A Little Holiday Cheer...

MERRY CHRISTMAS, AND HAPPY HOLIDAYS TO ALL!!!

Here I am visiting my parents for Christmas, enjoying the holiday goodies and cheer, and I thought, on this most endless of days--Christmas Eve-- I would draw a Santa. Pretty standard, as far as santas go...red suit, white beard. I kindof wanted to make him different--like Viking Santa, or some different kind of ornate santasuit--but I didn't want to spend a very long time on it (read: lazy). He was looking rather boring in the early stages, so I made him coming out of the shadows, and experimented with blue core shadows, and yellow highlights. Overall, a Jolly Ole' Elf, methinks :-).

Another Portrait In Prog...

I've never done a portrait of a man before, so here goes. This is a whole new set of problems to solve. I think the hardest thing is making men look like men (and not women). So far, not so good, (the sitter said "are those my lips?"), but more adjustments will fix it (I hope.).

German Portrait Finish

DONE, ZOMG! Lots of good things learned here, like a little bit about rendering jewelry (and maybe I'll do it better next time). In looking at various portrait styles from this general time period, I notice a really big difference in technique, regionally. I'd like to try the dabs-o-paint method that Vermeer used...that's what I call it anyway, since once you get up close to it, it's really just little spots of light and shadow that make up this incredibly realistic painting. Something to experiment with...:-)

New Gown Photos...

This fiddled-with photo is to inform you that new shots of my renaissance Polish gown and 16th century undies are up in the "COSTUME" section of my website. Go check out sewing expertise! (or lack there of)

German Portrait Progress...

The painting isn't finished, obviously, but I went ahead and played with the aging techniques I was thinking about. I remember an interesting lecture on painting restoration, and that varnish, over time, cracks and yellows, giving old paintings that warm glow and distinct pattern. So in Photoshop, I added a light golden yellow layer on "multiply." You can use a photo filter (warm) as well. For the cracking, I hand drew squiggly lines, mostly vertically, in the pattern I saw on a detail of a Vermeer. There are different patterns of cracking depending on the varnish used, but this seemed like the easiest to reproduce. I made this texture as a repeatable tile, and changed the color to a very light brown (hue/saturation - colorize). When I applied it to my painting, I shrunk the tile down very small and covered the whole painting with pasted versions that I had flipped horizontally and vertically. Finally, I changed the layer to "multiply" and reduced the opacity to about 35%. Other ideas I might try...adding a very subtle canvas texture over the whole thing.

Pandapparel Pt.2

Panda says, "c'mon, you know you want me...you know you want to wear a t-shirt with me on it!" I say, "Panda's shameless, but if you really do want a t-shirt with him on it, click here." Just sayin' is all...

German Portrait WIP

Here's another in-progress painting based on German portraits from the 16th (and kindof 15th) century. I want to create a couple of these to frame and display at Faires in an attempt to generate some commissions. Plus they'll just make the place look nice, I think. Portraits are a good way to practice rendering skills, too, as often there are many different materials to create, from velvet, silk, fur/hair, to skin, which is perhaps the hardest to render. When she's done, I plan to experiment with some digital aging techniques that will hopefully mimic the varnish cracking that very old paintings have. At any rate, here's the inital sketch and scribbled-on color, followed by my progress on the portrait today...

A Thing I Drew On Paper...

...hard to believe, I know! Well, the drawing only, as the color was done in the 'Shop. I couldn't help it.

Redesign, etc.

I spent today revamping my website. I added a new front page last week, and realized that the rest of the site no longer matched, and also that certain pages were not accessible from the menu. So I made a new menu and header, and cleaned up the galleries a bit. I've also added a "prints" section, where people will hopefully buy things. I was so very excited by the idea of selling products (not just prints, but t-shirts and other things), that I set out to do a t-shirt design this afternoon. And here you have it :-). Syruppy cute, yes, but I like him :-). I slapped him onto a bajillion t-shirts, and whatnot, and put him up in my "design" gallery, hopefully to convince some people that yes, I am capable of designing for apparel! Anyway, you can click on this link, or the pretty t-shirt image below, if you want to buy something with this design on it :-). Shameless? yes, of course.