Tag Archives: watercolor

Out With the New. In With the Old

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So I found a ton of old drawings from school that I had set apart to be photographed at some point in time. I don’t remember how I came about them all I remember is how I felt when I did… inspired (not to sound cocky or anything). I never had a very good camera so I never took the time to photograph them and never had the time, money, or drive to go get them professionally done. Fortunately, my girlfriend now has an SLR camera so I dropped everything I was doing, set up a little photo shoot in my garage and got started. I still have to manipulate them a bit in Photoshop, but I’m so excited that I have to share the few that are done. First up, is a mixed media painting that was done in I-don’t-know-what class. When I found it, the painting was very unfinished, as are most of my other class assignments, so I took all day yesterday and experimented on it. I took out a brand new box of pastels and went to work. Here are the before and after photos.

The base was done in watercolor and I added chalk pastel, used a paper stump to blend, and at the end I decided to get a really small spotter brush and do some line work with India ink. Then made some adjustments in Photoshop and added text with the help of Illustrator. I’m pretty satisfied with the results considering the under-painting was done a few years ago. I’m mostly satisfied with the experimentation because I think I found a style I like for now. Next is a portrait I did in a Heads & Hands class. This was a 3 hour pose I believe done in black and white charcoal pencil on Canson toned paper. No smudging was used, the instructor, Chris Newhard, wouldn’t allow it (I now respect him so much for this). It was all just based on pressure and charcoal pencil softness and hardness. Yadda yadda yadda here’s the drawing.

18x24in Charcoal Portrait

18x24in Charcoal Portrait

… and an 1 hour ink wash drawing done in the same class.

16x20in Ink Wash Portrait

16x20in Ink Wash Portrait

Critiques are more than welcome.. they’re encouraged :)

AGAIN With the Hatchet Cover??

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yes. again with the “hatchet” book cover. i just feel like to much has been put into this thing to just leave it half-assed. i just barely learned how to add textures in illustrator yesterday and i went crazy with it. its a pretty simple process, for those who dont already know how to do it. it involves getting yourself a suitable texture image and setting it in a transparency mask. its better than my previous process, which was simply to erase away at the type with a textured brush in photoshop. check out this tutorial i watched. his voice is like a lullaby and im sure theres better ones out there but this is the one i watched and i got what i wanted with it. keep in mind you have to already be sort of familiar with some illustrator basics.

anyways, here is the book cover again. revisited for the 2nd time. and i really appreciate critiques and feedback. ill do anything to improve or to help make this a portfolio quality piece. ill even take blogging advice because im pretty new to it too.

Hatchet Book Cover

Hatchet Book Cover

My First Book Cover

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book cover i just finished for one of my favorite books. clocked in about 8 hours on this one. this isnt published or anything it was for a homework assignment a while back. the background was a technique we were learning where we took some magazine clippings and pasted them down to a canvas with some matte medium. after it dried we went over the collage with a thin acrylic glaze. for this one in particular i laid down quite a few layers. for the silhouette i took a picture of myself walking away from the mirror (seems impossible but i did it) then i transferred it to watercolor paper and did some super quick washes. i tried to capture the feeling of night with the whole thing. finally i did the type in illustrator. ive been learning a lot about design lately and am really liking it so i figure this would be good practice. im not sure how book illustration works and i dont know if the vertical reading of the title would be acceptable but it looks cool :/ if your into design and wana learn a bit more about it i suggest you pick up Logo, Font, & Lettering Bible by Leslie Cabarga

8.5x11in acrylic, watercolor, photoshop, illustrator

 

 

Just Another Portrait…

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this piece has been a wild ride. its been almost 2 years since ive touched my watercolors (the jimi hendrix portrait) and man did i forget how much work is put into the preliminary stages. the ending color scheme wasnt really what i was going for but i blame that on the 2 year brake i took. the blue-green in the background came out a little too green and kinda throws everything off. the only thing i was pretty satisfied with was the face, which is where i want the focus to be so i made the difficult choice to stop messin with it and leave it as it was. so here is all the preliminary work and the final. enjoy :)

8.5"x11" watercolor

 

Ol’ Jimi

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so here is an oldie but goodie. i did this painting last year for a homework assignment and i feel it deserves to be shared. in all modesty,  its one of my proudest works and one of my first watercolor paintings. i enjoy working with this medium because of the pressure it puts me in. watercolor only gives you a short window of time to adjust or rework  for fear of the dreaded back-run/back-wash. its a defect when you lay a brush stroke down and the paint isnt wet or dry but just damp. the color will move away from the stroke in a irregular way and kinda ruin the painting (or totally make it better) you can see a small example of this in the flower at the bottom right corner where the orange meets the yellow.  ive yet to do another portrait in watercolor but i plan on fitting it in my schedule again soon. ’till next post :)