Nwagz Sketchbook: There Better be Blisters on those Pretty Hands

[Nwagz]

Here is my work. I have been digitally painting since April 2007. I was not born with pencil in hand as they say. I did sketch and draw, but I stopped in high school at one point, then I decided I wanted to be a philosopher. However, the act of creating something from nothing just kept nagging at me. So, with only 3 classes to go I switched to the Art Institute Online for about a year and a half, but had to drop out because of financial reasons--the school is crazy expensive. Going to school online showed me that I could teach myself. So, since April of 2007 I quit my job and have been drawing everyday in order to make a career as an artist.

Work ethic is straight forward. Draw, Draw, Draw, until those hands blister, let them heal by reading, and studying art fundamentals--it is through dedication that almost anything can be done.

10/8/08 However, we all become discouraged. I almost want to stop painting.

11/04/08 Licked my wounds and back to work.



There Better be Blisters on those Pretty Hands It is a play on how much one should practice and sketch. When i was playing baseball I went to the batting cages and hit baseballs until I had blisters--blisters result from hard consistent practice. So, that is how I view sketching because when i stopped sketching my work declined.

Remember all of you are my teachers because I am a self taught artist. So, if time is available give me some critiques. Late Nwagz

[Nwagz]

I resized all of my work so it is easier to view. This is old work. I will be posting new work uf possible daily. I am going to use this as a work diary. I work at home so I don't get to show my every day work to really anybody.

[DoubleThink]

Looks like you thought yourself well ;)

I like the magician and the fairy painting a lot.
You really have your lighting down aswell, but I think you need to pay more attention to your composition aswell.

Anyways, what do I know :P
Welcome here & keep sketching/painting

[FightingSeraph]

You might want to resize those; not everyone uses high-resolution, widescreen monitors.

[Nwagz]

I know exactly what you mean and it was in the back of my mind, but I just wanted to get my work up. This is the first time I have found a forum where it is encouraged for me to post all of my work. One thing you can do if using firefox is zoom out or int by hitting ctrl and the -+. I had to do this for a lot of other peoples sketchbooks and finally finished work.

However, in the future I am going to post the images smaller. Thank you for the heads up. Late Nwagz

[Brun]

your mind seems to be ruled by some great ideas and images.
tho i think u should move on to more basics (anatomy, colour) somethimes, so that your cool ideas could benefit from it.

please post more

[Nwagz]

I started to press myself to get painting done with out the proper planning. I stopped using reference photos. I stopped focusing on composition. I basically stopped doing all of the basics because I was paniced about not having some paying work. I quit my job in order to draw full-time, but when my wife became about 33 weeks pregnant I sort of freaked out. I have sacrificed almost every creature comfort in order to tackle this dream of being a professional artist and I know I will be able to do it because I get kicked around and beat up on forums, by my parents, and by my peers, but everyday I get up and draw.

The good thing is that I have already seen an improvement in my work since I listened to the critiques of my peers on this forum. You guys are my teachers. I hope you come back and give me some more feedback later on. Late Nwagz

[Quigleyer]

Maybe something to think about:

I've been advised a lot recently to go away from using so much "black" (darkest value in the painting, not necessarily black) in my compositions. As a hopeful professional artist (senior year... shit's gettin' scary) that markets yourself only to pieces of art with a darker nature... much of the same thing can be done with less dark values and complimentary colors and all of that color theory fun.

I think you're texturing is competing with your modeling too much. Try doing some paintings with no textures overlayed (or however you do it, I know there are a lot of methods).

Keep chuggin'!

[Nwagz]

You are so correct about using black. The last drawings are some of my oldest drawings. That being said, it is interesting for me to see the mistakes I made and changed for example using black. Instead i use red or if painting people green or even purple that also depends upon the bounced light from other objects in the room. However, black is my favorite colour. I am not gothic, but I love horror movies and to me nothing scarier to me is the absence of all light. It is just creepy.

I do have a texture issue and that is I don't really use them correctly. I don't balance them nor do I have enough or at time do them correctly. I just recently asked one of my favorite artists Kerem Beyit to take a look at my portfolio on cgsociety.org http://nwagz.cgsociety.org/gallery/

What he told me was that I was very good at rendering, but really needed to work on my use of textures. So, I started to look at a lot of my work and realized that there really are only a few textures for each painting or as you stated the textures are clustered in one spot which can then throw off the balance, composition, or rhythm of the painting.

It is really cool to be able to see all of my paintings up at one time. I have learned so much in the last two days just being able to see all of them up. I just hope I get more critiques because whether you believe it or not your few words will make me a better artist today. Late Nwagz

http://kerembeyit.cgsociety.org/gallery/

[Peetaer]

Thanks for dropping by sketchbook!
There's a richness to your art that is begging to be articulated and pronounced more clearly. Like others have said, get back to the basics. Hammer out anatomy studies, hammer out studies in color theory, in light and shading, and so and so forth.

[Lotet]

hai there, good start ,and I can tell ur keeping urself bussy, which is good. your biggest problem is anathomy in my opinion, but you probebly alredy know that, another thign is readebility, sometimes I get the fealing you dont even know for yourself what your drawing, and thats never a good thing.

keep it up though, ur definitly going in the right direction!

[Nwagz]

I wanted to thank all of you who have commented on my work on this thread and in any other thread I have posted. It was hard to hear all of the constructive criticism because even though I pride myself on my humility and open mind towards criticism, I began to take it personally and doubt my ability to become an artist. My view them became myopic towards my own work. I did not see what all of you were saying. I also felt that I was being singled out and that people were being mean. This was not the case.

I say this to all new artists who are trying to make a living in this competitive industry. If you ever fell this way take some time off. If you are like me you work everyday hard, but sometimes take some time away from your passion. It gave me such a different look at my work and the direction in which I want to go with it. Also realize that for the most part artists on here are never being mean, they are only trying to better you as an artist.

Thanks for all of the crits. Late Nwagz

This is a side note that I did want to make is that most of my paints photo reference was not used at all. I wanted to use my imagination as much as possible. I as of yet do not know if this was a good thing or a bad thing. I just wanted to push myself.

[Nwagz]

working on on understanding lighting, composition and form. I had no idea what I wanted to paint. I just wanted it to demonstrate depth, thus some of the construction of the buildings could have been worked out better. Compositionally I used the rule of thirds. The focal point is the building on the left. I wanted the painting to read as a sentence with the focal point being almost a period. A lot more can be done with this image, but I think I accomplished what I was aiming for and that is depth. Late Nwagz

[Nwagz]

I have not posted anything from my sketch book. The first drawing is 22'' by 15'' the rest on done in a Canson 9x12