progress

Here I'm just refining the drawing. For the main figures and other important elements I like to get them just the way I like before applying paint. In this stage it's easier for me to correct mistakes or make adjustments while in graphite. Sometimes I will do subtle rendering that in the end become lost or completely covered up. So I'm trying not to put in too much detail in areas that I know are going to be dark. Also there's no real sense of value at this point. So what may seem dark is probably not even close. I'll smack some paint on here soon and have a better sense of where things need to be. I have a good idea of what this will look like in my head. Haven't done a value study yet. Wouldn't be a bad idea. And will probably save me some time in the long run. Why does getting started take so long!?

Early Stages

Getting started on a new painting. At this point I'll start to do a finished drawing using my reference. Taking time to for a photo shoot then filtering through all the pix for ones that work, or parts of a photo that works, takes a lot of time. But I think it saves time in the long run. Some people feel like this may stifle their style or creativity. I've found that it has actually enhanced my work a lot. On top of that I also feel I have plenty of room for spontaneity and random artistic goodness. The trick is not to become a slave to your reference.

Spectrum Exhibition 2 Sept 11th

There's also "Art Out Loud" the following day Sept 12th. Some of the top fantastic artists will be doing live demos. More info here This is going to be a great weekend to be in NY

Eric Fortune Prints

I get asked often enough that I decided to create a new blog dedicated to prints. Currently I have 1 print available. More on the way very soon:) Stay posted.

Thanks

http://www.ericfortuneprints.blogspot.com/

sketch

Something I'm working on. It may change still. We'll see.

"Allure" Progress shots