Plein Air

It has come to my attention that I have let the blog slip a little this month! Between weddings and moving and job hunting I've gotten lazy so let's jump back into the swing with a little plein air work I did these last couple of weeks. Hey Kelly- this is for you! ;)

So the first I did in about 1.5 hours while my good friend and very awesome model, Kate, (who you might recognize from my 'Eleanor' series) sat for me. She was a sport, and introduced me to the best ever dumpling place after that session.



This one was done a week and a half ago on a very overcast day at Bethesda Fountain in Central Park. It took about 3.5 hours total and was quite a pleasure despite the chilliness. I chose this angle to do something different, and I liked the way the trees framed the angel perfectly.



That's all for now! The next plein air pieces will most likely be done in Prospect Park, only 2 blocks from my new apartment!

Variations on a Theme

First of all- thank you to everyone who voted for me in the last Art Order challenge! With your support I won the game! So get ready for another round of pencil fencing, because here's my submission for this week:



Variations on a Theme asked us to take a race from the 4th edition D&D set, put it in a pose and do 3 variations of the armor. I chose the Deva mostly because of it's newness to the world, and the potential for some crazy design. It is described as having a persian/japanese influence so I went to town on reference and had a blast trying to find different ways to marry the two styles. I plan on working on some color this week, to really finish these up as I just enjoyed them so much.

So if you like my Devas, head over to ArtOrder after Tuesday's (tomorrow's) posting and leave a vote for me in the comments section. FYI, Jon is no longer accepting anonymous votes, so please remember to put your name in the appropriate box!

Concept Tuesday's Devolved Gnome

So I did this week's concept Tuesday challenge over at Artorder and wanted to share the results. The challenge was to devolve a Gnome from the 4th edition D&D manual and here are the results:

Here are a examples of the original concepts by Raven Mimura:

I thought that being a trickster fae, the Gnomes ought to be more primal and animalistic with their ancestry so, going off the original design, I based my devolution on the shape of the spider monkey. The Gnome, which now lives in the roots of trees, used live on top of them. Tails, long hands and flexible feet serve the early Gnomes in leaping through the branches and swinging from tree to tree gracefully. Tricksters from the start, their long tails and clever fingers and toes also aided in swooping down to steal shiny objects from surprised passerby and disappearing back into the leaves before anyone could register what happened.

So if you like my piece, please head over to ArtOrder.Blogspot.com and vote for me!

Oil Sketch

So in celebration of finally being able to go outside again, I decided to do some painting from life. Here are some windows I can see from my back porch. And by porch I mean fire escape.



I spent about an hour and a half on this I think. I am going to do more at different times of day to see how the light changes. This one was 5:30ish- 7. The little spot of yellow between the windows was only there for like 5 minutes, and it was fun trying to capture things like that as they came and went.

Charcoal

So I've been rediscovering charcoal lately and decided to do a few Fairy Tale illustrations in it for something a little different:

I was looking at a lot of Shaun Tan's work for these pieces, trying to channel his atmosphere and sense of whimsy. I really enjoy just pushing the medium around, rubbing and lifting out. Charcoal is like oil in a lot of ways with its fluidity and the way it stays 'live' on the paper indefinitely. It offers a lot of opportunities for those happy accidents, focusing on atmosphere and gesture. I think I will be experimenting a lot more with it this summer.

The story is The Maiden in the Castle of the Rosy Clouds. Though the title is a bit of a mouthful, the story itself is really lovely- sort of Don Quixote/Fisher King-esque with one of those perfect bitterweet endings I love so much. It's from the Swedish Folk Tales book illustrated by John Bauer, and if you don't know HIS work then you're missing out. If you're a fan of Brian Froud's art, you will recognize a LOT of Bauer there:

Richard Painted

And here's the finished Richard! I think it's one of my new favorite pieces, I had such a great time playing with skin tones, figuring out the fur and just messing with edges. After such a complicated piece like Legolas, it was very relaxing to just do a simple-ish portrait. Richard's wonderful, weird creations can be found at http://historically-inaccurate.blogspot.com/. This piece will be part of Richard's massive show at the Shelburne Museum in Vermont from May 17-October 29 of this year. So if you are in Vermont- stop by and tell me how it is! Last I checked, about 25 other artists are going to be displaying their own hybrid portraits in addition to Richard's own lovely creations, so it is definately worth the trip. Also- It has a 220-foot steamboat in its yard.

Night on Macdougal Street

So my very talented friend Brennan (who you can recognize as the left twin from this post), with whom I am graduating SVA with in a mere month, bribed me with his charm, wit and DMing skillz to help him out on his thesis film: Night on Macdougal Street. It started with some storyboarding followed by a few appearances as an extra, then as the savior in a pay phone prop emergency and finally some drawings to run with the credits. The drawings, as Brennan tells it, were inspired by the end credits to My Neighbor Totoro (see why we're friends?) where the illustrations show a few scenes of life for the characters after the ending of the movie. The movie itself, to give a quick synopsis, is a semi-autobiographical account of a comedian's 8-year old son being left in a comedy club and looking for his dad around the West Village neighborhood full of tough bouncers, seedy club owners, creepy crack heads and sweet waitresses. It ends with the kid calling his dad (from said payphone) and returning to the club to wait for him. Then: roll the credits.

First we have the father exiting a cab.

The bouncer and waitress deliver Devon (the kid) to a sheepish father.


Then he tucks in a sleeping Devon.

And then a series of shots of Devon with the various other characters appearing in the film.
Devon, dad, comedians and Comedy Cellar owner (played by Brennan's REAL dad, Joe, in the glasses)

Devon with some ladies of the club.

Devon with the Cafe Wa owner and Terry the Crack-head.

Devon with some more comedians.

That's Colin Quinn on the left in that last one. He makes a very short cameo, as he is a friend of Brennan's comedian dad.

Brennan wanted the style of these drawings to be fairly simple sketches, much like the artwork on the walls of the Olive Tree Cafe where part of the film takes place (and one of my all time favorite spots in NYC). The real challenge was getting the likenesses of all the characters, especially the kid who played Devon. An early copy of the film and a folder full of screen-captures made my job much easier, and I am pretty happy with the results.

You can see the fruits of my (ok, and Brennan's) labors on the big screen at the Dusty Film Festival May 4-8. Not sure exactly when Night on MacDougal street will be showing, but I will post here when I know more.

http://www.schoolofvisualarts.edu/dusty/