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

Word of the Day & New Painting Demo

What is the word of the day? Progress(be it slow and arduous) Here's a close up of what I've been working on. I'm also showing you the ref of the hand I'm using. Thank you all my friend/models. Again, I'm a big photo ref/ref in general advocate. At least until you've gained a better understanding of anatomy, light, form color etc where you can start to manipulate it more successfully. Something I constantly try to improve on.

And I also have a new video of here with a close up and explanation of my process and technique. If something is not clear feel free to ask questions. And for a small fee I'll answer them;) I jest.

Prooooooggggrrrreeeeesssssssss...

Progress is slowing down the more I start refining. So the changes are going to be more subtle. I took another photo today to do some digital adjustments to see where exactly I want to take this piece. Should the hair remain light or should I go a little darker with more saturation?...

Progress

This deadline is fast approaching so I'll try and post more of these as I go. Hopefully, at the end of each day I'll make some decent progress. I'm trying not to get too caught up in details but it's a bit of a back and forth game at this point. Almost no avoiding it. A very annoying aspect about painting large watery washes on wc paper is the curling of the paper. Other than that I love it.

As you can see here I'm just starting to pull out shapes from vague darker masses to refine. Esp around the face and shoulders. There's some interesting translucent, layery things happening here that I'm liking. I plan on introducing more color within the lighted area of the torso but I want to be careful not to overdo it.