FAIL

Most of you have probably been through this, I'm in the process of pulling an all nighter( if you're a vampire like John Palencar it's called an "all dayer";). Hooray! I've been eating small meals throughout the day as well as a short power nap here and there for the long haul. If I eat too much the "itis" kicks in and I'm no good. It also helps to balance out the coffee intake I have set up in an IV. The IV is nice cause I don't have to waste time actually drinking. The diaper frees up....well, I'll leave that one alone.

I don't feel too horribly stressed out because I spent most of the time painting the important areas first, the figure. I'm at a stage now where I'm painting a lot of drapery and plan to try and loosen up a bit and enjoy the process. I'll most likely take it as far as I can within the next several hours and tweak it in photoshop. It's also printing quite small so the piece should tighten up nicely.

Here's a progress shot...yeah, defitely some photoshop. When time allows I'll be sure to go back into the original painting to do a lot of tweaking.

Final Drawing

Wrapping up the final drawing here. I actually used my photo ref on this one to do a rough final drawing on a small scale just to make sure the proportions were to my liking prior to transferring(Normally I just transfer my sketch and do all the adjustments on the watercolor paper). After a loose and quick transfer onto watercolor paper I again use my photo ref to refine my drawing and add in some details. I'm doing a little shading to establish the form of the figure. Although it's mostly planned out I want leave some of the drawing a little loose to allow for some random things to happen. I'm doing this piece larger than I originally planned but I think I can still get it done within a decent amount of time...a few weeks is what I'm planning for.

New Sketch

Something I'm workin on...

Hi Fructose Show Friday(today)

Today, March 11th, Roq la Rue Gallery in Seattle Washington will be hosting the 2011 Hi-Fructose Invitational art show. The show is open to the public and goes from 6-9pm. Here is my contribution. It looks like it's gonna be an awesome show.

What Makes an Artistic Genius?

By Eric Fortune.

If you've read enough artist's bios you may notice a pattern. Many include the statement "I've been drawing since I can remember". Years of practice and drive to master our craft definitely plays a part. It also reminds me of a saying I heard back in art school which is "Everyone has a 1000 bad drawings inside. The sooner we get those out the sooner we can start making better drawings". But is that enough?

I've had people approach me with their portfolio and show me work that was definitely not at a professional level. When asked how much time was spent on the work I've heard "about 10 hours". It makes you wonder why someone is trying to be in the field if 10 hours is the limit they've devoted to a "final" piece of art. Are people interested enough on a personal level to put in extra hours and to refine their work beyond what is necessary even when not asked or to pour themselves into a personal piece they aren't getting paid for? But perhaps this is a different issue.

So what are the factors that make a great artist? Why is anyone good at anything? This gets into the old nature vs nurture concept. A friend of mine shared this three part documentary series with me entitled "My Brilliant Brain ~The programmes look at a group of remarkable people and poses questions about the origins of genius: are these extraordinary abilities genetic, developed or acquired by accident?" This documentary isn't about art alone but does shed some light on these questions. It also makes me question my own upbringing and influences(my step father was actually a pretty good artist who would draw and paint with us as children sometimes. I think the bigger influence for me is probably cartoons in the 80's and video games which had me obsessively drawing robots for about 10 years. I actually made cut out paper robots that could transform into different vehicles with just a few folds. I later upgraded to comics and anime and my art upgraded to muscles, breasts, and a lot of sliced up body parts.....things haven't changed much since). This film was produced in 2007. I wonder what new things they may have learned since then. It also makes me wonder where I can get one of those magnetic brain pulsey thingies? FYI Small speaker magnets have no affect even after wearing them for days...so my friend told me. If you haven't seen this before it makes for a great listen while drawing, painting, and getting your art on in general.

View the video here: "My Brilliant Brain"

Great Crit on Muddy Colors

Dan Dos Santos did an awesome crit and paint over of this piece submitted to the MuddyColors Blog. I would highly recommend reading and observing the changes that the piece went through to get that "finished" look. To see how it turned out go here