[stace]

There was a post here but I accidentally eat'd it. I OWN NONE OF THESE CATS I JUST FIND THEM ON THE INTERNET! Also last page has newer art.

Inspiration/motivation:

Quotes:
"Make good art." Neil Gaiman
"Done is better than perfect."
"Cause if you try to imagine what to put in portfolio you just see the big mountain of work and not the small steps. It shouldn't be like "I'll work for portfolio!" more like "I'm gonna paint tons of fun stuff and in the end ill select my best." - Jana
"You don’t have to do it right. You just have to do something."
"Motivation will get you started, habit will keep you going."

Art Order: Getting Serious
The Oatmeal: Some Thoughts and Musings About Making Things For the Web

[deletedhidden]

nice. your figures are already looking pretty fluid. ref or no ref?

and on your painting, assuming you are using photoshop, you should go to brush settings and bring spacing like all the way down. it will use a bit more ram but it makes brush strokes look a lot more natural and smooth. and i would think about your light source in that image. the light seems to be coming from behind and above her, but the light is hitting her front side.

but keep it up. don't be lazy and stop sketching like i did. it's too easy to get in a funk and stop drawing and painting completely.

[stace]

bixby - The gestures are ref'd but the speed painting is not. That tip about the spacing is magnificent and does slow down my ram, but it forces me to work smaller (which my computer will appreciate, hehe). I'm not very good with light, but I'll work on it. Thanks for your reply! I love your Minecraft image.

Gosh, even a few days without drawing really messes with my head. Gotta work on drawing daily, even if it's studies! I swear with warm-ups today, I struggled to just do gestures.

So here's what I've come up with since my last post... Enough to keep me busy but not as much as I'd like. I read about being more effort oriented than result, so I'm not going to be bummed out about the quantity.

Okay, less talky, more arty.

Gestures for today... 60 seconds each


A value study for today as well... around 2.5 hours


I'm in a plein air oil painting class that meets on Saturdays. After I came home and looked at this, I realized how flat it is and how horrible sunburn can be... 3 hour session


And my favorite, sketches! No reference, of course. How I felt about being distracted by my anxiety...


Character exploration, the idea is Winter King but I don't want him looking too generic. He's suppose to be "more of a winter sky than a winter scene" but despite how much I love the fluff, I'm gonna have to try something else.


More character exploration... I have a personal mythology about the sun and moon that's stuck with me over the years, but never really developed the sun entity. I imagine him having the light behind him so his face is unseen, it's just the rest of what can be seen that I gotta design, haha.



Hopefully I'll a big post like this more often, but all from one day of art! XD

[Xanath]

Heya! Must say I like your style, and those are some good clean lines

Here's a, hopefully helpful, tip: You should vary your brushes more, like in your black and white value study. Seems you have mostly used a hard brush. You could apply a softer brush afterwards to blend her skin and make it a bit smoother. Always hard to crit stuff like this 'cause one doesn't know if it's a choice of style or something the artist may be yet unaware of. Keep grinding!!!

[stace]

Xanath - Thanks for your reply! I'll have to test out different brushes in photoshop. Don't worry about sharing a critique, it not only provides a learning experience for the artist receiving the critique - but also for the artist giving the critique to help solidify one's knowledge.

Man oh man, March has just flown on by! I am a little upset that I didn't draw as much as I'd like to, but truly - there's no point in being upset to begin with. I just have to focus on the present more than the past (where I used to draw tons and tons) or the future (where I want to be drawing tons and tons). Just have to keep moving forward! Especially since I'm returning to work in retail... yikes.

Here's a few things I've done in the past few days.

Some plein air studies done in oils, one at the beach and two at a park.




A few pages from my sketchbook - I found an awesome pen that quite literally has a brush as the tip! Characters, mostly.

[stace]

Tried something I've always been wanting to try - 10 minute environment studies! I'm still having trouble understanding color temperature... Practice, practice, practice!



References:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/21207178@N07/4937763459
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8407953@N03/4931840055
http://www.flickr.com/photos/8407953@N03/4920477326
http://www.flickr.com/photos/60027857@N00/81465824
http://www.flickr.com/photos/10324841@N03/2220308852/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/91458045@N00/2964635419
http://www.flickr.com/photos/7655469@N03/2475745093
http://www.flickr.com/photos/22956107@N03/2766626608
http://www.flickr.com/photos/69839820@N00/3784325046

[stace]

Some more landscape studies... I tried a different technique this time. First, I painted the values of each reference image. Then, I tried to paint the colors using the same images. Lastly, I went back to the original value studies and did an overlay layer with colors.




They both have their pros and cons. I really like how deep the colors are in the overlay image, but also like how strong the greens are in the straight up painted images.

Also, a WIP for CPA's Jabberwocky redesign. Crits and comments always welcomed!


References for studies:
http://all-free-download.com/downloa...creen_1033.jpg
http://www.naturewalls.org/wp-conten..._wallpaper.jpg
http://i164.photobucket.com/albums/u...Fan/Forest.png
http://www.team-bhp.com/forum/attach...k-forest-2.jpg
http://image07.webshots.com/7/3/46/7...7JACpdB_fs.jpg

[stace]

I didn't finish this in time for the contest, but I'm going to finish it anyways. Just... too tired to finish it tonight, aah.

[Steve99]

Awesome! I hope you can finished soon. -__^

[stace]

Been living too much in my head and not enough on paper.

Scribbles, as usual. My goal next week and for the next month is to work more on completed sketches and paintings.

[stace]

Shouldn't let this sketchbook gather any dust, not a single spec! (Though, I don't know how something digital can collect dust to begin with...)

Anyways, today's drawings - Gestures, Bridgman Studies, and a WIP.


60 seconds each



Scylla, for CPA #39, whee!

[tylerhawks]

Bridgman's life drawing? Awesome stuff!

[stace]

Tylerhawks - Yepyep! Love the simplicity of his works.

Holy shit. It's June. :I

Just some scribbles for today.


And some sky pirate captain sketches for an upcoming show. Kept battling between "what would stand out" and "what would be logical."



Summertime now, much more time to draw!

[stace]

Got to stay in focus with my goals, aah!

Anyone want to be art buddies?

Photo studies:



Sketchy sketches:





Ideas for characters in my art show piece:



Start up piece for a collab with my boyfriend:

[Howie]

thank you for your comment ... great work here, really like scrolling through all the figure studies and those plein air oil paintings are really good practice...working traditionally will force you to focus on your color and brush economy much more than working digitally