Looking towards the future

Wanting to paint something more realistic with my acrylics I decided about a month ago to do a self portrait. I wanted the figure to have a blind fold over the eyes though because doing a regular one sounded kind of boring to me. So I took some reference pictures and such and started painting. I was happy with the way it came out, having wanted it to be real clean and smooth but at the same time it was kind of boring too. I put it aside and moved on after that until last night. Having a bit of a break after a long week of stress and sketching and painting I wanted to just do something fun or messy I guess. So I dragged the portrait picture out and decided to get messy. I still preserved a lot of the portrait style but splashed a lot of whites off the blind fold and dripped the shadows down to eliminate the shoulders and all along with some other small details. This is a lot different than anything else I have really ever done and I was really excited as it was all kind of evolving. Anyways, here is the picture :)

So I came across a bulletin from a record label that supports a couple of my favorite bands that was asking for merch designers. I wouldn't say that I am much of a merch designer but I thought up a couple of cool things that I thought followed the style of the music the bands created and would look somewhat interesting on a shirt or hoodie or whatever it was needed for. I submitted 9 different images in all, with a couple variations for each. Some of the images were older paintings or drawings that I did that fit just fine but I did do 5 total new drawings and paintings. I originally planned on just drawing them up in pen and then adding color in photoshop but after doing so I just didn't like the way it looked and I thought I would like them better painted. So I did so. Since I didn't intend on painting on sketchbook paper, I didn't paint them the way I normally would have if it had been on watercolor paper instead. Anyways, here are 4 of the new drawings I did. I like a couple of them a lot and may redo them on better paper and expand on the image some more, but I tried to keep it fairly simple since they are for merch. If any get accepted, I will post up the final images after editing :)

This was a sketch I had been working on before I started with the other designs. The meaning for the image is not visible yet until I finish it and paint it when I get a chance to. I have another one similar in subject that may go with it also. sorry for the bad picture.

Misc.

So although I have been working on some things on the side, I have nothing finished at this time, but some fun ideas in mind. I have been working on a separate project on the side though that has had me very excited and will be shared later on once decided if it is for sure or not. Other than that I figured I would post up some Misc. things and some of the commissioned things I have done lately.

All of the above pictures are what i painted for my Uncles company in Baltimore. They are not anything spectacular in my book and to be quite honest, are a bit lazy on my part due to lack of motivation and interest in the subject, but overall a different style of work for me.



The pictures below are either sketches of some sorts or just unfinished or scrapped drawings that I have just never finished or had the desire to do so. I may end up doing so, or redoing them at a later date, but for now I have moved on and am past the theme behind them at this point. I hope to have two fun images done within the next week hopefully, but depending on class and if more work arises, that may not be very realistic.

3/25

Still in the mood to just draw something fun, I did a sketch the other night of something a little more strange compared to some of my more recent works. I liked the sketch a lot and almost decided against doing a painting and just keeping it all pencil, but I like color too much and of course decided to do so. Here is the sketch along with the finished piece.

I haven't had much practice with acrylics before so I wasn't too confident going into this one, but I think it turned out well in the end. I have been in the mood to draw/paint a lot lately and I am trying to take advantage of it while I can, but I have a lot to do at the moment and it isn't so easy right now. Other than this, I have been drawing/painting daily, I am trying to finish up three more commissioned paintings by this weekend. These are of trucks/cranes though for my uncles company. It's not a hard thing to draw and paint but it just isn't much fun and as a result the lack of motivation and enthusiasm sometimes makes me careless with them. I will most likely post pictures of them soon just because. Here is a progress picture I took of my last one.

Bird Knight Fight

So maybe its a bit of the nerdier side of me but I grew up playing video games like the Final Fantasy's, Zelda's, and all of that stuff. In fact I could probably say that those games were the reason I wanted to draw at a young age when I did. Anyways, I kind of needed a break from trying to draw something meaningful and just wanted to draw something fun. I did a sketch one night of two bird-knights fighting and had alot of fun doing it. The first picture was my very first initial sketch that I made of the image for fun. I decided I liked it enough that I took the concept and drew out a more refined drawing of it and would decide if I wanted to do a painting or not. Well I liked the second sketch alot also so I transferred it onto watercolor paper. I wanted to make this different than my recent works so I kept the colors kind of dull and more realistic. I focused alot on shadows and highlights on this one and avoided doing any pen or heavy pencil outlining also. I was happy with the outcome which can be seen below. Enjoy.

I have been painting pretty much every day now, mostly just commissioned work though for some cash. I should be able to post up this month's and last month's commissioned works this week or the next, not that it is anything too exciting anyways. I do have a complete sketch ready for paint and a rough sketch/idea for another personal picture to be done after that! :)

2/22

So around this time last year, I painted two pictures for my parents to give them as gifts when I went to MD during a break in classes. I have always personally favored these pictures and liked them a lot more than most of my other ones. Both of the pictures are below. The Rhino stuck in the tree with the boy was made for my Dad and the girl jumping rope was made for my Mom. They are pretty simple and although I used some random references I found online or from personal pictures, I feel they were some of the first couple pictures I painted that I began to start building a full composition and atmosphere. Anyways, here are those two pictures:

During the process of creating the two, I did a completely different sketch for my dad than what I ended up painting. The first sketch was simply a boy standing on a pier and looking out to water while ships floated above, one actually looks as if it's going down or about to crash. I scrapped the idea because it just wasn't very fun, not to mention the sketch was not drawn out well, and eventually came up with the rhino idea, which I don't think I really even sketched out before starting. This is the original sketches for my dad and mom's pictures:
My sister looked through my sketchbook over the summer and for some reason really liked the original one for my dad. Since she was always asking for me to paint here something I figured it would be nice to make her something for her birthday/anniversary this past weekend since I would be in MD. I did another quick rough sketch of the boy scene and again didn't like it. Instead I replaced him with a younger girl, made a more active ocean and a more fairytale like scene. This is that sketch:

I didn't really like the sinking/breaking pier idea much so when I transferred it onto the watercolor paper I replaced it with a rock. Here is the picture after transferred and drawn out in pen.

After taking time to figure out colors and such I finally came up with a finished product that I was happy with. I wanted to keep this picture similar to the ones created for my parents the year before, style-wise and theme wise I guess, I also threw on a little corner border like the others had to make them all match. Here is the finished product.

Commission

So I did 3 paintings for my uncle earlier this month for some money to pay the bills. Not really my cup of tea but I guess I can't complain. My uncle owns a company in Baltimore called TCS. He pretty much works on big trucks and puts hydraulic cranes on them along with welding of new beds and other stuff. I am usually really good at taking pictures of the things I do to keep for personal records and to display. This time, however, I remembered about 3 hours after dropping them off at the post office. I did take some pictures with my phone and since I am going to MD later this week I may snap pictures if I go to Baltimore. The quality isn't great but owell, I'll get better pictures when I can.

Looking at them again, I don't think the first and second pictures are complete when I took this picture. I don't think I put the dark dark shadows in yet. Owell, you get the point :) I did do another full piece earlier in the week, but I can't post it up until I get back from MD because I have to give it to someone first! But I will post it up as soon as I get back along with the sketch and an explanation and a step back in time to talk about two others that are related to it! Then I will be off to Florida the following week, I may pop in sometime before then but because of how much school work I am consumed with I don't know how much creative art I will get to do. Around mid-summer I am most likely moving back to Maryland and getting a job hopefully with my Dad doing graphic design and the likes. Once this time comes, I will have more free time than I know what to do with so a lot should be happening around then!