Jan/100
Daily… The bay bridge
I went across the bay to San Francisco today, it was nice to get out. I walked to the Embarcadero and was tripped out by all the fog, I couldn’t even see Treasure Island. Started this painting on one of the pedestrian piers with my lappy then noodled on it a bit at home.
I really need to practice painting from life more, it was a fun experience, but I have so much to learn!
Dec/090
Daily… A floating city island
Started as random blobs of tone and then it started looking like a floating island. I went with it!
Dec/090
Daily… A city sketch
A sketch of a city done in a light ink wash style.
I watched Let the Right One In tonight, it was an amazing movie. The locations and cinematography were gorgeous, quite a bit of it was shot outside in the snow, it was starkly beautiful.
Nov/090
Daily… Abstract sketching
I was playing with a sketching brush in photoshop and just built up tones until I saw a subject.
Aug/090
Daily… A ship on approach
I got a lot of sketching done in my sketchbook today, that felt quite nice.
Decided to do something different for my daily. This piece really lacks clarity, but I just don’t have the energy to put the time into it to refine it, I need to give my drawing hand a rest! I started with the tower and landscape and decided to add in a ship, it’s simple but I’m liking what it adds.
Jul/090
Watercolors
I bought some sennelier watercolors and a pentel watercolor brush some months back. I finally put them to use. I was a bit intimidated by my 6in x 8in blank pad of watercolor paper, so I cut it up into smaller pieces (about 2in x 3in). Somehow that made a difference. I did a little sketch with a blue pencil on each one, then went at it!
It’s an interesting medium to work with, I had some white paint to use, but I tried saving my lights (meaning using the white of the paper) as much as possible. I was successful in some instances, and not in others. One of the images was supposed to be of a chrome-like ship, I did a quick paintover in photoshop afterwards to show what I had intended it to look like. I’ve also included two works in progress, one is just the sketch and the other has the background painted in (the subject in that one will be a floating island).
Jul/090
Daily… An abstract environment
I just started sketching random shapes and a structure started to appear.
Jun/091
Daily… Cityscape thumbnail
It was really hot again today, but tomorrow starts a cool week. I noticed quite a difference between this evening and last night.
I’ve been watching some documentaries from netflix, featuring the wonderful David Attenborough. I’ve watched a number from the ocean series and have been inspired to paint a fish. I had hoped to do that tonight, but I’m just feeling too tired. Perhaps tomorrow.
Instead, here’s a quick (5 min) thumbnail of a cityscape. If you take a closer look, you can see all the brush textures. The original file is 1600 pixels wide, but I zoom way out and just work on the overall composition. Initially I was just blocking in colors to use as a backdrop for a sketch, but then the blue shapes started to look like buildings, so I shifted in that direction. Put in a strong light source so I could have some nice hilites/rim lights on the buildings.
Jun/090
Daily… Environment thumbnails
I gave myself a drawing exercise today, to draw out ten environment thumbnails in my sketchbook. Scanned them and then added tone to No. 5. It was a fun exercise, I’m going to try and do it more often.
Jun/092
Daily… A canyon
Listened to some music after work and sketched out this canyon. Threw in a little tone.
Jun/090
Daily… Island keep
A quick perspective exercise. I tried to give the feeling of looking up at this massive keep using freehand perspective (meaning I didn’t first draw out a perspective grid). I like this as a workflow, free-hand sketch out a perspective piece and then once I’m satisfied with the basic composition, then going back into it with a grid to check my perspective and fix it up.
Jun/091
Daily… Approaching Loudwater
Our house-hold started playing D&D 4th edition last night. This is a snapshot of our adventure (after the portal that spit us all out. And yes, they brought a cyclops with them).
