Santon steadilly stabs support[daily upgrades]

[Santon]

Welcome...Skip to end to view recent stuff at end...

otherwise...here's a little rambling...in case anyone gives a damn, which I don't expect anyone to.

First off... I feel old. I'm not old old... but I'm 32 and I just started(with serious intent) with the art and art school in Sept 07. I used to be a chemist, and I was working my PhD in intermetallic solid state chemistry but after 5 years of that, I decided that my thesis wasn't worth finishing and dropped out. Not that I'm trying to say how smart I am...trust me...the one thing you need more than anything else to get a PhD is the ability to get through mountains and mountains of boring crap, and I really didn't have the stomach for that. So I guess I wasn't really chemistry PhD material. Anyhow. I see people younger, older and with more experience and talent than I, and I wonder why the hell I'm doing this. Sometimes I felt like that in chemistry, but I didn't bother me the way it does now.

But I do miss the community. Anyways. Knowing that I could have been making art this whole time, instead of squandering it away wondering what the hell I was going to do with my life, has lead me to dedication I've never had before. The problem is getting over all my bad habits...the rushing(mostly)...missing the details. I don't want to make crap...I spent so long making crap, and I want it to stop. But it's habitual... anyhow...I'm trying to take my time, and when I find myself rushing I try to take a break instead of rushing a piece to ruin.

So far, the art thing is treating me well. I got my first real commission. Ok, so it's just for the school, but it was a juried thing and I won. Woo. I was paid to draw caricatures for a highschool aftergrad... Most of them turned out, there were a couple I wish I had taken back and started over again...but I'll remember that for next time. When I had a moment to look around I saw that aftergrad was just as lame as I remember it. I guess they call it a prom in other parts...

Well...I do a lot of drawing...and I've been painting a lot because I have a show at the end of September that I'm working towards...they won't be portraits...generally... oh well. Well...I've gone on...enjoy...

[Santon]

some ink, some oils and even a woodcarving for good measure...woo

[Santon]

Stuff from yesterday

[Santon]

Some sculpty crap

[Flaskpost]

OMG, what the hell is this? http://www.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=323472&stc=1&d=1205300501
It is utterly awesome!

[Santon]

That be cedar and poplar with a finish.

[Santon]

Some quick Thing...
Kullerd in PS.
Drawn in pen.
I like moose.

[Santon]

Decided to make the pig/moose thing into an oilpainting to sell for food at next week's "Starving Artist market" where I will trade art for food...or booze if I'm lucky.

This is just the underpainting...blech

[Yosul_Gongju]

Haha your wood carving is tripping me out. Your stylized ink drawings are very appealing, but I think your oil painting needs a little more work. Overall, kudos to you! I'm glad you're pursuing the arts after chemistry haha

[Santon]

Couple pencils sketchesss

[Santon]

Did some work on my moose/pig oil thing.

[Santon]

Here's an underpainting thing I started...

[Santon]

Went for easter brunch...I stole one of the coloring things from my four year old nephew and made a few touch ups.

I challenge someone to post their own zombie easter scene

[Santon]

I know this isn't a photoshopping thing....but...

I was supposed to do a "performance" piece for my drawing class, and take a b/w photo as documentation. However, my idea would be impossible to carry out legally, so....here it is. Comments would be welcome.

[Santon]

Finishing touches on a couple oils...sure they're not perfect, but they're going cheap.

Plus, a quick thing of "the king".

Enjoy

[Santon]

Participated in an art show where art was sold for food...here's my workspace

[Santon]

A sketch of the intermedia prof...traded for beef jerky

[Santon]

The pig and moose was popular....
the watercolor sold for a sandwich,
the tissue paper one sold for an alcoholic beverage
the balloon pig sold for...I forget,
and the pig with 4 moose sold for a can of five-alive(which was later mixed with vodka)

[Santon]

I got a bagel with creamcheese and chocolate milk for this...

[Santon]

Hippy - buddha looks like the biker budha.
mah concrete sculpture

[Draniel]

hey wow, i really like that crazy crowded composition you did on the second post :P

[Santon]

Thanks Draniel... Every once in a while it's nice to just draw a bunch of crazy crap.

And now for a still life I'm working on...comments/suggestions welcome.

[Santon]

Did some more detailing with the oil painting...

My favorite comment was when someone told me they liked my garbage.

this is 22x30" on canvas...

[MyOrangeHat]

Wow you've got a lot of interesting stuff going on in here! I'm definitely going to keep watching. I like your sculptures the most, especially the one of the man's head carved into the striped wood. That one is rockin'

[Flaskpost]

Yeah man, good lookin´ garbage!

[Santon]

Well, I think I'm done with the still life... I'm at a point where i think I'd learn more by redoing it than by continuing to work on the details, so to me it's finished.

[Santon]

I'm working on a sculpture project that includes a metal box. I made the box, I'm pretty damned proud of it.

But what I'm amazed by is the texture I got with the patina. I love it. Here's some before and after pictures with a couple of close ups. There's some engraved text at the bottom that I did before the patina...it's really not visible unless you have a (very strong) light shining nearly parallel to the surface.

[Santon]

And....
some sketchbook stuff.
I scanned the pencil part by itself because scanning pen with pencil makes either the pencil look like ass or the pen...on or t'other.

[DAVEZILLA]

mmmm, looks like pasta and coke!

Patina is the natural coloring that metal gets as it gets older, right?
So, how do you jumpstart it to ... patinize.

[Santon]

I went to an artist's talk today about being an "emerging artist"...so I drew some sketches of some of the people with a sharpee, these are the better ones...

[Santon]

Davezilla: to do the patina, I added some liver of sulphur to the surface and heated it with a torch till it evaporated...then I added some ferric nitrate and torched that too...

[Santon]

Some PS sketch...

[Santon]

A jello mould I made a couple months ago for a sculpture project. I ate it.

[Flaskpost]

That´s the most disgusting jello thingy i´ve ever seen!
Can i order some wood carvings and some ink drawings instead?

[Diego]

the wood carving is looking good, i'm sculptor too, so i'm big fan of carving wood, i did a couple myself too.
The drawings are looking good to, i'd just recommend you to draw more from life.
Anyways, keep postin', more woodcarving if you can. :)

Cheers

[Santon]

I'd like to do more woodcarvings, but I haven't had that much time for it lately...maybe over the summer.

So...here's some sketches type stuffs.

[Santon]

Went to the most serene republic show tonight, they were a disappointment but woodlands heart attack was good...ish.

I mean, woodlands heart attack had a Keytar...A KEYTAR...it's gotta be good.

Tried to draw the big heads of the lead singer and the female vocalist in The most serene republic.

All the people standing were watching the show... people in this city have no enthusiasm. Granted, I was drawing during a concert...but come on.

[Santon]

a super sculpey head I'm werkin on.

The background turned out groovy, but I guess that's nto the point.

[Dr.Johnny Fever]

I think your sketches are.....fun! Good luck with that BFA.

[Santon]

Here's some sketchbook stuffs.

[Santon]

I was sketchin some people at the coffee shop...and from a newspaper.

Later I did a painting of the lady...which still needs work....

is it libellous to call someone a douche bag?

[Santon]

This is what happens when I study, I end up looking at all my "notes"

for some reason I come up with my best stuff in classes...

[Santon]

Well...oh...ehre's a sketch I did. I'm super tired. I start a new job tomorrow. Luckilly it's not a job job. Summer gig. I guess. We'll see...I suspect it'll be miserable. Maybe they'll have coffee.

Enjoy.

Oh...and, I can't even get any respect on the OOooh's and Ahh's (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=123611)...damn it anyways.

[Santon]

More stuff....

emjoy....

tried to readjust the contrast on the pencil sketch...to questionable success

[Santon]

Useless PS sketch...

I'm a big fan of the fried egg sun. Lens flare to be added later

[Grafguy]

cool style u have, would love to see some more :)

[Santon]

Thanks Graf...

Here's some o' today's work.

[Santon]

Tried some stuff I don't usually do...

[Santon]

Tried some colored pencils....and pen...not sure it worked out with the pen or not...I'm not too satisfied.

[Santon]

Well, since I missed updating for a couple days, here'ssome more mostly pen things.

[SEVANS]

Your linework is quite strong and very expressive. Your oil work is probably your weakness, I (personally) think that your oils would benefit from you doing more tonal work to describe the plans. Think of it abit like paint by numbers to lay down the basic tones and then selecting which edges to blend or leave sharp.
Nice SB by the way.

[Santon]

Thanks Sevens...

I mostly agree with your analysis. Painting and the use of colour are things I have spent too much time ignoring, but am working on resolving that.

[Santon]

Well, I busted out the sharpee and HB for some of this.

Another couple o' days of SB dumpage.

[Santon]

Before the system, designed to protect us, put a stop to it, I managed to get some people together for life drawing.

[Santon]

Here's more of my sketchbook stuff, I'll probably end up throwing my current sculpture stuff in here eventually. Also started doing some painting again... but for now Same ole faces...woo... :S

[RandAlThor]

Looking good dude, i can def seem some improvement in your economy of line... You should try a few different techniques for large areas of tone, theres cross hatching, stippling, wandering line to name but a few.. keep it up ;-)

[Santon]

Thanks RandAlThor....

You know, one thing that may be helping me is that during breaks at work, I sit with the newspaper and trace over the pictures, trying different lines, shadings and styles...like drawing boxes around areas that have the same values/tones.

I've also been spending more time sketching...it might be a little odd, but since I started working 40 hours a week, I might be spending more time making art than I did when I was taking classes. Perhaps my brain just has more free time than before...

[Santon]

Here's some stuff I been workin on...

Hope you like

[Santon]

Thought I'd see where a step by step photo analysis got me...

[Santon]

Just a thing I'm painting... about 10x12 inches

[localfatheaded]

wow I think you have some awesome stuff here, I really like the line work, especially when you use the really thick lines, such a cool look. You mentioned that you where having some frustrations with coloring, one thing that really helped me with color was a color theory post by Ron Lemen right here at concept.org, http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?p=80646#post80646
actually any posts you can find by him are incredibly helpful. Keep up the good work!!!

[Santon]

Thanks fathead...

in attempt to use more colour, I found my gouache and watercolours.

Included are my usual faces/headz.

[Santon]

Trying to put some effort or care into this one...let's see how we do.

[Santon]

morepainting

[Santon]

Finished the face, I guess....

[Santon]

The Raider His self
WIP
on plywood

[The7Artist7]

Hey thanks for dropping by my sketchbook :)

Dude, most of your scribbles creep me out lol but you got some wacky skills going on - loving the Indy WIP - That dude's face is cool too. Nice energy to your work.

[Santon]

Threw some more paint on indy

[Santon]

Still workin' on Indy...
started a buscemi...will likely post that later

[Santon]

The buscemi is about 3'x4'
the lincoln is about 8"x12"

ultramarine, titanium white, burnt sienna and yellow ochre for both...

[Lee W]

cool stuff :) looks like you like doing caricatures .. colors are hard, using soft pastels helped me a lot, maybe give them a try?

[Santon]

Here's some work "from life" whatever the hell that means...
one's a quick one of the view from my studio, the other is...also...oddly...the view from my studio....weird... anyways...disregard the wavy lines and poor proportions, it was done intentionally ignoring "pure form"

blah

I intend to do a lot more work on the first one...not sure where to start though

[Santon]

To the graphite batman!

[Santon]

More oil

[Santon]

The Pit

[Ex Nihilo]

Great sketches. Your oils aren't quite as interesting as your line drawings, but I'm sure you're working on that. Keep going.

[pollachi_senthil]

Hai santon..i've posted more 4 works.why didnt you tell me your suggestion..Im waiting for u..

[Santon]

Ex_Nihilo: Thanks...I'd tend to agree... my linedrawings tend to incorporate more creativity than the oil studies....or whatever they are.

Anyway...here's something somewhat different.

You can clearly see this was painted over another failure....but it gives it a really creepy look that I'm not entirely displeased with.

[Santon]

New Pencils

The last sketch of the lady was done in ink.

[Santon]

I decided I needed to get Stephen Harper on my case.

I originally thought the batman...but he's fictional.

[Santon]

I don't know what this is...

[Dave St. Louis]

I know this isn't a photoshopping thing....but...

I was supposed to do a "performance" piece for my drawing class, and take a b/w photo as documentation. However, my idea would be impossible to carry out legally, so....here it is. Comments would be welcome.

You have a gift for noticing the ironic in every day life, keep up the pursuit...it is truly inspiring.

[Dave St. Louis]

The buscemi is about 3'x4'
the lincoln is about 8"x12"

ultramarine, titanium white, burnt sienna and yellow ochre for both...

I don't know how you see what you see, but it is fun, and whitty.

[Dave St. Louis]

I read you bio. Kudos on the brave risk. That is the essence of the artist's spirit, braaving art and posting it for response as well. What an interesting concept this "CoceptArt" is. What is the purpose of art? Communication, to be seen, critiqued even. I see where such forums breed the motivation an artist cannot readily find amongst their everday lives.

You are throwing down a gauntlet I have long-feared to pick up, the brush, the clay, the charcoal...all of the tools I have forsook these past 17 years (wow, has it been that long?).

I applaud and encourage you to stay with it. Don't regret, press forward and see what you'll do - THAT's an adventure I may just seek to pursue soon....?...

[Santon]

Here's some life drawing. Yes. Real life drawing. Like everyone says yer "s'posed ta doo" Man...there's this one creepy guy...I swear it's not me.

[Santon]

More life drawing and etc.