Firestorm

One thing most people know about me is I love comics. It's like a melding of my two favorite things; art and reading. Anyway, there's this character called Firestorm from DC comics, and I don't know a whole lot about him. But, he's going to be featured in the new Flash TV show, and I had an idea for the new design of the character. It was a really fun piece to do. I painted this one on Photoshop using a wacom tablet (which, by the way, is a fantastic tool). I had fun and stayed up way too late finishing it, so I hope you enjoy it!

Just out of curiosity, who's you're favorite superhero? Leave answers in the comments!

Portrait

I make no promises on how many pictures I'll be posting with this prepared ground technique, since I am completely in love with it. That being said, this week's project was a little different from the last few. For one, it was bigger (15 x 30 in). I also relied much more heavily on the white pastel as a dynamic element. Also, it was a portrait. If you've read my alien post then you know that I struggle with drawing real, normal people. That being said, I spent the better part of two hours just on outlining this project. Still, overall it turned out to be a pretty successful piece. Enjoy!

Aliens

As I was sitting down to sketch last night, I realized something. NO matter how hard I try to sketch normal, everyday people or animals, it never works out. I always end up drawing aliens. I really don't know why, they just turn out that way. Whether I want them to or not. It's kind of irritating, actually. On the other hand, sometimes the aliens turn out kind of cool. So I thought I might share a few on here. I say a few because pretty much every page in every sketchbook I have either has dragons or aliens on it. It would be a very long post if I tried to share them all. Anyway, here we go.

And as a bonus 'cause I just realized I haven't posted this yet, and you probably don't come here to see random aliens, here's my newest drawing class assignment (it's the same process as the gourds). Enjoy!

Country and Me

No art today (sorry), but I thought I'd rant a little instead. Heads up to those looking for colleges, if you share my aversion to all things stereotypically country and western, Snow may not be the perfect place for you. (That being said, don't let your aversion drive you away from the awesome art program). Now one thing you've got to know about me is I hate country music with a passion. My roommates on the other hand, love it. As does most of the population of the college. So today in our drawing class, we were listening to soundtracks from classic westerns, (We were drawing skulls, so I guess Adam thought the music would be appropriate), and I was in a horrible mood. I guess at least one classmate shared my opinion though, and she changed the station. As soon as the soothing strains of Lord of the Rings started playing, I had an almost instantaneous mood swing, and was on top of the world. Everyone knows that music affects your mood, so I guess the moral is I love epic soundtracks, not country.

Sorry if you were expecting something deep, this post didn't really have a point to it. Also, don't judge my writing skills. I'm an Art Major, not an English major :)

Have a great week!

More Gourds

Thought it might be fun to do another step-by-step post, this time with the prepared ground technique. You saw last time what the prepared grounds look like, so I'll just start off with the actual drawing.
First, a quick sketch to get down the basic shape:

Then a full outline with details of shadows, complex shape, and the ground. This surface is really nice for charcoal. Since acrylic is so rubbery, it's very easy to erase mistakes.

Next, I started in with the sandpaper and alcohol (with a q-tip). The sandpaper rubs down the layer of paint fairly quickly, leaving it much lighter with a rough texture. The alcohol dissolves the paint, leaving a smoother texture and darker areas around the treated spot.

After this, I start in with the charcoal to define the shadows. I keep working with the sandpaper and alcohol to blend the 3 textures together.

Now this looks pretty good, but I want to really make the drawing pop dimensionally, so I go in with pastel pencils. These can come in a variety of colors, but for this piece I used a light blue-green and white. The pastel helps to define the highlights and reflected light, while subduing and smoothing some of the texture.

And there you have it! I think I am officially in love with this process.

Gourds for Autumn

Sorry I haven't updated in a few days, I usually only post when we finish a piece in my classes. This last one was an interesting experience, because the preparation for the piece took longer than the actual drawing did. An acrylic prepared ground is paper that has a coat of primer applied first, then anywhere from 5 to 20 coats of acrylic paint on top, in various colors, textures, and thicknesses. Basically, you paint until it looks good. Here are the two grounds that I prepared last week:

This is a fairly haphazard process. After the primer's dry, you grab a paintbrush, you paint. Pretty much any color you want, adding texture with sponges, paintbrushes, dripping water on it, scrubbing it, etc. You just have to keep the paint layers fairly thin, otherwise the paper gets really rubbery.

Once those were dried and flattened out, we started drawing. On this type of ground, it's best to use both additive and subtractive drawing. Additive in this case being charcoal and pastel used to create line and shading, and subtractive being sandpaper and denatured alcohol to create texture and more shading. It's a really fun process, since the texture that you've already prepared does most of the work when it comes to detail and shading. The rest is just icing on top. And here's the finished product:

(I'll try and post the other one next week.)

Midterm Madness

So, after running myself ragged for the past week or so, I finally dropped a superfluous history class. More time for art! Now I've got two tests behind me and one to go, and feeling a lot better. We had our final assignment in 'expressive line' in drawing. Like the rope picture in my last post, it's charcoal on an acrylic prepared ground, but I"m a lot happier with how this one turned out. And now I'm off to study for anatomy. Enjoy!