I’ve been playing around with videos lately. Creating an animatic, playing with animation, compiling video presentations of my work and doing demonstrations of digital work. Here is some of the stuff I’ve created and posted and something new as well.

Finish sketch demostrated in video bellow



Lot of fun to do. Mostly flying
blind on this one, a lot of guess
work. Work in progress.
Video bellow.






Masque of the Red Death Part 1 bellow;

"Outta' My Head', Drawing from Imagination

When I paint or draw I enjoy it most when I am drawing from nature, be it outdoors or painting from a model posed before me. Not so much for the end product but because the experience of it is so enjoyable. There is also the occasion where there is no model available, ( and you can do only so many self portraits ), so I turn to my imagination. I still do like to work this way but I think when I do I am applying what I learned from observation, ( exaggerating and cartooning as well as trying to make it appear as if it exists in the real world ), and when I work from life I am still learning and I like being the student better.

So in my head there is this world that exist peopled by characters from comic books, movies and literature, and then there’s dinosaurs and memory drawings and just doodles that have all kind of reasons for being. It can be fun and it keeps my hand moving.

 

Painting Trees

A while back I did a watercolor of a tree. It was a tree in my neighborhood that caught my attention, (actually I love trees, I think they all have their own character, they are living things and have a history and are almost always interesting to paint- like people). When I finished it I posted it on line and I remember someone remarking that they thought the painting was nice but trees are a boring subject, my wife agreed saying the tree was nice but people want to see scenery and not just a painting of a tree. I understood her comment to reflect what she and some others would enjoy in a painting, but at the same time I felt that maybe I just failed to communicate what made that tree interesting to me.

I continue to draw trees in my sketchbook and I try to show why I think they are interesting, it’s the same approach I use to sketching people in the subway, I consciously search for some hint of character that would make the drawing interesting. Best thing about trees is that they don’t move, don’t need breaks, their the perfect models.

This was the painting that I posted.
It was a lot of fun to paint.

A Shared Humanity

I had a discussion with my wife recently about art. We talked about drawing people and how I said that I try looking for some spark of character that will make the drawing interesting. “ What character do you see and admire in the people you draw?”, she asked.
“Well, I don’t look for a particular character”, I responded. So she asks again, “But what is the character you admire in people that you like to draw?” At this I respond by telling her that I don’t consciously look for a particular character but that I try to get across with pencil and paper or with paint something so familiar that it becomes more than a drawing. By character I mean , (when it comes to people), something that we recognize in the drawing then in ourselves, something in common, a shared humanity, a memory. It needn’t be noble or mean, just honest.
When I observe people on the subway, searching for someone to draw, I may wonder what their life story is. Do they have a family, wife and children, that their going home to? They maybe single or still living with their parents or some relative. Are they taking care of an older relative? It doesn’t particularly matter to the drawing what the story really is but that somehow I communicate some sense of humanity and that you can read the experience of life, not the particulars but the feeling of it. The drawing might wake up some sense of recognition or nostalgia and become something more than clever.

My wife who inspired the discussion and this post

My Many Sketchbooks



Stalker



Sketch for Stalker

I have a habit of keeping several sketch books going at one time. I keep one for sketching from life/nature another for watercolors and yet another for drawing from my imagination or doodling. The one I wind up drawing in the most is the sketchbook for doodling. I usually make sketches trying to recall someone I saw on the train or I just try to sketch different characters. I also freeze the television and draw from the image on the screen. Dinosaurs or maybe some fantasy creature like a dragon are fun to draw. Sometimes these sketches lead to a more finished piece like the one of the T-Rex walking through the swamp.
Another way of keeping my imagination going is to read a story- Poe or Tolkien or whatever else- I would try to sketch the images that appeared in my head as I read.
I have added to my sketching tools a Cintiq tablet and a number of programs- Photoshop, Sketchbook Pro, Corel Painter, etc.

 


Sketch from my watercolor sketchbook

Sketch of Morgan Freeman in Shawshank Redemption
done while watching the movie on my television

Sketch that latter became a digital painting



Digital Sketches