Stepping back for a moment..

After diving into these paintings for a bit, I realized a few things.

1 - My heart is not in this picture as much as I'd like it to be.
2 - I'm not really expressing my full potential.
3 - There is more to me than I thought (which is good) ..

A friend gave me some genuine advice today, and I will carefully
reconsider how I've been doing this whole thing.

Kinman needs a reboot.. More artwork to come when ready..

chugging along

unfortunately I don't have any high res reference for this painting. So I'm finding out I can't get as finished as I wanted to on this. I'll have to wing a lot of it as I go..

1 more hour per..

fixing drawing, refining colors..


pushing edges..

.. and project 2

part 2 of a self check to see how far I can take things.. plus I just really liked this piece of ref... here's the first half hour.

For all the times when I need a break from Matt Damon I'll switch off with this... or that's the plan at least.

hour 2

.. because I don't get the chance to spend time on longer paintings these days, I want to see how far I can take this thing (in progress)..

finally opened up some time!

convinced myself to do this an hour before i slept tonight.. many thanks to the loyal visitors out there!

painting before packing

Before I move, I have to pack. I wanted to paint this page in a magazine before I packed it. 30 min speedie... entertainingly inaccurate..

the out of work ventruiloquist

whatever I could do in 45 mins for the night..

for me..

I like being back in study mode.. After I painted this one I was asking myself why I painted it.. she keeps looking away (sigh)

...for todd

Here's the system I've been using for a blueprint of a generic head.. I would explain more, but I need a good two or three pages of writing to be clear, so I'll save the words for a future book. Hopefully it is clear enough for me not to have to say anything.


Like the previous image, I would need a good amount of words to explain this further. I simplified it to 3 basic learning modes. There is a number 4 and 5 in my mind, but I think once someone gets past 3, number 4 and 5 are pretty obvious.

Basically I wanted the audience to be confused with numbers and grids.. That's what my book will really be about. :)

Thanks for the positive comments!

Eager...

I saw this guy on a cover of a random magazine that was sent to my house. I liked the palette and feel of the picture, so I decided to paint it. No other reason than to paint a head while I recover from my sickness..

sorcerer guy (what a sales title)

A couple of little touch ups.. the hand on the right was looking a little big to me, so I shrunk it.. I got rid of a couple more unwanted paint strokes, and I recropped slightly (again) because I felt the piece didn't need such space to be balanced.... oh.. and a signature :)

This is a presentable stage to me.. maybe I'll tighten it up in the future, but I'd thought I'd post it here for now.. cheers and thanks again guys for all your positive feedback!

sticking to my word pt. 4

..and a little bit more edge refinement... almost there..


..painting in the borders to fit the new canvas size..


.. so in my eyes at this point he looked too sophisticated to be cropped at an angle.. he's more of an experienced sorcerer, so he doesn't need an action packed dutch camera view (i'm communicating with myself).. rotate


...a sorcerer type guy casting a spell with some smoke underneath him.. (btw, I tend to look at things for a long time until I see something interesting.. this new layer took some time)


-coming back from my break- you know what.. I don't like what I'm seeing at this point, so I'll re-assess the painting.. I decide to duplicate the original abstract shape and play around with viewing it in different layer styles... here's what I ended up with - flip the canvas upside down and change the abstract to a soft light layer... because what I really see is...

sticking to my word pt. 3

now I think I can start painting and refining some of the details out a bit more... and also a needed break..


.phew.. got my light sources in there now... I'm kind of losing some of that local color.. Let me refine that a little bit more with another overlay layer..


and one more for the fill light.. this one I didn't want too much spill over between the other layers, so I double-clicked on the layer and dragged some of those arrows around to adjust the blending of the layer (for the other photoshop guys out there)..


one for the bigger picture of light sources...


after I got my general local colors roughed in, I decided to add a couple of new Linear Light layers - one for the general shadows..

sticking to my word pt. 2

..new layer: overlay - to get a better idea of what this guy's local colors are going to be.. at this stage, I tend to spend a lot of time referencing/experimenting with colors to see what works..


alright, so next I'll throw some lines on there to get a feel for what the shapes are going to be (it's not uncommon that I may use a couple of layers for this.. a rough and a cleanup.. sometimes I spend quite a bit of time on the drawing, but I was lazy today)


..and less hard edges..


...I think it needs more contrast at this point..


.. cropping in I can see a character in some of the shapes...

sticking to my word pt. 1

... and a hue/saturation pass.. because I just didn't feel right painting a red and turquoise painting that day.. there are some interesting shapes in there.. i think.. so onto the next step!

**the key here when I'm doing this for myself is to just a reminder that all I'm looking for is an interesting set of shapes..


Once I feel like I've created something that I feel has somewhat of a potential I'll bring it into photoshop and tweak edges even more using the smudge brush..


So here goes.. a step by step of a new piece.. I'll just jump right into it (for those of you reading this it goes from the bottom --> up). I started with a random set of scribbles in ArtRage. The good thing about the program I find is that there's a cleanliness of edge variation and color mixing that you don't get in photoshop..

antonio mancini!

I just got his book off Amazon and now my artistic abilities have been humiliated.. in a good way :) So I had to do one more copy or else I'd forget everything I had ever learned about art.

The other thing I have to do soon is another piece of my own.. with process images (i haven't forgotten)..

crunched for time... so...

I decided to do another DS master copy.. One day I will actually use that program for other uses.. for now, it makes me feel satisfied by studing Sargent...

new toys..

I got inspired by Mindy's DS paintings, so I decided to go out and get that Colors! program.. for my first painting.. a master copy from Degas.. of course, his painting is just a tad better.. :*(

back to the drawing board

I seem to be doing more collage work when in the workshops as of recent.. These were some of my better days... if I remember correctly.