Monster Quest and Tattooed

Wow, I have been pretty busy lately. I just moved up to Northern Virginia and then moved again, and have been visiting doctors and optometrists and dentists that I haven't seen in years, as well as occasionally driving back to Richmond to work. Since I've had a couple of graphic design/illustrator interviews, I've redone and reprinted a good amount of my portfolio. Here are two pieces I've recently finished and edited (you can see examples and parts of them I completed below). Because I did not have time to finish an entire guitar body of work for the "Tattooed" one, I turned it into a gallery poster for my friend's old tattoo parlor. Pretty cool. I never actually posted the final image of "Monster Quest" but the text was all sorts of funky so I completely redid that, as well. Right now I'm working on another image and I hope to complete it within the next few days. I also have a few design pieces to post so I hope to put those up shortly.

What Is Seeing?

My professor gave me a passage today and told me my artist statement reminded him of this particular quote:

"But this isn't seeing! - But this is seeing! - It must be possible to give both remarks a conceptual justification.
But this is seeing. In what sense is it seeing?
The phenomenon is at first surprising, but a physiological explanation of it will be found.
Is it a genuine visual experience? The question is: in what sense is it one?
Here it is difficult to see that what is at issue is the fixing of concepts. A concept forces itself on one. (This is what you must not forget.)"

My artist statement comments on empathizing with individuals by depicting their struggles through their own perspective; the "sides they want few to see." This quote asks the question: what is it to see? Interestingly enough the word "see" is used in the actual passage which leads me to believe maybe the person who wrote it had no idea what they meant, but it does pose some interesting questions. We use the word "see" loosely, and when you get down to it we understand seeing in two different ways: to comprehend visually or mentally. Perhaps what I meant to say is I am providing visual clarity to actions we normally know as subconscious or conscious. A concept does force itself onto an individual, and you can see it in art. Whether it was your intent, it will instill something on the audience, and for that matter it could also be interpreted no matter what I do to convey another person's perspective I am always portraying my own onto that individual. This passage has given me something to ponder.

Distant Community Final Color

I finally finished the color; I've been working on it most of this evening (or really this morning). I have a few issues with my color job; it's lacking value in specific places. The heads of the girls were supposed to have a translucent quality and I don't think I quite captured that. I based my palette on that of Byzantine art, but the one thing I forgot to address were the ornate patterns of that era. Illustrating a patterned, illuminated manuscript type backdrop would really bring this piece together. I also keep neglecting a few techniques in digital art that allow for easier coloring in general, and I need to keep working that way. My coloring gets worse and worse each time since I feel as though I'm creating shortcuts when really I'm creating a huge mess (most of my time working on a piece is spent cleaning up lines and screens). I've definitely learned a lesson from this one.

Distant Community

Here is a final drawing for a piece I'm working on at the moment. I was trying out some new techniques and playing around with some different textures. I think I'll get a portfolio piece out of this, but it is a little freaky, even for me. Don't get me wrong, I'm all for eerie things, but this is a creepy drawing. We'll see what comes of it; I'll post the final piece tomorrow and you guys can tell me what you think.

Final Drawing of Girl on a Bicycle

Finally, I finished this drawing! Yet again, I have to put this one on the back burner since I have some painting and designing I have to push forward. I'm also having a hard time choosing my color palate, so I need some time to do some experimentation. All in all, the main focus of this drawing was to manipulate perspective and make it believable to the eye. This drawing was definitely a challenge for me, and I feel accomplished in the progression of my work.

Tattoo Color Studies

Here are a few quick color studies I've done for a couple of tattoos. My whole color scheme is mostly orange and blue with yellows, pinks, and reds. I want them to be bright but not overbearing, and I feel like a couple of these seem too solid rather than flat and tattoo-like. I guess the best thing to do is create separate textures for each and use those to create the color schemes, so that will be the next step in the process. So far, my favorite is the gun, but again it is too overwhelming and hard for the eye to handle due to the vibration between the orange and blue. I'll have to tone it down. More to come soon!

Also, I've been playing around with Flickr and uploading images in one big file instead of blogging all of them and then editing them into one post. I don't want to hog up room on follower's reading lists. I'll get the hang of it!

Ken Dahl

I thought it would be great to talk about a comic book I recently purchased recommended to me by a good friend. "Monsters," created by Ken Dahl, is one of the best auto-biographical comic books I've read in a long time. It's about a young man (Ken Dahl) who gives herpes to his girlfriend, and his life continues on a downward slope as he is at odds with his views on love, sex, and a venereal disease. Everyone shrouds themselves in a certain amount of denial, and it's refreshing to see a person admit his faults and express it in such a clear manner.

The one thing I could definitely relate to in the book was the author's problems concerning insurance. A good portion of my friends don't have any kind of health coverage, and usually that in itself leads to a lot of self diagnoses via internet searches and bizarre home remedies. It's also shocking how much false information is on the internet concerning health problems considering how many people, even those who are insured, self-diagnose. Hell, I'm even guilty of it. I won't ruin the end of the book, but you'll learn a lot about herpes simplex virus type 1 and 2 in the process.

Apparently he book was a limited print so they may be difficult to get, but I've been assured it should be reprinted soon. Definitely try to read it if you get the chance.

The Tattar

My dad occasionally makes custom guitars, and he recently gave me two Stratocaster bodies to design. I’ve started working on the first one, which is going to be a tattooed guitar body, going along the theme of rock n' roll. I mean, really, what’s rock n’ roll without sex, drugs, and a butt-load of tattoos?

Here's a picture of one of the Stratocaster bodies. I'll have to trace them a little bit later; I'm definitely happy to have the actual bodies so I know the scale I'm working with. I also need to figure out how big the pick guard will be and how much of the body it will cover.

I made out some sketches to give me some idea of placement. The one thing I love about tattoos is the randomness of it, there's something appealing to the sporadic arrangement of multiple tattoos. Part of my concept is to draw first and arrange later to create the affect, but there are certain elements I want in specific places so I need to save those areas.

Here's one of my first tattoo designs. I'm going to draw on different types of paper and add lots of texture to give them a worn look. I want to see the variations in hand and line weight to emphasize age and a range of artists, so some may have bleeding, fading colors and lines, et cetera.

I'm really looking forward to this. Rarely do I see my own work in a physical, tangible form, let alone applied to something functional, and it will be a unique experience to actually hold my artwork once it's finished. Right now I'm not worrying about the hard part (getting the prints on the guitar), but I'm sure that will be a whole problem in itself.

Baroque Wallpapers

I just made some wallpapers for fun, and most of them are in tile format so they should be pretty compatible with anyone's desktop. Click on the image, click the "All Sizes" button in the left hand corner above the image, click the "Download the Large Size" button in the left hand corner of the image, and then save the image. I also learned from this experiment the largest image you can download from Flickr is 1024 x 645 pixels, which is relatively small. I guess the lesson is that you can actually upload some pretty small images to Flickr and use less of your monthly memory with the same results as uploading gigantic images (There were a few months where I used 14% of my memory on three images).

Also, I have a new Twitter account. I will be updating rather frequently so please stop by and check it out!

Girl on Bicycle Unfinished Drawing

All right, all right, I've been a little lazy recently. I started this drawing about two months ago and I still haven't finished the damn thing. I'm mostly focusing on promoting myself the best way I can and believe me, it's terribly confusing and complicated, and it's definitely time consuming. Also, I don't really have many art classes my last semester so I'm spending most of my time reading, writing, and trying to find jobs in the area. Talk about scary!

However, I have realized I have a number of pieces to work on and a number to scan in (including my monotypes), so you will still see a relatively large amount of posts from me. I'm also going to start blogging about artists, upcoming movies and galleries, and posting topics that I feel are necessary to discuss as an illustrator. Please feel free to comment with your opinions!

Back to the drawing, I still haven't figured out what I would like for the background. Any suggestions?

Penelope Dullaghan

"Lip Balm Addiction" by Penelope Dullaghan

Communication Arts Magazine recently published an article on Penelope Dullaghan, creator of illustrationfriday.com. Her illustrations have the this wonderful textural and loose quality, and seem more like extensions of process than finalized work. I'm not entirely sure how I feel about her illustration collection as a whole, but she does have a number of really strong pieces (such as the image shown above). Click the image and sift through her Flickr account; it's definitely worth your time.

Self Portrait

I really haven't completed or worked on a lot of illustrations this month, yet I felt the need to update my blog. This is a piece I finished for my digital drawing class about a year ago.

Amy: The Second Round

Sometimes it's good to go back and fix problems in "finished" pieces, and in my case there were some personal issues I had to address in Amy's piece. In the original I avoided drawing things that are part of Amy's character, such as lace and rococo patterns, simply because I'm not very good at creating them. Patterns specifically have been a constant struggle and quite honestly a fear. However, I decided that in order to reflect Amy accurately I needed to suck it up and overcome that obstacle. And I did! It took a lot of redrawing and failed attempts but I got it where it needed to be. I know she'll definitely be excited to see the second round of the drawing.