Sketches From Life Drawing

Here are my sketches from Wednesday Night Life Drawing. It was kinda cold in the studio yesterday, but I think I got some good poses. Still trying to find a way to photograph crayon well.
Here I found an umbrella for a prop. Guess what I started drawing, yep the umbrella. Of course the umbrella is the last thing I should've looked at. I turned away from it after realizing, and I think rescued the sketch.

We had some really high lights during this session. The angles on this weren't easy for some reason, prolly because I was standing holding the paper the whole time. Now the blue has edited all wierd.

I really liked this sketch, but I couldn't bring up the definition enough, so I'm not sure you can see the triangular compositions. I think this ended up being my favorite.

Our model was dressed in black, so I kept using colors and here I made it pink. Thought that was funny. Now that I look at it though, I think the proportions are off.

Didn't have enough time on this one. I thought the lines were pretty elegant. I kinda like the unfinished look (and the green lines).

This was from early on when the model was holding her coffee. Notice the excellent hat, which worked quite well with the umbrella.

This was our last Life Drawing session for the year. But, never fear next year we're keeping it going.

Grilled Cheese

Today is suppose to be a Grilled Cheese Lunch. Hopefully some people show :)=

Lighting Rig

Curious Hawk

While waiting for glue to dry yesterday, I saw this hawk swoop in. He just sat there and watched me shoot hoops and wait. I know it looks like a pigeon, but I never claimed to be an ornithologist. The beak is partly shadowed.

BIG MOON

This will probably end up as a painting. It's been hard to watch the road on the way home lately, because the sky has been so awsome. Plus, I read online (I know) that the Moon was suppose to be really close the other day. It was a great show.

New Painting - Studio Window

Here's the start of a new piece. Along the same lines as the Tree and Building painting I just finished. I started out with the sketches.

You can see, there is still some work to do figuring this out. Hopefully I'll have a painting to show soon though.

Horroriculture

This drawing just spilled out the other day. I have no idea where it was going. You can finish it, thanks.

Trailer Pirates Ahoy

A new series of characters straight from the office to you. ARRRR!

Set Up Design

Well, here's a peek at the sets I helped design and build for a church play. I had a pretty laid out plan for what to put in the scene, but had some free reign on the construction and layout.

Notice the rocks, I had some fun with them. They are masonite panels cut into "rock" shapes with Great Stuff insulation sprayed onto them for texture. I explain this as making rocks by de-erosive means. However, for anyone that may be contemplating this technique be warned, it works better when it's warm.

Here's a closeup of the palm tree and rock. Well, there's not much to say about the palm. It's suppose to be a date palm. I think it reads ok. I was going for a 2-D popup book style, I think I got it.

Brain Projector

In the future we won't have teachers, just Brain Projectors. Watch out though, when the old brain wears out, sometimes it will grab a students.

Snail Eggs

I just heard today that snail eggs may be served to the gastronomically ellite. Poor, poor, Mrs. Snail. Did this sketch while sitting for the Art League Gallery. It's more of a slug than a snail, but I don't think it matters slime is slime. hehe. Want to Know More? ... (article)

Work from Studio

Everbody loves robots right? Hope you do, that's the new piece I started today. I wish the colors would transfer to my camera phone. Maybe I should take my real camera next time. Right now there is only one part of this piece that's giving me fits. Can you guess what it is?
Anyway, I wanted to do something different this time for my subject. So much landscape lately.


Ok, I know I've already posted the following pictures. But these are finally done. I've had this Tree and Building Interference for a while now. I couldn't figure out how to finish it. I'm happy with the results I got. The photo is a bit blury, and unfortunately cannot see the painterly effect I achieved. I guess if you want to see it, you'll have to visit the studio. I'm planning a new "interference" piece. I'll get photos of it as soon as it's started.

The Art Crawl painting still needs to be stretched, so the cropping may change (I won't repost it :) ). I love the blue, and the movement. This photo is a little washed out, but there is a cool fresco feel to it.

In other news, I got a new space at Mother Dog Studios. More room to fill up with paintings.

Sketch Update

This is a quick sketch I did at dinner.  I'm working on an idea for a painting, but I want to get a model to work from.  And Life Drawing is this week, so I need to find a model with the right look.  We'll see.

This was a sketch I did the other night.  It started out kinda amorphous, but ended up as a turkey's dream. Happy Thanksgiving.

Interference of Tree and Building

Here is a painting that I haven't worked on in a while, but it's in the studio now, and I got some done on it. I'm liking it.

Storm Coming to Shore

Here's a small painting I finished for the crawl.

Art Crawl Painting Update

Here's the update on the painting I started at Art Crawl. I'm pretty happy with it now.

Art Crawl Houston 2008

Here are some photos from the studio. This was my first Art Crawl (as an artist), and we had a great time. There were lots of people coming through Mother Dog Studios.

This is one of the walls I had in the studio. Since I share a studio, we each got two walls. Fortunately, I didn't have too many pieces, hehe.

This is the back wall of the studio, I had my portfolio out on the table, and some more paintings hanging. The one in the middle is a painting I started that day during the crawl.

And here am I painting while people were walking through the studio. Of course I took every opportunity to put down the brush and talk to people. I had a great time explaining my pieces, and was happy that people were interested enough to hang out and listen.

Here I am working on the painting. I'll be sure to post it when it's finished. Unfortunately, I didn't have enough time during the crawl.

And for those keeping score here is the beginning of the painting from Art Crawl. I didn't start with any concept, I started with the paint flowing down the canvas. The yellow blobs turned out to be people after all.

Wicker Chair

This was the last piece from Life Drawing tonight. I'm trying a new technique. I'm liking it.

The Bunny Man

This is unfinished, but I wanted to post this. Cory brought Halloween stuff to our last Life Drawing session.

Wednesday Night Life Drawing 11/19/2008

Here are some of my favorite sketches from tonight's session.


This looks like something from the Sears catalog. I actually started with the center axis, and the weight seems to work really well. I'm happy (just wished I could've finished the face).

This was a surprisingly good angle. I took a left-over donkey and didn't expect much out of it. At first it looked pretty blah, but after a time this came out.

Sorry about the blurriness. I love this sketch though, because we had Wes, our model, smile for the entire pose.

Finally, Back in the Studio

I made the trip up to the studio yesterday. Tried to get a lot of work done. I was up there at 9:30 and started painting. It went pretty good, but jeez the studio was quite, and I started getting sleepy. Beautiful day outside, so I went to 19th street to check out the happenings. That got me inspired again, and so I went back to finish some stuff up.

I feel like this peice is finally nearing completion. I really like looking at it. I added the buildings in yesterday. I was originally planning a smaller grouping just in the middle, but after putting the first one in, I realized the scale was all wrong. A actually used the drips to define the shapes of the buildings, which makes it look like there are some ghostly buildings in there too. I like the effect.

Here is the update on the "august sun" painting. I'm really loving this one. It's still got two more sessions on it I think, but I was able to correct the tree line. I had the color bands reversed earlier.

By the way here's a link to an earlier post of these paintings ( in progress )

Wednesday Night Life Drawing

Had another great Life Drawing session at the Art League October 1st. Here is one of the sketches that I'm going to continue to work with.

I've been wanting to work more with these pastel sketches, but of course it's difficult without fixative. I mixed up some water and acrylic matte medium in a spray bottle to use. I made this quick sketch as a test. I've already gone back in with some prisma color. The matte medium kinda worked, but it obliterated my finer shading and splashed little pastel filled drops all over the paper.

By the way, here is an update on the sketch of Cory from the last session. I used the matte medium spray on it, and then started going over it with burnt umber and burnt sienna glazes. Still not sure about this process. Oh well, live and learn.

Inspiration and no Materials

Went to "Collage 151" opening at the M2 Gallery in September. The show was a collection of collage pieces by Patrick Palmer. I was really inspired by the use of maps in some of his peices. I had the idea for some collages of my own. A series I'm calling Star Maps. Still trying to work out the media. I've was separated from my art supplies, which were in my studio in Houston. After the hurricane, it's taken a while to get back up there. Of course it was Sunday when I was working on these two mockups, so the only place to get art supplies was Walmart.

These two sketches were done after the mockups. I'm still working on it.

Hurricane Sketches

Termites on the windows. AHHHH! Well maybe ants. Anyway, didn't get a lot of drawing done durring our little evacuation into the path of Ike. No power, and trying to keep Andrew entertained. And little windup flashlights are hard to draw with.

The night after the hurricane, and the moon was nice and bright. The clouds kept running across the moon, changing it's face.

Ahhhh!!! They're rising up from there graves in the soggy soil!!! Hurricane Zombies!

Haha. Thinking about the cemetery in Galveston as the storm blew in. An idea for a horror flick, of course the problem is that all the zombies get blown around by the wind and smashed into things. Maybe it's a comedy.