Ted E.'s Sketchbook (Update: August 18th)

[Ted E.]

A graduate of the Art Institutes of Seattle and Pittsburgh. I have been obsessed with drawing and painting since I was very young. Filling up sketchbook pages with studies in realism, creating characters, ideas and worlds I filled to the edges over 2500 pages. I compiled many large finished artwork through the years - including portraits, caricatures, landscapes and animals. Although life has pulled my time in many directions I have always stayed constantly drawing.

I have been digitally painting for about seven years now and became completely obsessed the last 4 years.

I like to digitally paint in Corel Painter. I like that organic feel and look that Painter can offer. Sometimes I open the program just to find and tweak different tools. Sometimes I experiment with the property's of one tool and stick with it for an entire rendering. Sometimes I do very technical study's on proportion and realism. Sometimes I force myself to time limits. I mostly do my digital paintings, speed painting and sketch's in Painter X. I use Photoshop CS3 (a digital painting program) to paint an average of about %5 in my work flow using brushes and tools that Painter does not have. I have painted 100% in PS with a handful of paintings and enjoy the differences that it can offer. No matter what program I use, I never use photos (digital or otherwise) in my digital paintings period!

I am here to grow, so feel free to speak your mind. (Just be constructive - please!)

[Ted E.]

A couple more sketches and speed paintings in Corel Painter.

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerArchaicRuminationsm.jpg

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerpolarbearsm.jpg

Polar Bear- Painter w/one palette knife


http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerbridgesketch5flatsm.jpg

Bridge Speed Sketch- Painter w/pastel variant


http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillermiscfacesketchedsm.jpg

Misc Face sketch- Painter w/basic round, conte, and real round


http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillersketchbeatled.jpg

Beetle Sketch- Painter w/ chalk, pen, airbrush


I am here to grow my speed skills so feel free to speak your mind. (Just be constructive please!)

[Myllys]

Great start for a sketchbook! That old guy in post no. 1 is awesome. It has a loads of feeling. Keep posting!

[Pinkish]

Did you attend AIonline or in the school for Pittsburgh? I will be taking AIonline classes soon, and it's kind of too late to back out but I've been hearing more bad than good reviews about the school.

Really great work. I love your details.

[stormrider85]

i like the portraits theres some really nice shapes in those faces, some of the edges on the beetle seem a bit muddy to me maybe paint in the edges with a hard edged brush?
keep going great stuff

[Ted E.]

Myllys: Thank You, I definitely will!

Pinkish: Thank you.:teeth:
I attended the campus in Seattle for a year and a half. Then I finished my degree online. Education is always what you make of it. That said, If you can JOIN TAD!!! I wish that this program was around when I was entering school. With the high number of qualified industry leading instructors, TAD is a students dream come true.

stormrider85-Thank You. Yeah, I should probably put a little more time into refining the beetle sketch.

[Ted E.]

The Art Departments Discovery has been awesome!!! I have been loving the range of artist that the program has included. So much information being covered by so many amazing artist. So much to learn and absorb for everyone.

I thought I would share some more of my pre-Discovery artwork. I feel major improvements starting to happen and would like to share where some my personal foundation came from.

First post will be animal studies:

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerparrot.jpg

Painter X- Liquid Oils and Airbrush

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/tmillerfishysketch.jpg

Painter X - Oils (Hard and soft round)

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerelephant.jpg

Painter X- Inks, oils and chalk.

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerowl.jpg

Painter X- oils and acrylics

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerredbear.jpg

Painter X- Watercolor, inks and oils on colored paper

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerlemur2.jpg

Painter X- acrylics and oils

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/tmillerPaletteknifeImpala.jpg

Painter X- Liquid oils and palette knife

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/Tmillerlemur.jpg

Painter X- Liquid oils and airbrush.

[NeonDuck]

nice ones, the fish is awesome!

in general I found it a bit hard to decide where to look in your paintings tho, it seems everything is the same density, saturation, and contrast... it's quite hard to decipher which objects are foreground and background, where the most interesting areas are, that sort of stuff
You could try focusing on one area (like the faces of characters) and toning down the rest by muting the colours, using less contrast, or adding depth. i reckon that's how the fish works so well!

[Ted E.]

NeonDuck- Thank you. :)

[Ted E.]

Some landscape study's from a commissioned project. They were printed at a large size (3' x 5' avg.) so I created some of the files at 90-40 mega pixels. Crazy huge I know, but I wanted them to print at a high resolution.

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerlandscape24.jpg

Painter X- mostly used the Sargent brush with some liquid olis.

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerlandscape7.jpg

Painter X- Sargent brush, pastel, and airbrush.

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerlandscape23.jpg

Painter X- Sargent brush, chalk, variety of liquid oils, and splatters

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerlandscape13.jpg

Painter X- Sargent brush, airbrush and liquid oils.

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerlandscape32.jpg

Painter X- Sargent brush, inks, chalks, and airbrush.

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerlandscape19.jpg

Painter X- Sargent brush, liquid oils, airbrush, and spray splatters.

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerlandscape35.jpg

Painter X- Liquid oils, Sargent brush, and airbrush.

[Ted E.]

some more landscape studies using Painter X.

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerlandscape15.jpg

Painter X- Liquid oils and airbrush

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMilllerlandscape33.jpg

Painter X- Sargent Brush, liquid oils, airbrushes and pastel.

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerlandscape37.jpg

Painter X- Palette Knife, liquid oils, and pastel

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerlandscape38.jpg

Painter X- Liquid oils, pastel, and airbrushes

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerlandscape9.jpg

Painter X- Liquid oils

[Ted E.]

and some more landscape study's:

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerlandscape1n18.jpg

Painter X- Liquid oils

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerlandscape4n18.jpg

Painter X- Liquid oils

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerlandscape6.jpg

Painter X- Liquid oils

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerlandscape2n3.jpg

Painter X- Liquid oils w/ tooth on the paper

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerlandscape12.jpg

Painter X- Liquid oils

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerlandscape14.jpg

Painter X- Liquid oils with various airbrushed spray splatters.

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerlandscape5.jpg

Painter X- Liquid oils

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerbrushtest14.jpg

Painter X- Liquid oils

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerforestsketch.jpg

Painter X- Liquid bristle oils

http://i943.photobucket.com/albums/ad275/TedEM/TMillerbrushtestset2a2b.jpg

Painter X- Liquid oils, pastel, and acrylic

[Ted E.]

Starting to convert my some of my sketchbook into paintings. This is a marker rendering I did years ago. Nice to finally getting to finishing it off. I am about half way through the digital painting and would love any feedback.

[Ted E.]

Another WIP from a marker drawing I did years ago.
I think I am going to add a agent Smith running into the foreground. Would love to get any feedback.

[Mag-Neo]

---HI, mate & welcome on the board :) Really like your drawing style especially you did the way that on the Matrix things. Also I like your coloring & rendering... The "Golden Fish" was looking great...
---btw: sorry about my English... Good luck, mate...!......................... :yayca:

[Mag-Neo]

---HI, mate & welcome on the board :) Really like your drawing style, especially the way how you did that on the Matrix characters. Also I like your coloring & rendering... The "Golden Fish" was looking great...
---btw: sorry about my English... Good luck, mate...!......................... :yayca:

[Ted E.]

Mag-Neo- Thank You! :)

Another WIP of the 'Orangutan Kiss' and some WIP's of a compositional study. Working on six different compositions at the moment. Like to juggle multiple composition at one time so that I can come back to each with fresher eyes.

Any feedback would be appreciated.

[Ted E.]

The Christopher Walken piece is my conceptual portrait assignment from TAD's Discovery. I wanted to have a young Christopher Walken being dropped by aliens in the 60's.

The other two are WIP's that I am working on currently.

[Ted E.]

Another WIP of the Eddie Murphy Piece. I decided I wanted to capture his sarcastic laughter more. I think it helped, made the piece more lively.

[Ted E.]

Third WIP for 'The Orangutan Kiss'.

[Ted E.]

Some conceptual portrait studies created in Painter.

[Ted E.]

Master studies created in Painter.
The top three are after Sebastian Kruger, and the bottom landscape is after Albert Bierstadt. I will probably detail these a little more to get some more great info.. These are soooo fun! :)

Edit: Another master study after Kruger on bottom.

[Ted E.]

Some of my studies from The Art Departments Discovery program.

[Ted E.]

Speed painting of Arnold.

[Ted E.]

Some of the study's from this week. Got a terrible cold this week so some of my work reflected that too much. Continuing to experiment with being more suggestive. Self-portrait on top.

[Ted E.]

Some recent sketches from my sketchbooks. Working out of the 'The Book of Bones', thank you Mentler. Going to try to work my way through his study's. The other sketches are from 'Bridgeman's ......' .

[jskotte]

wow, really a lot of great work. My only crit is that some of the hair/fur looks too much like the brushes in photoshop, it doesn't look natural.

[mike butkus]

Great job! You have a lot of wonderful work here, love the gold fish, we just got one and a turtle.

[Twan]

really inspiring thread, really good job, I'll follow this SB
keep it up

[Ted E.]

jskotte- Thank you. :) Always looking for a more natural digital brush for hair. Checking out the Real Bristle system in Painter 11 and getting some cool results.
Mike Butkus- Thank You! :) It blew my mind to see that comment from an artist of your caliber. Thank you for taking the time to comment on my sketchbook. Wow!
Twan- Thank you for the comment and the follow! :)


Starting to scan in some of my work from the last ten years for personal archiving. Plus it is always nice to review these just to see how far I have come. Decided I would share some of this work (even though some the mistakes stick out like a sore thumb to me now). Some are class assignments, some are personal study's and some experiments with media.

(Note: 'Cheap acrylics' - $10 set. Second flower painting is oils and not acrylics.)

[Ted E.]

WIP's and studies. The fourth one is a self-portrait. Suppose to be waves and brushed lines floating around. But I think it looks a little to much like smoke.

[mybutterflyiris]

I like the last one of the fish. It has a nice sense of light and the colors are working really well together. On the second to last one, it's hard to tell what is going on, on the right side of the image.
It also looks like you have a tendency of placing the focal point close to center in most of your images (they also tend to be a bit symmetrical). For example I think your self portrait would benefit from being cropped so that your face was closer to one side or the other.

[Ted E.]

mybutterflyiris- Thank You for your comments and critique.:)

Some more WIP's and speed study's. Playing around with the idea of putting Indian headdress's on animals. The last study is a master study after Syd Mead.

[Ted E.]

3-5 minute figure studies.

[Ted E.]

Mostly 3-5 min studies. Studies from the Book of Bones are the top three sketchbook pages. Follow by three from a Bridgeman book. Then by four from life and imagination.

[Ted E.]

More quick studies.

[Ted E.]

Various sketchbook studies. I used acrylics and ink on the frog sketch.

[Ted E.]

Some life studies of my daughters toy cars. Keeping myself timed at 10 mins. on each to keep moving.

[Ted E.]

Some small head studies from reference. Timed at 10 minutes and less to keep myself from getting carried away with details.

[Ted E.]

Some recent self portraits Wip's. Trying to stay loose and painterly.

[Ted E.]

Some recent speed paint studies.

[Ted E.]

Been a while since I have posted so I thought I would come in and share a little bit of what I have been doing lately. I have been filling sketchbooks pages with life study's during most of my time. I will do a big scan and share some of that work soon.
For now I thought I would share some of the recent digital studies that I have been working on. I have been concentrating on simplification while doing these studies. I have been keeping myself timed because it helps me to remember to get only what is essential. The bottom painting is a mater study WIP after William A. Bouguereau.

[Ted E.]

I have been doing a lot of head studies lately too. Concentrating on simplification and what is essential. I promise I will share more soon . . . but for now here is some recent self portraits. The middle one is a WIP from further up the page.

[Ted E.]

Some recent landscape speed studies. The bottom two are master study's after Albert Bierstadt.

[Ted E.]

Some speed studies from imagination.

[Ted E.]

15-20 min charcoal figure studies.

[Ted E.]

15 min. charcoal and conte stick studies.

[Ted E.]

5-7 min. charcoal studies from life.

[Ted E.]

3 min. studies from life. These were interesting and challenged me to quickly draw a figure that was in movement. Lifting weights can cause constant shifting within the figure so I had to really try to think about one piece of the movement. Plus the model switching hands with the weight made for a quick read of the pose before it would change. This caused some of the drawing to be from memory.

[Istmin52]

I feel like a lot of your digital work looks a little blury. Are you using mostly the airbrush soft brush in photoshop? That might be why. You have some nice caricature work in here and it's nice to see you started doing some figure studies. I notice on some of your figure drawings, you don't really draw the faces. I think it's a good idea to indicate the face maybe with the use of shadow or just some guide lines. Some of your proportions are off too but I'm sure that is something you will fix over time. I still struggle with that myself.
I think some of your environment paintings and studies are really looking great. There is some great color happening in there. I'm curious to see your process on your journey.

[Ted E.]

Istmin52- Thank you for your comments and critique.
I use Painter for 95% of my digital paintings. I like to have my brushes semi-wet so they interact with my canvas as I build up. Lately I have been mostly using the basic soft and hard rounds to speed up my process. Pieces that have less time in them are going to have less sharp detail than others. Since I am mostly in study mode right now, I am keeping my self away from getting wrapped up in too much detail until I am finishing a piece. So I can see why you feel they are a 'little' blurry because I am using mostly broad wet strokes with hardly any small line making. But still - I would like to challenge you use a airbrush in PS to do even 10% of what I do in my digital work. Some of those tonal transitions are as hard as they get. Thank you for your critique though, it will be useful and I will keep it in mind.

Below:
5-10 min. clothed figures.

[Ted E.]

Some recent speed portrait study's. These were timed so I did not concern myself with time consuming details or likenesses. Although I will be going back in and finishing some of these (especially some of those eyes). I have a bunch more of these I will share soon. Then on to the time consuming pretty ones, this is going to be fun!

[Ted E.]

More speed studies. Spent more time with some of these.

[Ted E.]

15-20 speed studies.(except for the third one down, which I spent about 40 mins.)

[Ted E.]

A couple 15 min. from imagination.

[Ted E.]

Master studies:
Caravaggio, Sargent, Weistling, and a Bouguereau I am still working on from post #42, above.

[Ted E.]

Speed studies, all completed in about 45 min. Most done during hour long sketchoholic marathons. We pick a topic, draw an idea, paint it and upload it in less than an hour.

[Ted E.]

Some quick ink studies. Average of about 7 min. each.

[Ted E.]

Some quick studies from life and ref.

[Ted E.]

First three are marker from imagination. Ideas for flour sack poses.

The rest are from ref. (character sheets, pausing movies, ect.)

[Ted E.]

Recent speed paintings. Top six are from imagination and the rest are speed studies, some I put a little more time into. The last four are self-portraits.

[Ted E.]

Although this is a finished piece, I thought I would share it my sketchbook rather than make another thread.

[Ted E.]

Some recent master studies after John Singer Sargent . Average of about 1 hr. limit on each, including the drawing and painting.

[Ted E.]

M.J.'s-
Originally got idea from watching thriller. I found it kind of weird that he had turned so close to the zombie character her plays in the video. I remembered in a behind the scenes clip that he was fascinated with theatrical make-up while doing the shoot for the video. It kind of bridged the gap between his fascination with changing his face through plastic surgery.

[Ted E.]

3-5 min. from life.

[Ted E.]

5 minutes from life.

[Ted E.]

5-7 min.

[Ted E.]

20-10 min.

[Ted E.]

Gaga illustration I have been working on. I noticed that in her videos and photo shoots that it seemed at times that she was being controlled by an external force. Almost like it kind of functioned with her. While thumbing I read that she used phones on her head in her videos to display mind control. Not long after I got this idea and I felt it fit her well. I tried to stretch and pull on her proportions. Towards the end I felt I had stretched some the limbs too much.

[artchina]

prettyworks!

[Ted E.]

Some recent speed abstract spaces from imagination. These range from 15-30 min. I am developing some of these ideas into some finished compositions.

[Ted E.]

This composition started as a speed abstract space like in the post above. Then I decided to develop the idea further. Will probably develop this idea into a finished composition.

[Ted E.]

A Bob Dylan piece that I created about 6 months ago.

[Ted E.]

Some recent portrait paintings. Will share more soon.

[Ted E.]

20 minutes from imagination. Will share more soon.

[Ted E.]

Speed skull studies. 45 minutes to sketch and paint. Using one basic round brush. Not entirely trying to crosshatch just having fun with lines while I render.

[Dorkthrone]

First, I would post smaller images just to make it a little easier on some people.

Second, I'm not entirely sure the cross-hatching (?) on the skulls is working. It's making the picture seem uneven. With some of the images, I would tone down the blacks and whites and replace them with more natural colors.

[Ted E.]

Dorkthrone- Thank you for your thoughtful words.
I was not trying to cross-hatch hence not many lines crossed. Just experimenting with line while doing some speed studies. Trying to add some kind of life to the dead if you know what I mean. :wink:
I will try to keep that size thing in mind. Guess I am just so use to working with large screens. I guess I get more request that they be larger, so I forget that some users view using small screens.

A still life painting from a couple months ago. Using a wet square brush to paint. Makes the painting more difficult and time consuming than a nice soft round brush. But well worth all the little rendering marks that are made in the end. :)

[Ted E.]

Speed still life paintings. 1hr- 40min. - 20min. at bottom. Using same wet square brush that I used in the painting above.

[Ted E.]

Speed portrait studies. Ranging from 45 minutes to 3.5 hours.

[Ted E.]

Some recent self-portrait studies. Top three from life (mirror). The fourth was inspired by a Bouguereau painting, although my version is much different.

[Ted E.]

Some recent concept paintings. Top two are from a project I am working on and the bottom one was just for fun.

[Ted E.]

Ray Charles-
Watching Ray sing I can always see him feeling the music. Like he knows exactly how it flows around him. I wanted to display his energy and mind's eye for the instrument and music that he loves to share.

[Ted E.]

'Kings with cheese'-
Wanted to do something fun for Elvis. One day I noticed that Burger King has the same type of swag that Elvis has. At the very least looks like they are from the same time period. The play on 'King' and Elvis's love for hamburgers seemed like a perfect little corny match.