Abominable snow man (WIP)

I decided to do something digital since it has been awhile.  I thought that it would be fun to create a unique version of the abominable snowman.  something that I hadn't seen before.

So I made him look like a tree.  perfect camouflage!  maybe too perfect.

I'm most interested in color gamut theory at this point.  That's actually the reason I even began this project in the first place.  I'm trying to wrap my head around it!

the  machine is not from reference but it will be redone.  I wanted to see how a neutral gray could look like yellow, so I was trying to achieve that.

anyway, here is a process shot.  more to come.

Sketchbook pages

I haven't been doing elaborate projects lately, but I have been fairly diligent in working in my sketchbook and making an effort to expand my vocabulary with different mediums and subjects.  every day I try an exercise that presents me with projects that force me to try new things, or do things that I should be doing anyway but am just to unmotivated.

so here are some pages that I thought were fun, anyway.

One of the first few days I took a trip to the zoo and it was somewhat of a fiasco, so I didn't even bother posting those pages, but this watercolor was a sketch I did upon returning home, defeated. and the second page is a couple of things I drew from images on the internet

Sketched a lion and then did a color overlay in PS.  then placed a halftone in the background

left to right, pen and watercolor, 50% grey marker and acrylic (can't really see the marker but it worked out really cool as I went), and pen and Nupastel.  I had numbered 8 different mediums, and asked my wife to choose 2 numbers from 1-8, and then I used those 2.

This one was interesting because I just took random brush strokes and created creatures from interesting forms that I saw in them

Gamut Masking - The color wheel

Im not a good color theorist.  Any time I place colors or color schemes it is a complete guess and a crap shoot.  sometimes I feel successful at it, others not.  Either way, I'm not sure what I am doing.  One thing that I would like to explore and become more familiar at is color

James Gurney has invented a gamut masking technique that is wonderful, and one that I want to try and learn

Richard Robinson took Gurney's idea and put it into an online digital form which is amazing.

intro
part one
part two
part three

and then there are other earlier posts

color constancy
and his 2008 posts on color masking, part one and part two

Thanks to the Muddy Colors blog for digging these up!

update:

also: a post on the color of shadows on a white building here

win some, lose some

Illustration class summary

Sentinels

Still trying to figure out edge quality

Vanquisher of Bushes

This was the most frustrating of all.  this acrylic wash business is tough.  I repainted the bush 3 or 4 times and part of me thinks that it is worse now than ever.  The pose of the boy is better than before and the bird looks good.  this scan is sort of bad haha.

Wall

This was a fun one.  I think social media is a silly thing.  On one hand, it can be really useful.  On the other it is just a way to crush our hopes in humanity.

the blue birds represent twitter, and the brick wall behind them is Facebook.  Dumpty has got egg on his face.  I went on Facebook and online and found silly, ridiculous, pointless, or plain stupid things people post on their walls or twitter.  I wanted to make the letters vertical like that to suggest bird pooping down the wall.  The idea is pretty hilarious since that is basically what it amounts to most of the time.

Restriction

Our second to last project in illustration looked at artists like Kara Walker.  We used silhouettes to tell a story or idea(s).

I love silhouettes because as an illustrator, they are King.  

Anyway, I think that there is a lot of irony in society about the idea of freedom.  I remember being an analogy about kites, and how if you cut their strings while they are flying they will simply fall to the ground.  I think there was a story about a kite that wanted to fly higher and that is what happened.

So placing human beings in that scenario was interesting to me.  How often do we feel restricted by laws, rules, religion, etc?  we want to be free and autonomous but we foolishly believe that rejecting the things that set boundaries for our own good with make us free.  

These are pictures that my instructor took of them in the hallway at BSU.  we had limited space, and it was pretty cramped, but it ended working out ok.  I rather liked how it turned out.

you can't see it well in these pictures, but 2 of the people on the cliff are holding scissors :)

Snail

For our final assignment in drawing II we were exploring movement.  We looked at artists such as William Kentridge and Michel Ocelot, among others.  I decided to try my hand at the charcoal method.  It was something I was sort of familiar with, having used it exclusively in figure drawing.

This project presented numerous challenges.  I hadn't done an animation before, so I didn't really know how many drawings you had to do to make a smooth transition.  My life drawing class helped considerably, but I am obviously far from a comfortable working knowledge.  i have 176 individual drawings in the movie.  I thought it was closer to 200.  I think I cut some out.  I looped some of the drawings (in iMovie) so it ended up being about 250 frames.

I didn't get much feedback for it.  I don't think many found it that interesting.  I guess that is ok.  It really does lack content and meaning.  It's pretty short as well.

Overall I'm ok with it.  I learned a lot about what works and what doesn't.

Hallway finished

A couple of months ago I posted some sketches of a larger charcoal project that I was working on at the time.  I finally got a pic of the final product.  It is about 50 x 42 inches, which is by far the largest format i have ever done.  I think it turned out pretty well.

here I'll post the original sketches as well.  It changed quite a bit!  which is always fun.