As Hen Gathereth

I recently finished another painting commissioned as a gift for the client’s spouse. It is based on the scriptural quotation “how often would I have gathered thy children together, even as a hen gathereth her chickens under her wings…”

The process was the same pretty standard thing I’ve described before. A few interesting things though:

1. I ended up combining 10 different photos to get a single reference image—chickens are not good at following modeling direction, so 4 of the 10 photos were just different parts of the main chicken that I had to composite the get the pose we needed.
2. Chicken faces look like scary dinosaurs. You can see between the last progress and the final that I altered the chickens face to make it slightly less scary.
3. Ipads do not record reliably accurate color in their photos (I imagine this is true for most mobile devices). All the progress photos were taken on my ipad. Though I did do a little glazing that softened some of the colors, that doesn’t account for the huge difference color-wise between the photo of the final, which was matched to the original, and the last progress shot.

Star Citizen Commission

I finally have a decent image of a painting I finished at the end of the year. In my rush to get it shipped to the client, I didn’t look closely enough at the photographs I took to notice the glare from the painting’s texture until after I had already sent it off. Luckily, the client was able to send me some photos (thanks Bonnie!) that I composited with mine to eliminate most of the glare.

The commission was to do a painting of one or more ships from the game Star Citizen. The client was giving it as a gift to her favorite star citizen. Though there was nothing special about the way it was painted (oil on panel), the challenge for me lie in drawing and painting mechanical components with which I was not familiar. I did manage to find some rough 3D models, and there were images on the game’s website, but I felt like there were a lot of details I was missing. The client and I agreed in the beginning that a little bit looser retro vibe would be nice, even though most of the images that I could find from the game tended to be more sharp computer-generated-realism. I looked at a lot of artwork from John Berkey and John Harris for inspiration. Both those artists tend to hint at details while actually being pretty vague about the nuances of their space ships. I really like this, but when I got started myself, I found I had a hard time abandoning what details I’d uncovered when I was supposed to be painting a specific and concretely designed ship.

Don’t worry, it still didn’t come out super detailed.

I also ran into the issue of all the game images showing this ship with a shinyish metallic finish. I’m not saying it wouldn’t be possible to do, but considering the time-frame, the budget and the scale of the painting, mocking up enough shiny reference to paint it believably in a relatively small space just wasn’t in the cards. So we stuck with the retro vibe and the ship got more of a Star Wars, or original Battlestar Galactica paint job.

Other than that, it was mostly the usual sketching, approving, drawing, approving, painting.

The thumbnail turned value comp above, and the final drawing below. Between the two we discussed and decided to add another planet in the back, an element that had been included in one of the other thumbnails.

Some steps in the painting process. I kind of like the empty planet.

Above is the final painting, but with glare from the surface texture visible, despite my best efforts to fix it. And below, the final image with reduced glare and proper values on the top half.

Valkyrie Painting (finally)

A lot of things have been limiting my art production. First, we had a baby. We didn’t really bother with anything but learning to be parents right after Halvor was born. Then Bethany went back to work, and I was taking care of him during the day. The little squirt barely let me shower and put clothes on, much less get a lot of painting done. Then when I finally started figuring out how to get some work done and had begun painting on this valkyrie piece, our apartment flooded. Luckily none of our stuff was seriously damaged, but after moving all our possessions back and forth trying to dry the carpet out, we eventually had to move out for a couple weeks.

Well, I’m back and I have an artwork to share.

I started this piece with the combined goal of making something nice (hopefully), and also testing to see if the oil painting with overlaid drawing technique from my folktale princess piece would be viable for book illustrations.

Concept:

Not too long ago I had been listening to music from Wagner’s Ring Cycle and reading a little about Brunhilde and some of the other characters. I started to think that making a painting of a valkyrie or shield maiden would be cool. I sketched out some little ideas and started doing more research. I thought maybe I would have a woman all armored up and spearing people from horseback! Sounds pretty sweet right? But, the more I read the more my concept for this painting changed. That isn’t to say that the Norse epics don’t include plenty of foundation for a valkyrie staining the field of battle with the blood of her enemies. However, I started to focus more on the idea of valkyries enabling the transition of slain warriors to the immortal realm of Valhalla. I combined this with the idea of the valkyrie bringing drink to the warriors in the hall of the slain and decided to try to illustrate a tender valkyrie bearing mead from the gods to ease a fallen warrior’s final moments of life—a sort of rite—the last sip of mortality and the first taste of Valhalla.

With this in mind, my idea of how she would look and dress also changed. I based her partly on this silver amulet from Sweden (found on Wikipedia):

I also decided to give my valkyrie wings. That was a decision I felt would help compositionally and would also easily distinguish her from mortal women. I’m not displeased with any connection that draws to depictions of Christian angels either.

Process:

The process was very similar to that described in my post Painting a Princess. Only this time I planned  from the beginning to bring the drawing back as an overlay. I began with a small sketch of the basic composition and then spent quite a bit of time compositing reference. Various vintage photographs from the internet as well as a few photos I took myself were cut up and combined into my composition. My preferred method is usually to shoot all my own reference, but, sometimes I get impatient if I don’t have models available. For just the valkyrie I ended up referencing 3 vintage photos, an eagle’s wings, my wife’s arms and hands and a grouse wing I happen to have around the house—similar story for the viking warrior (there is even a little bit of Elvis and a little Colin Firth in there).

With all of my reference composited I did a pencil drawing.

I then photographed the drawing and mounted it directly to a panel and sealed it with matte medium for painting. I sometimes use the photographs to make a print which I mount and paint on so that I can keep the original, but again, I was a little impatient. Looking back, I think a lot of those decisions on this painting were made with the baby’s schedule in mind.

With the panel ready to go I began painting. I tried to include adequate detail and opacity in the areas of interest but also be a little more transparent farther from the center. The idea here is really just that I am more comfortable painting with oils and I like some of the detail and opacity for faces etc., but I want a sort of watercolory feel. Which is why, when finished with the oil painting, I photographed the whole thing and used my photos of the drawing to bring back the pencil lines that had been obscured by paint, but which would still be visible in a watercolor.

In order to get a really high res digital version of my painting without a giant scanner, I usually take it in 3 or 4 overlapping segments in landscape orientation. I left enough room around the edges and overlap, enough to be able to eliminate the vignette that my 50 mm lens creates. I used the 50 mm to minimize distortion ( the last thing you need when photographing artwork or even reference, is lens distortion.) I also usually take a shot of the full image to use as a guide when stitching them together, which I do manually (unfortunately, photoshop has never yet succeeded in putting my artwork back together without distorting it). I corrected any angle problems with the guide photo and made sure the dimensions and proportions were accurate. Then I scaled it up to the final size and brought in my higher res segments. I aligned them to the guide, which in this case was actually the photo of the original drawing, using the edit-transform-distort to drag the corners and line up all the details. I put the new layers on top at 50% opacity. This can take a little time depending on how easy it is to identify landmarks to align and how close they are to the corners. The closer to the corner you can align things the faster it will go. Then I manually merged the segments with layer masks and moved the drawing on top as a multiply transparency at around 55% opacity.

Even though I knew I would be overlaying the drawing to complete the image, I was a a little surprised by how much I like bringing the pencil back.

Hope you like it as well. I’m adding some prints of this to my inventory. The Etsy shop was sort of closed down when the baby was born. But if you can’t live without a print of this, I’m happy to take orders by email. Or, any Utah folks could drop by my booth at Sugarmont Plaza on July 23rd. Cheers!

 

 

Digital Exercise

After the digital failure I mentioned in my last post, I felt like there was a blatant gap in my skill set. It seems like everybody who is anybody can paint digitally these days. Back in school when I had my first digital painting class, I thought my work was on par with my fellow students. However, I ended up focusing more on traditional media and my peers who kept up with digital painting are now killing it, while my skills are sadly wanting.

So, I decided to practice (they say that is how you get better at things). I dug up an old piece of reference and just started making an image. To start with, it felt as digital painting always does for me—like I’m fighting the pixels. They just don’t do what paint does and I spend time trying to wrangle my tools rather than focusing on making a good image.

Then with time, I started to work out a process by which I could reasonably control what was happening on the screen. By the time I finished this piece I felt I was doing alright at this digital painting business. Of course, that is when I saw the latest digital piece Miranda Meeks, one of my old classmates from BYU, had made…. and I decided to go buy a big panel to do some oil painting 🙂

Here is my digital exercise:

Below is an animation of some of the stages of progress. I decided before finishing it off (above) that she was leaning too far forward, so I tilted her back and then did the background.

Standard Bearer

I wanted to add something with a sort of fantasy battle bent to my portfolio. The concept was a warrior carrying a standard or banner behind which an army could rally and charge. Initially, I intended to work in watercolor and then make some digital enhancements. Justin Gerard is a great example of an illustrator who often works this way. Justin’s work has a sort of whimsy that I wasn’t really looking for, though, and I made the mistake of also looking at some fully digital work from Blizzard projects and things like that. I started covering more and more of the watercolor underpainitng with digital, but still trying to leave some of the texture showing through. The result was turning into a horrible hybrid that did no justice to any of the styles, or concepts that inspired it.

This is one of those instances where I hesitate to share some of the images from this process. But, since I make fun of people on social media who only share the best parts of their life, and only the most flattering photos of themselves, here goes.

First up the Drawing and watercolor underpainting.

Next is my first pass of digital “enhancement”. At this point I was realizing that I hadn’t done my drawing and underpainting large enough and with enough detail to leave this much of it showing.

I started adding more and more digital color etc. But I wasn’t willing to go full opaque digital, I was still trying to keep texture and color from the underpainting—I was also having a hard time forcing myself to zoom in and get the details right.

Like I said it all turned into a frustratingly horrible hybrid that made me wonder how I ever thought I could make art. I then decided to give it one last try. I would go back to the physical watercolor painting, seal it, and paint the whole thing in oils. There were definitely some draw-backs to this. The texture of the paper wasn’t may favorite, and I was limited by the original scale. But, at least it was a medium that sort of makes sense to me.

I immediately felt a little better when I put down the stylus and picked up a paintbrush.

Like I said, texture and scale were limiting, but I feel like this is 147 times better than my digital attempts. I learned some important things from the experience. First, pick a style and stick with it (at least for the course of one painting). Next, if you want to do all Justin Gerard you need to draw and paint at a scale where you can get all the detail. If you want to go all Blizzardy you need to be willing to go full out opaque digital. I’m not giving up on that either, I’ve been practicing my digital painting skills and have already produced some studies that are more appealing than where this project was going. Maybe I’ll post one of those next.

Heroes Playing Poker

I’m sure most of you have seen some of the paintings by C.M. Coolidge of dogs playing poker. According to Wikipedia Coolidge was commissioned to create the paintings as part of an advertising calendar for cigars. Dogs Playing Poker has become an icon of American low-brow art. It is the type of art the common man can get really get behind—the type of art that looks great cut from a magazine or calendar and slipped into a cheap frame to be found 30 years later in your grandmother’s attic among Uncle Leonard’s boyhood effects.

Naturally, I had mixed feelings when I was approached by a client about doing a parody of one of Coolidge’s paintings—a portrait of the client playing poker with a few favorite comic book superheroes. The concept was undeniably fun, but not the type of art I had seen myself making as I studied in college. I took the job.

First step, as always, was to work out an initial sketch. The basic composition was already set by original Dogs painting, so I just had to figure out how to fit in our new characters. This is the first sketch I sent to the client.

When that was approved I shot and composited reference photos.

Using the reference I began the final drawing onto which I would paint. I also sent photos of this drawing to the client, getting feedback until the drawing was approved.

Finally I got painting, and then it was just a matter of pushing paint around until it landed in the right spots… Which can be a little tricky when it is supposed to be a portrait of someone specific, but their head is only 2 and a half inches tall. (Yes I did negotiate an increase in painting size, but the client only has so much space in his office.)

Hope you enjoy!

May the Fourth: Star Wars Drawing

Yesterday was May the Fourth—Star Wars Day. I couldn’t let an opportunity like that pass my drawing table. So, I figured I’d draw and ink something starwarsy. Honestly, I spent a lot of my childhood drawing images inspired by Star Wars. A quick search through some old nicknacks turned up these two images:

This one appears to be the surface of the Death Star. It is drawn on the back of a note card for a 7th grade research paper about what it takes to become a culinary worker. The next one is a tiny TIE Interceptor found on sheet of random doodles from the same era.

 

I didn’t find any examples in my quick search, but as a kid I always loved to draw a couple capitol ships pounding it out with the turbolasers while star-fighters zipped around them. So this year on Star Wars day, I figured I would do something along those lines. I started yesterday and wanted to finish yesterday, so I had to keep it relatively simple—this wasn’t going to be the full battle of Endor or anything.

I began by gathering reference. You’d think a quick google search for Star Destroyer would turn up plenty, but most of the nice detailed images were pretty recognizably the reference for every peice of fan art, Star Wars book cover and spoof meme you’ve ever seen. So I turned to my secret weapon—3d model libraries. If you want to see a vehicle from an angle that google can’t provide, you can be almost certain some other geek has already made a 3d model of it. Some sites, like the Sketchup warehouse, have a bunch of models downloadable for free (but you have to sift through all the wedges with cube on top created by twelve yr-olds and titled star destroyer) or there are other sites where a small fee will grant you access to some pretty professional models. I managed to track down some decent models, which I arranged and lit to use as reference. Once I had that it was just drawing, inking and coloring.

The coloring I did digitally and the image below showcases some of the different layers and elements used to make the final image.

As you can see, I had the original ink layer, the basic colors and shadows and a watercolor texture scan. Together:

The process results in what I hope is a nice comic-book sort of feel. Hope you enjoy and may the force be with you!

 

Three Unattached Drawings

Sometimes I put aside whatever project I am “supposed” to be working on and do a drawing just because. I’ve got quite a few of those, but I’ve picked out just three to share. Stylistically these are very different. That tends to happen when I am doing art just because. I don’t feel like I have to follow my usual forms. Style aside though, I am showing these together because they have a lot in common.

All three originated as ideas of mood and style. All three are based on found reference that I collected to help realize the idea I had already formed. This is common with my just because drawings—you don’t have time to shoot your own reference when you are changing plans in the spur of the moment. All three also feature a moody woman—it’s not the only thing I draw, but it is a good fall-back for a simple composition and plentiful reference.

I think I’ll arrange these chronologically:

The first one I call Afrodite. Bad pun? Well, I doubt that I am the first one to think of it. The concept was simple, I wanted to do a woman with a natural hair style and sort of stern face. I wanted her to be relatively thin for contrast with the big hair.

So then I needed reference. I had a good idea of what I wanted the image to look like, but unless you are Frank Frazetta the easiest way to discover how much your imagination can fall short in the details is by trying to draw straight from your head. That doesn’t mean you should be a slave to your reference, and it especially doesn’t mean that you want your work to be just a copy of some photo you found on Pinterest.
For this, I searched and searched until I found a face that matched what I had imagined pretty well. Then I composited that with an image that matched the style of hair I wanted. As I drew, I translated the reference back into my original concept, but with the details and proportions that are harder to make up.

I went for toned paper to fill in all the mid-tones in the flesh, and so that she could fade into the background without any transition in value.

The second image started with a desire to do an illustration of Vin from Brandon Sanderson‘s Mistborn novels. I wanted a soft loosey-charcoal sort of feel. Obviously my first impulse was to show her mid-allomantic leap with hair and cloak streaming. But, after searching extensively and finally settling on some reference I thought would work for her face. I decided just to focus there and see if the style I was imagining would work out rather than getting all involved in a big illustration. I drew this one in charcoal on white paper and then scanned it and added values and a little (very little) color digitally.

Is she still Vin as just a face? Maybe so.

Lastly, this girl who feels misunderstood by everyone—even her crow. I used the same reference gathering and compositing method as with the first. The head, body, dress and crow were all from separate images. As happens every fairly often with me, I was a little inspired by Arthur Rackham. Unlike the previous two I did save some process shots of this one.

Here is the pencil sketch based on my composited reference and with my own imagined background. I then proceeded to ink.

The drawing was on 100# bristol which was great for the ink, though I went ahead and left a lot of the pencil intact. I mounted the drawing to a board, created some texture with matte medium and painted it with thinned acrylic gauche. The nonabsorbent surface made for a little different painting experience, but it meant I could lift paint from areas like the clouds. It also meant that since I paint in alot of thin layers, if I wasn’t careful, I would lift paint from areas that I wanted to stay put.

 

Hope you enjoy these three. I am sure to be making more like them.

 

 

 

LDS Art Competition Entry

I found out in January that the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (of which I am a member) was holding an international art competition. Submissions had been open since late Summer sometime, and the final deadline was February 27th. With the holidays and some other things I was working on, I didn’t get started ’til February. By which, I mean I didn’t even start sketching ideas until February.

The theme for the contest is “Tell Me the Stories of Jesus”. With a theme like that, your mind automatically goes to the New Testament. I didn’t want to rehash a scene that has already been done often and probably better. So, I was first thinking about doing the storm on Galilee before Jesus is awakened and title it something about faith before the miracle.

I liked the idea, but wasn’t really feeling it at the time, so after a bit I moved on to something more figurative. I knew I didn’t have time to do something super detailed or extensive. I thought perhaps I could do a simple version of Christ with the Samaritan Woman at the well. The sketch below was for that concept, I just hadn’t drawn the woman.

After some discussion with my mother and sister, I abandoned that idea too. We discussed depicting scenes from other scripture or modern missionary work, but I finally settled in on a scene showing a woman inviting an acquaintance to come listen to Jesus who is disembarking from a boat in the background. It would embrace the theme without having to rehash any of the most popular bible stories.

This is the preliminary sketch:

With the composition decided, two of my sisters posed for reference photos. By that time, I was within a week and a half of the deadline. I went ahead and drew right on my gessoed panel, sealed that with matte medium and got painting.

I didn’t really have time for much more than a first pass at most of the painting. However, there were some areas where I had to come back and tweak—this girl’s face for one. I shared the in progress image on the left on Instagram and quickly realized I wanted to fix some things. Her eye was one of the main things bugging me—I’m glad I adjusted it.

The sequence below also shows how I pretty much had to paint one area and move on. This time constraint made it hard for me to build up the texture that I wanted since I didn’t have time for regular oils to dry before glazing. So, in the lower third I had to paint a blobby liquin mixture that mostly dried by the next day so that I could paint thinly over that and have enough time to glaze over that. Neither my usual nor my favorite way to work.

In the end, I got it done for the deadline. I’m still kind of undecided on how I feel, though. Sometimes I look at it and think “you’re a failure” and other times I think “hey, not bad”. I hope some of you will enjoy it, and we will let the jurors of the competition be the ones to pass final judgment.

Quail Painting

My sister-in-law expressed interest recently in having some small quail paintings commissioned. So, when I had a little extra time and a square of toned canvas left over from another project, I thought I would do a little quail.

There isn’t a whole lot to say about it. It is a California Quail—the kind that we have running around here in Utah. the canvas is an 8″ square and it’s painted in oil.

I suppose it might be interesting to note that a general rule in oil painting is fat on lean—you thin the first layers and build it up thicker on top. Thinned oils will be difficult or impossible to lay down on unthinned paint unless it is already dry. Which is why I follow that rule until my last layer. I often like to let everything dry for a couple days and then come back and do some glazing with an oil liquin mixture (usually burnt sienna, my favorite pigment). Below is an in progress shot, before I did any glazing or added any of the environment.