Portrait Practice

I recently saw an interesting post on James Gurney's blog about portrait drawing and also another interesting post on Matt Rhodes' blog about steampunk.

well here's the result of being inspired by both.

I think it's fun letting the background canvas show through the portrait where matching color values allow.

Also, this is amazing.

Archer

Latest project for my other blog.

Edit: I spent another 30 or so minutes on this one using some great advice from some friends. I think it made a big difference.

Before

After

Santa Cruz Pleinair

Went painting with some friends at SantaCruz, was freezing and still managed to get sunburned :( worth it!

Costumes!

Exploring some costumes for my "A for Archer". I think I like 1,3 and 5 the most (from the left).

New Blog

A couple friends and I created a new blog to stay busy over the summer: Hardcore Artferno! check it out :D more details on the blog.

Here is some thumbnails for our first project on 'HA'... funny how that's the acronym.

Trying to keep it loose, thinking about gesture and silhouette for now. 

I think I like the 3rd one from the left the most.

Something I've been working on the last couple days. Not sure how much I like the result. The pose seems kinda... impossible. Something I shoulda fixed hours and hours before finish. and the contrast seems like a bit much. Ahwell.. movin' on.
:)

Oakland Zoo + a tree

Visited the Oakland Zoo yesterday. Had a lot of fun sketching and learning about animals. Here's a spread I liked of lazy tigers and a zebra with a distinctly square butt.

Also a tree at William St. Park in San Jose. The park is beautiful and surrounded by these very old very interesting houses. I'll go back there for sure this summer to paint a house or 2.

Oak Hill Memorial Park

I painted this statue and fountain at Oak Hill Memorial Park today in San Jose. This is the 2nd time I've attempted this statue and I think I did much better this time.

#190

Trying some new techniques.
 From Imagination

#189 Lake Cunningham

Painting through only partial shade of a thin tree canopy proved challenging. values constantly jumped around. Fun nonetheless.

#188 Edgar Payne Study

A gouache and acrylic study of some mountains by Edgar Payne. Original Here.

What I need to work on:

- Edge quality is too similar throughout, flattens image
-Background mountains temperature and saturation too similar to foreground, flattens image.
-level of detail too similar throughout the image, flattens image.

Overall. the image is much flatter and graphic then the original. Gotta keep this in mind.

Alum Rock Park

Went painting at Alum Rock Park with my friends Andy and Taylor. The weather was perfect. Here's to hoping the rest of the summer will be this nice.

Watercolor with a bit of opaque gouache.

#185 Diablo!

I suppose making Diablo fan art is more productive then playing it... Here's my chibi-esq barbarian.

#184

Study from photo.
Original Here.

#183 paint over

After learning about atmospheric perspective and the use of high key, low key, middle key and notan in artworks from Syd Mead and NC Wyeth, this painting began to bug me so I took an hour to paint over it.

I pushed the contrast in the foreground. and lost contrast in the background I think this helped add some realism to this painting.

Maya final

Here's my final for my intro modeling class. We were to choose a real item we owned and model and texture it realistically in Maya. I chose this incense burner. The geometry is kind of simple but I learned how important good maps and lighting can be.

#183

Got a bit carried away. Meant to paint for an hour and get back to working on finals. Ended up painting for 4 hours. I learned a lot though.

Shadow Shapes

Here's an assignment for my light and optics class. working on shadow shapes and edge quality

Done on toned charcoal paper with a 3b pencil and a white Carbothelo.

#182

Doesn't look quite right.

#181

both classes cancled today so I decided to go plein air painting at the Japanese Friendship garden in San Jose.