Digital Orchid

It's been an interesting week.  The job has been busy, which is good, but I haven't had much time to do art, which isn't so good.  Plus the scanner died on me, I am in the process of finding a new one.  It's going to be digital for a few weeks.

Sunset Sketch

Colored pencil study from a stunning photograph of sunset-lit clouds.

Gouache Sun Hat

Done from photo reference, my first time dipping into gouache in a long, long while.  I wish I'd done this earlier, this was a lot of fun, even if it got tricky nailing down the values at the end.  (There's supposed to be differentiation between the T-shirt and the skin, for example...)

This is also my 201st post!  Yay for milestones!

Marina Watercolors

A couple quick watercolors I did on a recent trip.

Farewell, Sci-Fi Sister Ship...

It's up!  It ain't perfect, and it's only in its infancy, but my sci-fi art has moved into its own space here.  From here on out, this blog will be dedicated to my representational art (flowers, sharks, whales, sunsets, etc).  Thanks for staying on; I hope my art has and will continue to be a source of beauty and inspiration to people out there.

Sketches 8/30/15: Model Watercolors #2

Got back to life drawing after a few weeks' absence, bit more abstract this time.  Update on the blog split coming soon, within the next day or two.

Changes Coming Soon

Big changes coming up in the next few weeks for this blog!  I will be splitting it into two blogs, one for my representational art, the other for the crazy sci-fi/fantasy art.  Updates will follow later this week.

Sand Tiger Finished

After a little procrastination, I sat down again and laid the opaque layers over the translucent underpainting.  I blobbed in the background fairly abstractly, but stayed faithful to the reference photo in regards to the shark's skin.  It was a tricky color to mix, there were subtle hints of yellow and pale red towards the shark's tail.  I mixed a blob of white, a dab of blue, and tiny dabs of yellow and red to get the proper color.

I'm liking this translucent-underpainting-opaque-finish method.  It lets me see where my drawing is during the first stages of the painting, and at the same time I can figure out what colors I'll need and to build the painting up.  It takes two or three layers of watered-down acrylic before I'm ready for the opaque, but the total painting time wasn't much more than 6-7 hours for this one.

Sand Tiger WIP

Here's a work in progress of a Sand Tiger shark (or the Grey Nurse, or Ragged-Tooth shark, as it's called in other countries).  Nothing else out there has gums made of teeth like this guy.  The painting is acrylic on 110lb "canvas paper".  It's very similar in texture and weight to real canvas, slicker, suitable for acrylic or gouache.  The underpainting is watered-down and translucent, so I can see what I'm doing, and then the final layers are thick and opaque.

Wingman Death

Even if you are the capable commander of a starfighter squadron, this is one wingman you really would rather do without.