Instinct vs. Desire

After a long couple months dealing with my mother's death, I've started to put paint on canvas again. I decided to jump right in on a head study. I didn't take any process shots but this is about half finished and should show you how I go about painting. You can see the pencil sketch and the initial layers of paint. My goal was to force myself to be more loose and free with my painting, so I jumped right in without any tonal planning, correcting myself as I went along. It's the wrong way to paint, but it *did* force me to think and plan my brushstrokes.

I've always had a very slick style, tickling and stroking the paint until everything was blended and my brushstrokes were next to invisible. I would shoot colors into what was already on the canvas and blend it all out smooth. Lately I've been hating this style. I've been wanting my paintings to look like Repin, Manchess, Meseldzija, Duveneck, Loomis and countless others I'm forgetting. All of them apply paint in a controlled, loose way. Very thick and luscious. Your eye dances over their paintings and you forget to breathe. I'll never achieve their level of mastery, but that is my target.

I missed.

I intended this painting to look 'painterly'. Instead, I found myself reverting to my slick, blended 'style'. Every artist struggles to find their style, never thinking that it is always there waiting to come out when you aren't thinking about it. Style finds you when you're so engrossed in drawing that you forget to paint in a 'style'. Style is your instinct.

But what if your instinct isn't what you like? That's where I am. My instinctual style is blended. I desire it to be painterly. Should I force my style into what I want or should I relax and let it be what it is?

Self-Worth and the Artist

Everyone talks about having 'self-worth' or 'self-esteem' but I don't know that I've ever considered what that means to me. If I were to identify myself as something, it's as an artist. That's what I do best. It's natural to then assume that my 'self-worth' is tied to being an artist.

This is a big mistake.

As an artist, I am never satisfied with anything I produce. My end result is always about 60% of what I had envisioned and that is a poor thing to base one's self-worth on. I would constantly be running around life with a low self-esteem. It's pretty common for artists to do this, however. We tie our self-worth so closely into our drawing ability that we end up terminally depressed or we depend too much on the accolades of others. We start producing art that will get us approval because we mistakenly believe that's how to get self-worth. It's a hollow thing indeed to depend on others to provide that and we end up producing art that is popular but by no means genuine to our artistic vision.

The best way to avoid this is to have many different interests and activities in life. Don't hang everything on your art. Do things that don't involve another person's approval. I like to sculpt. I have no ambitions about making it a career and I don't have any pride attached to it. I simply make what I like and let it be what it is. I also have my 9-5 job as a graphic artist and I have a very important job as a Father of two girls. All of these things I do well, mostly, but if I fail at one, I can think about how I did well at the others and my self-worth doesn't take such a big hit. I know that if I fail at a painting, for example, I still did a good job at work that day and did a fantastic job with my daughters. I have success to fall back on when one aspect of my life takes a nose-dive.

We artists have a tendency to fall into a black hole when our art hits a low point. We all need to realize that other areas of life are just as important as our art. When we fail at art we need to look at those other areas and find success there. We just need to remember that our art is still there waiting for us and that the next drawing will likely be a success. Never quit and you'll never fail. We are worth more than the sum of our drawings.

Eowyn and the Nazgul: Final thoughts

This post was originally titled 'Final' and I had posted the final image that I'd submitted to the ArtOrder Challenge 'Eowyn and the Nazgul'. I've decided to remove the picture and post, replacing it with something a bit more constructive...or at least cathartic.

The judging is complete and each illustrator-judge picked a handful of paintings that they liked and wrote a bit about them. Mine wasn't chosen by anyone. And I can't blame them.

It's said that an artist is his/her own worst critic and the implication there is that we're too hard on ourselves. Define 'too hard'. There has to be an inner voice telling us when something sucks. That voice drives us to improve and produce our best work with our current skills. It's a fine line we walk when listening to that inner critic. We can't listen to the critic's suggestions that we suck so much we shouldn't start another drawing. That road leads to a trash can full of art supplies and discarded dreams. But we should listen to that critic when he's saying "Hey bud, that color isn't right. Scrape it off and try it again" even after scraping it off a dozen times. We need that critic to tell us when a thing sucks and needs to be re-done.

I let myself ignore my inner critic. I convinced myself that my painting for this challenge was 'good enough'. I didn't go the extra mile for it and I have reaped the results of it. This all can quickly spin into a discussion of what is considered 'good' and it's all relative. It all depends on what you're comparing the artwork to. But there's another kind of 'good' that matters the most...the kind of 'good' that the inner critic sees. I know what that painting was supposed to look like and I let it leave my computer and go into a contest looking nothing like what I had wanted. The inner critic was right and I ignored him.

Never again.

A picture must please me first and foremost or it never leaves my hands. Indeed, if I'm not pleased with a piece it won't survive the night. The most telling part of of all this is when the entries were all posted, mine among them, my wife and I thought it would be fun to pick our favorites. Neither of us chose mine.

Food for much, much thought.

Eowyn and the Nazgul Challenge: In progress

This is the progress so far. All the elements are here and the background is more or less in place. After I do the figures, if there's time, I'll refine the background to direct focus where I want it. I know right off that the green hills in the background need to be dulled a bit. In light of the deadline, I may just refine it in Photoshop.

This is a process shot showing the underpainting and how I work from background to foreground. Doing it this way helps me to establish the overall lighting of the scene so I know how to paint the important bits: the figures! Trick is to always keep in mind atmospheric perspective. It's so easy to put more detail in the background than you need to.

Eowyn and the Nazgul Challenge: Reference

Okay, here are the last of the reference shots. I first tried posing my wife as Eowyn, but I failed at communicating what pose I wanted. Also, both my wife and I actually know how to fight with a sword and shield and though she posed in the correct stance, it didn't look visually 'right'. So I donned my old Ren Faire gear and struck a pose. Or two. (Please ignore the half-finished state of my house! Chez Mike shall be a mansion one day.....)

Eowyn. I'll need to alter some shadows but this came out almost perfect.

The Nazgul. I'll need to alter this one a lot because he's mounted. The scabbard will be a mace.

The final step is to print these out and piece it all together. Underpainting starts tonight. Wish me luck!

Eowyn and the Nazgul Challenge: Comp Sketch

Now that the maquette is done enough to use, I've moved onto my first comp sketch. This was done in charcoal pencil on tracing paper while looking at the maquette. The general idea here is to get all the elements I want in the picture actually working together. I'm not worried about anything being rendered properly at this stage, I just want an overall view of the final so I know what problems there are before applying any paint. For example, the horse at the bottom and the beast's tail need composition fixes.

The darker bits of the fell beast's neck was intended to be the area the viewer focuses on first, but after looking at the piece, I now want the Witch King to be the initial focus with your eyes running along the beast's neck to Eowyn. A Chiaroscuro effect between the dark beast's head and Eowyn's radiant blonde hair should provide a 'carrot' for your gaze, keeping you interested in Eowyn. Secondary focus will be her shield and the field of grass. A shadow pattern on the ground should lead your eyes down Eowyn and to the fallen Snowmane and back around to the fell beast. Well, that's the idea, anyway!

I feel this is the most important step in a painting because it lets you establish right away your focus. My next step is to photograph my wife with sword and board in Eowyn's pose and draw that on another piece of tracing paper. Then I'll be finding horse reference and doing the same for Snowmane. The Witch King will be another maquette with real cloth to simulate the folds. I'll re-shoot the maquette and project that onto the board with the rest of the elements added in and moved around a bit.

***

Here's the maquette set-up in the final pose. I added yellow construction paper below to give some yellow reflected light from the yellow field of Pelennor and a sheet of blue construction paper for the sky reflection. It's all rudimentary, but all I'm after is an idea of where the light will be reflected.

I decided to stop work on the wings due to time constraints. It was a tough decision, but I think I'll render them in Photoshop. I've been a graphic artist for 20 years now and I've worked with Photoshop since it hit the scene many moons ago. I'm intimately familiar with it and can do the wings in about a half hour.

I *do* plan on finishing this maquette after the ArtOrder/Muddy Colors challenge is done. I've discovered that I quite like sculpting and I'm pretty happy with the way this little maquette is developing!

Eowyn and the Nazgul Challenge: Big Thanks

A huge thanks to James Gurney for his kind words about my maquette. He even took the time to post about bat wings on his blog to give me a bit of help, knowing that the wings are the part I'm currently working on (I hope others who are doing this challenge got the chance to read James' post). I've revised my wing structure to reflect the information in his post.

When I draw anything fantastic or imaginary I try to be as accurate as I can and pull from nature as much as possible. What I fashion needs to be possible . It needs to work, at least in my mind (much thanks to Ed Garcia for teaching me that year and years ago). That germ of physical 'truth' I try to put in my drawings (or sculptures) is what, I feel, connects the piece with the viewer. It's a bit of a 'grounding' element to them. A platform of reality that they can leap from to get to the fantastic. The truth inside of the lie, if you will. This is why I love James Gurney's art...it's well thought out and looks like it could actually work.

Anyway, the deadline looms and I'm getting back to work. Today should finish off the maquette and tonight I sketch some ideas from it. It might seem like I'm wasting an awful lot of time with the maquette when I've got about a week left to finish this, but like Mary Poppins says "Well begun is half done". If I can get the composition and lighting right, the actual painting goes by super fast. All this prelim work is to get composition and lighting.

The strength of any work of art isn't the paint laid down on the canvas, its the composition. No amount of painting prowess can save a badly composed piece while a great composition will be a fantastic painting even half finished.

Eowyn and the Nazgul Challenge: Maquette

So I now have two paintings ongoing. One for my sister-in-law and one for The Art Order Challenge, Eowyn and the Nazgul. No pressure....

As my wife can attest, I went through a panic phase where I couldn't for the life of me think of a good composition for this one. All the heavy-hitters and big names in the illustration business will be looking at this and I wanted something good. In typical fashion, 'something good' never seems to happen when I'm panicked. So I went back to basics and took a page from James Gurney and built a maquette. It's the first time I've done this and I'm a convert. Having something in 3-D right there in front of you that you can always reference and pose and light to your heart's content is a Godsend. I'm not quite done, but I've already got my 'something good' from this. I've got a composition I'm happy with.

Here are the process shots of my 'fell beast' the Nazgul rides. I did quite a lot of research to ensure I got the beast correct. Most people draw it incorrectly as a dragon. It's not. It's actually closer to a Pterosaur crossed with a featherless bird.

A few notes from the text. The beast was small enough to: ‘settle upon the body of Snowmane, digging in its claws, stooping its long naked neck.’  so I made it a bit larger than the average horse, lean enough to fly (large bat-like wings will be added later) but with enough neck to situate the saddle and black rider. Bird comparisons come to mind when the beast attacks Eowyn, just before she cuts it's head off. It is described as ‘...striking with beak and claw.’.

"...striking with beak and claw"

This image shows the scale of the beast. There's a saddle and a part of a leg on top the neck. The Nazgul are depicted many ways visually, but the text only ever specifies a crown, glowing eyes and a robe with a mace for a weapon (I'd wager it's very close to a Knight's mace or Horseman's mace). I'll be sticking to that description and I may put some ornate plate on the legs and arms.

The rider's legs to scale. Not a big beast, but powerful!

A few more shots.

The wattle was an afterthought but a good one.

Wings and tail to be added later.

I fashioned this from Sculpey. I'd like to bake and paint it black to give a more accurate lighting feel, but I don't know if my aluminum armature will crack the piece when heated....so I'll just use my imagination when painting it. Wish me luck.

Review: Color and Light by James Gurney

I hate being sick. Some artists can draw and paint whilst little microscopic lifeforms devour their bodies, but I can't. It's too damned distracting. I just can't concentrate and I always make horrible color and light choices. So I looked around for a good book to read while I coughed and hacked and I cracked open my copy of Color and Light.

I know, I know, what was I waiting for? To be honest, I was afraid to find out how little I knew. I was afraid I wouldn't understand anything in the book. Well it turns out I know more than I thought and with Mr. Gurney's excellent explanations, I actually understood even the most complex principles in the book.

Mr. Gurney provides the best art instruction anyone will ever get in this book. He nails down everything an artist needs to know, from atmospheric perspective to what oil paints are lightfast. He instructs us on how to organize and harmonize our colors and gives us very simple ways to do it.

This book is far undervalued. For the meager price you get the best of a first-class art school. In fact, you get many concepts and tips that some art schools don't even provide. At the very least, you get the best artwork of James Gurney (Dinotopia) on every page; most of it never-before-seen landscapes that will blow your mind.

This book will not teach you how to draw. It's not that kind of book. This is an essential guide to illustrators and painters already working in the field or just knocking on the door of becoming professionals. The information in Color and Light will fill in the cracks of your artistic knowledge. Art-spackle for your flaws.

Train: Underpainting

Now the fun begins. I've taken the small photo of the train that I did my sketch from and projected it onto my gessoed board (masonite). I then applied a wash of acrylic Burnt Sienna and started laying in the dark areas first. When I paint, I'll be working in the mid-tones first, but for the underpainting I like to establish my darks and lights. This locks into my mind the darker and lighter parts of the painting right at the get-go. It also breaks up the monotony of painting the same thing twice as I'm working on different aspects of the painting in this stage and in the actual painting stage.

I work the underpainting in oils, using Burnt Sienna and Pthalo Blue. I do a two-color underpainting mostly to establish what is going to fade into the background (blue) and what is going to be my focus (brown). For this one, I did some of the blue areas in acrylic first but didn't like how that went so I switched back to oils. I find the underpainting stage is very flexible this way. Also, I may throw in different colors for the underpainting based on the colors I'll be using in the final. The theory here is that the underpainting will influence the final oils and if you use a bright or complimentary color under your final oil, the final oil will pick some of that up and really help the colors stand out (or fade back, as the case may be). It's all about establishing focus.

Going back to the topic of focus, I've detailed and darkened the areas that I want to be the focal point (very front of the train) and left the back areas very loose. This will give me a guide as I'm painting and will be a constant reminder of how and where I want the focus. This is essential because when you paint something with tons of detail, like this train, you tend to go overboard and render everything you can see on your reference photo. This is very bad because it produces a flat painting. I want depth and getting the focus right is one way to nail-down depth.

***

I've seen artists post pics of their palette and they all look nice and orderly. Mine used to look that way, and sometimes it does, but mostly I use any white surface at hand to act as my palette. In this case I grabbed a paper plate! No matter what I use, I always place my colors around the edges with white in the middle. I'll post a pic of my final oil palette when I'm a bit further on the piece. I almost always use those cheap disposable paper palettes you can pick up at the local crafts store. I suppose I'm more concerned with the paints going on the canvas than arranging them on a nice wooden palette. Each to their own!

Train: Pencil Sketch

As I mentioned in my earlier post, I did a pencil sketch of the train before quoting a price. This is a good practice when you haven't drawn something before. It gives you a good idea of what will be involved because a thing often seems simpler in our heads than it does in reality. I discovered whilst doing this sketch that I don't like drawing trains, but I know from experience that you must be enthused about any piece of artwork you're doing. If you aren't enthused or happy about your artwork, it will show. Emotions come through. So I struggled to finde something to get excited about in this train (it wasn't until the underpainting that I really got excited).

 This sketch took me about an hour and a half to do and I was mostly concerned with getting the larger doo-dads down. This also gave me a good idea on what details I didn't need.

What's it worth?

My sister-in-law needs an artist. So one day whilst visiting her, she describes what she wants. A train. I'm sure that request sounded simple to her (and probably everyone else); A few wheels, a track, a round thingy in front and a smoke stack. Easy-peasy lemon-squeezy. Except that it isn't easy or peasy or even lemon-squeezy. It's all valves and piston push rods and railing and rivets and...ugh. Many do-dads to render. Many hours of work. Unfortunately, she imagined the cost would be a bit less than what I thought all that time was worth . So I struggled with doing a discount piece or simply telling her my price, knowing that it was higher than what she wanted to pay and leaving it at that. I was afraid she'd think I was ripping her off or something, so I went about demonstrating why the price was what I quoted it to be (I don't normally do this). I care about my sis and her opinion of me is important.

So I dig up some reference, do up a full pencil sketch. She heard my explanation about many hours worth of rendering for all the little details and proceeded to ask if I could delete the details. Some artists would agree to that and take the money. In my younger days I would have but I'm older now and I told her no. It was my name going on that piece of art and I don't skimp on quality. It's just not in anybody's best interest.

Money is spent and gone forever, but my art will remain. After I'm gone the artwork I do will still be around and I'll not have a shoddy piece representing me. As I said above, for most clients I simply state my price and let them decide, but I attempted to make my sister-in-law understand why I wouldn't produce a less-than-perfect picture. Since she's a teacher I put it to her this way, "What would you do if your principal asked you to grade only half the students' papers because grading all of them takes too long and the school didn't want to pay you for that?" She said that very same thing had actually happened and that some teachers did it and others, like her, refused (I applaud her for that!). I then pointed out that my art is like her job; some artists will skimp and some will not. I would not skimp just to save someone money. I think she took my point. Plus, to put a picture out there that's less than my standard of quality would decrease the worth of any other picture someone had bought from me.

So I may lose that job but it will be worth it. Anything a person does should be done to the highest quality possible and at the fairest price for that quality. It doesn't matter that there are artists better or worse than me out there and it doesn't matter what they charge. If a person wants your work, they deserve the best and sometimes the best isn't the cheapest.

Don't be afraid to lose money, be afraid to lose worth.

Strive to be wrong

If you look over at my 'Blogs you should be reading' section, you'll see an [e]. That's the blog of Eric Canete, a comic artist that isn't correct. He's wrong. Wonderfully wrong. Pleasingly wrong. All artists should wish we could be as wrong as he is. No, I'm not off my nut.....at least at the moment....

Too many artists spend too much time stressing over 'getting it right'. The proportions of the face must be 'right', the lighting on the tree must be 'right', etc to infinity. Well, you're all wrong, and it's not the good kind of wrong, either. Distill it down and art's only rule is that it should be pleasing. Sure, you have to know light, color, value, etc to make it look pleasing, but don't get hung up on all that overmuch. In the end, it has to look good and if you've fussed over the fundamentals too much, you can obscure the 'right' of a picture. Eric Canete stretches and distorts his figures and it all should look wrong, but it doesn't. It looks fantastically good. It looks 'right' even though it's almost totally wrong.

The two ways you can get your picture to look good are:

1) Composition. Study this. You need to know composition before you know anything else. Seek out books by Andrew Loomis, preferably 'Creative Illustration'. There's a wealth of composition information in there. All Loomis' books should be available at free online libraries or by searching for him and the term 'pdf' on Google.

2) Mood. Unfortunately, I don't think this can be easily taught. Subtle things like distorting a figure towards the camera to give it a sense of urgency or showing a character small on a large background to convey hopelessness come only when you stop thinking about it. You must detach your analytical self and let your emotions carry your pencil; you'll be surprised at how effective your emotions are at forming a picture!

Certainly there are other things an artist must know, like tone, value, form and light, but those are secondary. Those are the flesh and the clothes you put on your emotional, 'wrong' sketch. Don't be afraid to do what is wrong as long as it looks good.

One exercise is to do a small sketch, not worrying about getting the proportions down correctly. Go for the mood. When you've got that, transfer the sketch directly to your board and only then search out reference that roughly matches the pose and lighting of your sketch. Execute that to completion, letting  your colors be dictated by your mood.

One final caveat. I'm no professional. Art should take you and do with you what it will. If my thoughts here run counter to your style or experiences please ignore them and follow your own muse. That's really what it's all about anyway.

Going Back To the Well

I never took anatomy classes. I never drew from a nude model. I learned my anatomy at the tender age of seven by tracing over comic books. I was lucky, the comic books I had were drawn by artists that knew their anatomy dead-on. John Romita, John Buscema and Neil Adams. I highly recommend tracing as a tool for learning, but that's a subject for a different post. The key here is that I imprinted the lines and forms of the human figure very early, but even so I sometimes find that I run out of talent and forget how the forms work together.

Enter George B. Bridgman and his book 'Constructive Anatomy'.  I found this book after reading that Frank Frazetta would sit down with it and copy everything in one night. Amazing if true, but even if we all aren't that fast, it's worth following in his footsteps. So I picked up this book and copied every page.

Every now and again, when I just can't get the muscle structure right or I feel I need a refresher on some part of anatomy, I reach for this book and sketch from it.

I would recommend that everyone do the same. Further, I would suggest that you don't use pencil. Use a fine point, precise pen that lets you sketch freely. You want a pen that floats over the paper with as little resistance as possible. Pen makes it impossible to erase and will train you to lay a line down and forget it. It will develop a loose sketch style that will serve you well for years to come.



Here are some sketches I did to show you what I mean. A few were done in pen and a few in pencil.

Hope this helps! Happy sketching!

The importance of Blogs

For an artist, blogs are very important. As an illustrator you need one because art directors use them more and more these days to check the activity of their artists. If you're posting regularly, you're active and you're putting yourself out there and you generally look busy. Lets face it, after you get a job from an art director, you disappear for a few weeks while you work. A blog is a way to let the art director know you're still alive. These same reasons apply to fine artists as well. Gallery owners like to see what you're up to. It gives them a personal connection to you without all the bother of calling you daily or setting up lunches.

So how do you use a blog? Do you just ramble on about what your dog did today or how the kids are doing in math class? Do you wax political and philosophical? What work do you show here, if any?

First off, remember that a blog is an extension of your business. You're in the business to sell your art. You will not sell your art if you talk about politics. You will inevitably tick-off some art director or gallery buyer with your views.

Do talk a bit about your personal life but avoid negative comments. You want to keep it positive. It's OK to share your struggles with a model getting the right pose, but always put a positive spin on it. Superficial? Maybe, but our life is filled with turning negative into positive and your blog posts should be no different. Why depress when you could inspire?

I'm of the opinion that the perfect way for an artist to use a blog is to post personal art here. If you're allowed to by your client, you can even post process shots and works in progress pics here too. You should have a website for your portfolio and a blog for your personal artwork with a bit of personal posts to give it flavor.

So, as an artist just moving from private commissions to one working for clients, I'm following my own advice. This blog is now active and my portfolio is in progress. I'll share it all as I go.

Digital Identity

Oils look like oils. Watercolors like watercolors. Ducks are ducks and armadillos are...well...strange. At any rate, things should look like what they are. So what are digital paintings? This is the question I've been struggling with lately.


Before I go further, here's a piece I did in Photoshop to become familiar with digital drawing:

I instinctively went for a charcoal look. I did this test piece in the same manner that I would do a tonal study of a subject before I painted it. This begs the question: Why didn't I just use paper and some charcoal? It would certainly have looked better. I've seen other digital pieces where the artist has emulated everything from oils to colored pencil. Digital art is a changeling that we're never quite sure of it's original form.


I quickly came to the conclusion, after doing my digital charcoal study, that trying to emulate a physical painting medium is just a waste of time and electricity. If you want an oil painting, go paint in oil. So then what's the use of digital painting? Surely not to save us from breathing in Turpenoid or cleaning brushes (both activities are highly enjoyable for me, btw). Digital painting has it's own 'look' as distict from oils as watercolor is from pastel. Digital paint is bright and slick. It's textures overlapping shapes. It's beautiful chaos made from mathematicaly precise brushes and stock textures. It's a highly-stylized view of life, painted with light.


The real identity of digital art isn't to emulate a physical medium. Some may argue the point, but let them rant. The most basic rule of art is 'know your medium; know your tools'. You want oils? Break out the linseed and canvas. You want watercolor? Go soak your paper and prepare for many washes of color. You want slick, bright, high-tech, textures and lines assaulting your grill? Pick up the Wacom, my friend and jump into the matrix. Now, after I've spent a thousand words on this, here's a picture. Or two. Alright, here are two websites that will show you what digital art is.


http://androidjones.net/


http://artizako.cgsociety.org/gallery/