PixelFish: She Sings From Somewhere You Can't See....

[PixelFish]

I thought I'd make a sketchbook thread for myself, to spur me onto painting every day.. EDITED TO ADD: I shifted some of my earlier art to lower in the thread. Sorry for any confusion. The latest art should be shown both in this first thread and also at the end of the thread.

RECENT: returned to an old pic from 2009...detail shots of turtle

[PixelFish]

So I was explaining to Lise about Paul's Study Buddy concept (http://autodestructdigital.blogspot.com/2008/08/be-my-study-buddy.html). She thought that was nifty but doesn't have Photoshop handy. Plus, she writes, not arts. We modified the concept slightly so I could give her something to describe, since she wanted to work on descriptions. (Apparently her world needs more.) Anyway, I gave her a photograph to do a paragraph description (which she posted in her journal) and she gave me an architectural photograph to do a speed sketch with. I could choose Masses, Palette, Detail or Composition to work on as per Paul's original plan for Study Buddies.

I chose to work with Palette (trying to emulate the colours in the painting, in this case without using a colour picker, half an hour time limit)

[PixelFish]

Latest study buddy...


Also, shifted the initial collection I posted to this post. (For thumbnail reasons.)

[PixelFish]

Two more study buddies... (Friends pick pics for me to try in a 30 minute sketch period. The original photos are not mine, just something picked up to get me out of my comfort zone.)

[Parsakoira]

nice rendering on the skins! they could use a bit more hue variation though

[PixelFish]

Re: My daily study buddy sketch:

Today I chose to focus on details.







a) Sketch with values.

I think the kid's face looks more kidlike in this than in the initial sketch. This is because kids' faces are so unlined and smooth usually, so when they show strong emotion you have to be subtle. Sketches introduce lines, which read as wrinkles and make the face look older. Subtle value changes work better to keep the face smoother.

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/44monkey07/503047437/


b) Sketch before value added.

Time limit: 30 mins



The other green sketch is my sketch for the COW this week. :)

[PixelFish]

Here's the sketches, underpainting, inking process for my very first COW. (Creature of the Week, for the newbies.) You can see the preliminary sketch in the post right above this one.

You can see how I took my idea to completion. Note that in the first sketch the Bassoon Beast had rams horns. I showed it my BF and he thought it looked too close to a modified ram, so I changed it to a nautilus shaped ear canal with tubercles.

You'll have to check out COW thread 126 for the final.
http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=138106

[silverrspells]

I very much like the iceberg-like heart there at the beginning of the thread. Stunning idea.

[PixelFish]

Today's Study Buddy: Lise appears to have given me hands to draw. I decide to concentrate on creating mass.

Time limit: 30 mins.

Source: http://www.orangecoastcollege.edu/NR/rdonlyres/30409902-A1D8-4A74-AB17-7FBB7093C9D9/0/art.jpg

[PixelFish]

More study buddies.

House source: http://www.notesfromtheroad.com/images/2008_09.jpg


Chipmunk source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/powerpig/2682867554/sizes/l/

[PixelFish]

The first two pics are my study buddy from yesterday, assigned by my friend Lise. The first one should be about five minutes in showing the basic body sketch, and the second is the colours and clothing details added a little. Time limit: 30 mins total. Source. (http://newsimg.bbc.co.uk/media/images/41111000/jpg/_41111382_12rutanaralf-thill.jpg)

.......................................


Paul Richards, the instigator of the Study Buddies, gave me this set of 12 studies.

For more about Study Buddies, check out Paul's site:

The original Study Buddy explanation. (http://autodestructdigital.blogspot.com/2008/08/be-my-study-buddy.html)


Study Buddy Lite (http://autodestructdigital.blogspot.com/2008/10/study-buddy-lite.html)


To check out an EVEN BIGGER closeup (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pixelfish/2939293684/sizes/o/) of this study buddy, check out my Flickr account.

[PixelFish]

Um. I went about fifteen or so minutes over on this one, so prolly about 45 minutes total. I got caught up in the fur, which was actually starting to be kinda fun.

Source. (http://www.flickr.com/photos/bigtallguy/131956785/)

[PixelFish]

Sketches for an illustration of my cousin's military/medical thriller story.

[PixelFish]

Source: http://www.flickr.com/photos/aknacer/2936151847/

40 mins?

[PixelFish]

The first one was me trying to draw Rick Moranis. Rick Moranis is hard to draw, y'all. REALLY.

The second one, more recent, is me trying to paint a wave using Jezebel's tutorial, which you can see here: http://www.pocketmole.com/tutorials/waves/

I think this was more successful and I had a lot of fun painting the frothy bits. :)

[The7Artist7]

Very cool thing you're doing here - keep it up! :painting:

[PixelFish]

I messed around with the layers a little on my wave painting. Lightened the sky, smoothed out the wave a little.

[PixelFish]

My final CoW from the Sound Cow and in progress shots from the Implant cover I'm doing for my cousin's book.

[PixelFish]

I decided to make an entry for the IAFcover art contest. I'm a sucker for roots and cracks aesthetically speaking, so I decided to work around those as a metaphor for creativity.

mixed media: digital photography/Photoshop painted

(The building is the Bigelow Chapel at the Mount Auburn Cemetery in Cambridge, Massachusetts, which is one of my favourite cemeteries, and one of the oldest garden style cemeteries in the US.)

[PixelFish]

More refinements to Implant cover. I've got several shadow references up in the lower left corner--some for colour, some for the shape of the shadows, etc.

[PixelFish]

Cover art for my cousin's military thriller novel. It's not completely done, but I need to move it off my plate for now. (If and when his book sells, I can always revisit it.)

[PixelFish]

Fan art in progress for Lois Bujold's fantasy series, The Sharing Knife. I decided I wanted to do a picture of Dag and Fawn from one of my favourite (and more peaceful) scenes. Dag has just taught Fawn to swim in the lake, and has taken her to this place he used to swim as a kid. So far, I've done a very rough palette study, trying to figure out the main colours I want to use, and started on the sketch of Fawn and Dag in the water. Dag is more treading water, using his upper arms, while his lower body hangs slack. (Also, the water will be dark-greeny-brown, and you won't be able to see much of their bodies below their torso, except for as shadows and highlights.)

For those who haven't read the book, Dag lost his left hand in a battle twenty years back. (For reference on why there's no left hand. It's not disappearing in the lake or anything like that. Also, I haven't yet decided if I want to draw a loincloth for him, or just give genitalia and let it all hang out, or if I should just let the murky lake water preserve his modesty.)

[bharat]

nice...art

[PixelFish]

Got Fawn into the picture now.....

[localfatheaded]

looking good, maybe try some more finished studies, really sit down and work it over, i think you'd be surprised how it could help you out, but overall looking really good!

[PixelFish]

Have I mentioned how much I like roots?

[PixelFish]

More progress on Fawn and Dag....

(I know a handful of folks think I should move up the figures, but I'm really loath--particularly as all the rest of my works are....you know...centered. Dead center. Besides, I think it will matter less when their bodies are covered up more and the background is darkened up a lot.)

[PixelFish]

Off to the left you can see reference shots of forests and standing water and overgrown banks and lily ponds.

I tend to have one window open at my zoomed in size, and another at the size I assume people will see the final product in.

[PixelFish]

So I've got some more in progress shots with Fawn and Dag, as well as my octopus which was supposed to be my daily sketch but turned into a bit more than a mere sketch. I've included some of the in progress sketches and inks.

Reference for the octopus is from my photos at the Seattle Aquarium. I took this particular shot (http://www.flickr.com/photos/pixelfish/3492269513/") during my brother's visit earlier in April. I managed to get some fairly decent photos despite the flash and despite the fact that our camera's lens needs cleaning. Well, decent enough for reference. :)


I'll probably revisit this again some time because I want to try my hand at the awesome colourations this octopus had. Isn't he a beaut?


...

As for Fawn and Dag, these shots just show progress on the canoe and lily pad details.

[PixelFish]

I thought I would try Bumskee's tutorial from this thread here (http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=107217) and this is what I ended up with. I may have to use that technique more.

[PixelFish]

Meh, there's so much wrong with this sketch, I don't even know where to begin.

Her arm is too long, I'm having trouble with her legs. Do I keep them crossed or uncross 'em.

I guess I got in a sort Maxfield Parrish mood today, but finding the sketching rough going. If I decide to take this further, I think I'll have to shoot reference for the pose.

[PixelFish]

A mascot for one of my websites.....the chameleonmind!

[PixelFish]

Went to the Seattle Aquarium on Sunday and sketched....which is harder than you might think since the fish don't know they are modelling for me and refuse to sit still. Plus, there's about a thousand yelling children beating on the tank walls, disturbing the octopus and the sea horses, and well, you get the pic.

Anyway, the advantage of coral is that it sits still. So I sketched me some basic shapes and then referred to video footage and notes from a previous trip to get the colours.

[PixelFish]

So I saw this pic of Michael Chertoff on Boing Boing and decided to sketch him, because he was perfect creeeeeepy face reference material. It's like....Montgomery Burns come to life.

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4003/4299353607_b4888405eb_o.png


http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4056/4299457575_454217b8a0_o.png

[Christian223]

Really fun idas you have, the cameleon brain, the iceberg heart,all nice, keep posting :)

[PixelFish]

Ack! It's been a while, hasn't it? Well, my excuse is that work has been keeping me really busy for a number of months, and this year has also had me fly home for two funerals and life is just filled with the sort of stuff that keeps one from drawing and painting. But I do have SOME stuff to post, sketches, and two traditional paintings, one of which is in progress, and one of which is finished.

Nerahla mentioned the 30 second pose site to me yesterday, and while I did a few quick poses, I really prefer longer form. I found a pose I wanted to try and did a pencil sketch. After scanning the sketch, I re-inked the lines I wanted in photoshop and laid in flat greys. I'm not entirely happy with the head and I'm almost never happy with my hands and feet. (Exception: My San Francisco which I did for CHOW. Oh, wait....that's not been archived in my Sketchbook thread. I should put her in.)

I've also got a watercolour picture of my deceased maternal grandmother to match the one of my maternal grandfather I made on the occasion of his funeral. (She actually died when he did, about 11 years back, but I wasn't feeling the muse at the time.)

And I started painting my great-great-grandmother (paternal side) in acrylic while I get used to the medium again.

(Finally) I forgot to put my sketches of San Francisco and the final piece in the sketchbook thread for me. (This was from an old CHOW.) Adding.

[PixelFish]

Grandma (maternal side)

[PixelFish]

Great-great-grandma Charlotte Marie Parr. (Paternal side. Lost her eye in her youth while chopping wood.)

[Black Spot]

Did you ever finish the coral because it's looking very pretty? Posemaniacs has close ups of hands that you can turn to match the pose - it's what I use it mainly for.

[PixelFish]

Finally the San Francisco stuff from CHOW of ages past. :)

[PixelFish]

Did you ever finish the coral because it's looking very pretty? Posemaniacs has close ups of hands that you can turn to match the pose - it's what I use it mainly for.

I did not finish it. But I really should. Particularly because I have another undersea idea that I could probably pair it with. :)

[PixelFish]

A sketch I'm working on, illustrating a novel called Machine Intelligence. (I may post more about it here, if and when I get the author's permission.)

I was having trouble sketching the fabric in Photoshop, so I ended up printing up the flats (see upthread) and then sketching on top of that printout. It worked pretty well, freeing me up a lot. Now I'm in the process of digitally inking over the scan of that secondary sketch. (The hair and the fabric are the new additions.)

[PixelFish]

Working on the head which was wonky.....

[PixelFish]

My sketches from the 11th Annual Gage Drawing Jam: http://art.lismitchell.net/?p=166

Here's my favourite from that batch--a plaster model from the Atelier room.

[PixelFish]

So much to catch up on, but a lot of my art for the last half year has been traditional media: pencil, acrylic, a little charcoal. This is actually a continuation of my newly rediscovered attempts at acrylic when I made tiny paintings for everyone as wedding favours. I did the first 15 back in September and October. The seahorse and lionfish were painted in December for the work art bazaar/charity raffle. They represent my zoological interests and things about the natural world (for the most part) that I find neat. Since our wedding was very small, I only had to paint fifteen paintings. They were distributed randomly but my brother--who was in charge of distributing the favour bags--did mysteriously manage to end up with the chameleon painting he coveted.

Reference sources: The insects (digger wasp and scarab) were referenced from a field guide for insects, and the chameleon and frog were referenced from online stock photos. Almost everything else was referenced from my private photo collection or my brother's photo collection. (Mine were taken at a variety of zoos, aquariums, the Japanese tea garden for the iris and stone lantern, the PacSci butterfly house, the Golden Gate Park conservatory, or my own betta fish.)

The scans are bigger than the actual paintings, the largest of which is about 3 inches by 3 inches. I painted a ground colour for each, decoupaged on bits of map, and then sketched each object in. You can see more of my process here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pixelfish/4982080770/in/photostream/ - decoupaging map bits

and here:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/pixelfish/5003054301/ - paintings in various stages of progress

[PixelFish]

So last Thanksgiving I decided to paint my last living grandparent, my paternal grandmother, a picture of my recently deceased paternal grandfather. The result was that while my aunts and uncles recognised it immediately as Grandpa (from when he was younger) Grandma still said, "Who is that, dear?" Or words to that effect.

My husband asked me what I wanted for Christmas and having just been at the Gage Drawing Jam, I mentioned they were having an acrylic portrait class. So most of the following sketches and paintings are from that class. We spent a few weeks learning (or relearning in my case) the foundations of drawing the human face. Always nice to have a brush-up. :)

In some cases, I've put in the different stages--for example, our teacher has us sketch on the coloured ground, and then we go over our sketch with the raw umber, before putting our midtones or other values on.

Note: with the exception of the last four pictures, all pictures were done from real life models or pictures I own. The last four portrait studies (George Takei, Idris Elba, Julianne Moore, and Radmilla Cody, respectively) are from online/magazines. (Practising different skin tones, although I haven't got that far in the studies yet.)

[PixelFish]

I just spent thirty minutes attaching pictures to the last post and none of them showed up. Retrying in smaller batches. Pardon the confusion.

1 - Model: Max - Three colours only: titanium white, ultramarine blue, and cadmium orange light.

2 - Sketch of my husband (pencil, graphite)

3 - Painting of my husband Pyrrole Red Light + Viridian + Titanium White

4 - Sketches of eyes, nose, and mouth : Front, Profile and Three-Quarters Views (charcoal)

[PixelFish]

1 - The pic of Grandpa from last year. (Predates the other pictures, but I forgot to put it in with first batch.)

2 - Quinacridone Orange for the base, charcoal sketch, raw umber lines on top of that. Two scans to get full size of picture--it's bigger than my scanner.

3 - 2nd week with Max the Model's portrait

4/5 - Our art teacher has requested that this picture be in values of black, grey, white on a ground of Quinacridone Orange. This is so we can learn how to translate colours into values. Sketched from photo reference, which is also what I'm using as my value reference. This is mostly only the underpainting.

[PixelFish]

Final batch for the moment:

[Black Spot]

I've seen some of these on flickr, but not all. I'd love to see where you take them.

The colour on this one is great.

http://attachments.conceptart.org/forums/attachment.php?attachmentid=1189710&stc=1&d=1300049505

[PixelFish]

Inspired by the live hummingbird cam at PhoebeAllens.com. (I took a buncha screenshots to reference.) Completely done in Photoshop

1 - rough sketch
2 - "inks" / refined sketch
3 - values
4 - flats
5 - background roughs
6 - current stage

Colour will be refined a lot in the bird before this is done....

[PixelFish]

More with the nest....

[Black Spot]

This is looking awesome. Love the colours and the detail.

[PixelFish]

At work, we've got a bit of a challenge going to see if we can paint once a day. (We can, it just won't be a finished painting, if I'm anything to go by. And I'd rather try to finish some things than start a lot of little never finished sketches, but oh, well.)

The hummingbird started because of that, but here's some more stuff from my painting / sketching attempts.

1 - Floppy eared orc. I think he might be Mr. Nutt from Pratchett's Unseen Academicals.

2 - Jellyfish painted in Muro, DA's sketch app.

3 - Landscape from imagination. I was thinking of the fin canyons in Arches though.

[PixelFish]

Stuff of recentish vintage.

[PixelFish]

First we have a fountain in Seattle. (The one behind the convention center.) And also a value study of a cup on my desk. Not much to say about these. Just trying to push myself along.

[JoshDArtist]

awesome friggin work in here...

[PixelFish]

Random sketch of woman, but after playing with the hair colour a bit, I decided that she was Cordelia Vorkosigan in my head. (My husband thinks she's too young to be Cordelia.)

This is the passage I had in my head when painting this: "She lifted her chin, above the stiff white lace collar of her blouse, adjusted the sleeves of her tan jacket, and kicked her knee absently against the long swirling skirt of a Vor-class woman, tan to match the jacket. The color comforted her, almost the same tan as her old Betan Astronomical Survey fatigues. She ran her hands over her red hair, parted in the middle and held away from her face by two enameled combs, and flopped it over her shoulders to curl loosely halfway down her back. Her grey eyes stared back at her from the pale face in the mirror. Nose a little too bony, chin a shade too long, but certainly a serviceable face, good for all practical purposes. "

Obviously, I've got the eye colour wrong--I'd make them grey if I revisit this.

<a href="http://baencd.thefifthimperium.com/24-CryoburnCD/CryoburnCD/Novels/Cordelia%27s%20Honor/index.htm" rel="nofollow">baencd.thefifthimperium.com/24-CryoburnCD/CryoburnCD/Nove...</a> - The book is here. In the second half, Cordelia has one of my most favourite moments in books EVAR with a memorable scene which I will not here describe other than to say it establishes her as a total badass. As TV Tropes calls it, it's a crowning moment of awesome that I don't want to spoil for you.

Working on painting on only one or two layers at a time, instead of a billion ones in different folders. Next time, I'd like t concentrate more on defining the form through volume, feeling the mass extrude or recede based on value.

[PixelFish]

Earlier this year for my acrylic portrait class, I did some facial studies in charcoal: eyes, nose, mouth, etc. So when I wanted to do some colour studies of the face, lo, the sketches were right there, begging me to make use of them.

[PixelFish]

Done from a tutorial in the Digital Painting Technique books by Focal Press.

Pretty pleased with how it turned out.

[PixelFish]

Returned to this picture...from 2009. Redid the background. It's still not done, but it's nice to return to it :)

[PixelFish]

Detail shot of the turtle. (See previous picture...you can see a sketch of the turtle blocked out.)

[PixelFish]

Working on Fawn and Dag now. Here are some reference shots I have for skin colours, facial features, etc.

Notes: Their bodies are going to have a sharp drop off in saturation, detail clarity, and intensity below the waterline, but I want to work out the major planes first, and get the major body shadows in place before I start dropping in the water over the bodies.

This ALSO explains the lack of Dag's junk. In my original pose references for Dag (part Poser, part mag photos of ripped dudes) I didn't have the genitalia roughed in AND because it was going to be below the waterline, I figured I probably wouldn't worry about it. But everybody keeps frickin' commenting on it. Man, you leave the genitalia of somebody or remove the nipples and you never hear the end of it. (Said self-deprecatingly.)

I've been working background to foreground, so that'll screw up the perspective a little since currently the background is at a higher detailed level than the foreground. In the final piece, the background details will be dropped back and foreground made sharper, etc.

This is an illustration of a scene from the second Sharing Knife. The character Dag doesn't have a left hand--amputated years ago. He's also considerably older than Fawn, who is only 19 in the first book.

[Black Spot]

They're considerably brighter than at first, which gives a weird floating look. I'm sure when the water is place over their bodies it won't look so surreal and the shadows will hide his lack of junk.

[PixelFish]

@MeBlackSpot: Yep, I plan on dropping off the color a LOT in the water. Also, this is sort of the mid-range. Gotta work up my shadows and then my highlights.