landscrape

I feel dirty painting waterfalls. Like a lens flare.

tradigital

Started as a an oil over pencil. Painted over it and added more color in PS. I haven't done that in a long time.

'nother

Another, same light conditions. Working through some of the things I learned from the last experiment.

To top it all off

Bernard's breath was bad too.

wipeout

Another Nightwork interior. Alkyd over fixed prismacolor. For those not familiar with the idea this was done entirely transparently. A loose value drawing, then a quick wash of black and burnt sienna, then lights wiped, scrubbed and/or picked out with a dry cloth, dry q-tip, or brush with turps. I used to love the luminous quality, textured feel and raw speed of this over-done technique.
See Bernie Fuchs, C.M.Dudash and David Grove

Bad white point, first 2 steps.

Face Study

Waiting for a meeting this morning.
Every once in a while I'll do a few sketches just to find out what I'm missing. What muscle insert have I been faking? What would the light really do? For this one I just tried to keep the light position fixed relative to their face directions. The temptation to reference photos was pretty bad. Then I goback and check against photos/mirror with similar light. These are pretty off, but (and always) it's worth every minute I spent on it - just to take away a couple things I learned.

Nostalgic

I sometimes miss the little patch of woods next to where I lived in Northern California - on a huge bluff above the ocean. It didn't really look like this but it had a similar personality to it.
The place could be breathtakingly beautiful and scary at the same time. My favorite times were the crazy red light it often had about it at sunset and the absolute darkness and roar of the ocean at night.

TrollGeeks

For Drawergeeks this week. PS.

Exercise

Painter. More quickie palette knife randomness.
I'm aggravated by the lack of decent angle control.
Tilt is useless to me. Bearing is confusing. Direction doesn't work (spins).
Rotation with my 6d is more or less random (only seems so w pknife) and only seems to want to read the pen's angle when it chooses to.

palette knives

Painter. Loaded palette knife and a soft airbrush.
Love that knife for blocking.

sketch

A late night 42 minutes. PainterX. Here's the image.

Emerald City Con 2009

OK, who here has stalked a campfire?....Hello? This started from the same abstract goo the last one did. I feel it might have a dozen other compositions locked in there somewhere.

I won't be at the Emerald City Con in Seattle this weekend (April 4 & 5) but my co-worker Wade Schin (site)(book) and BrandStudio Press will both be there and my Nightworks book will be available at one of those booths. Stop by both and say hi!

old wreck

Nap

Photoshop over pencil sketch.

Another shot: Golden Opens

On the advice of Erik I decided to give Golden Opens another go but without water. I used only a gloss medium I had, only enough water to barely wet the brush to start.
I have to say that it was better - no ugly 2 stage drying that turned me off last time- but still very stiff. I think I need to find a more fluid (and thinner) medium for them. Maybe that would do the trick.

Yarg. Pan Pastel

2 days before the con I was in the art store and found these panPastel things. They are little trays of pastel that have so little binder in them that they don't hold together in a stick. You apply them with what look like makeup sponges on sticks. This is my first shot, done during Wondercon. Extremely fun stuff. I'm not a pastel guy, but I can see why painters are drawn to the medium. This stuff in particular is as much paint as any wet medium I've tried.
There's a quick guache wash for a base and prismacolor under, over, etc. It's all done on this great Wallis pastel paper which is really expensive sandpaper.

reset

When I'm stuck on something it often helps me to take an hour or so out and step away from things. Do something different. Brain reset.

Wondercon!

I will be at Wondercon this year! It's this coming weekend in SF. Feb 27-March 1.
The gracious and talented Pascal Campion is sharing his booth with me. I'll be pawning Nightworks and collecting commissions. See you there?

gnarled viking

This is pretty much how I used to paint everything albeit spending more time.
Value drawing.
Transparent underpainting. Acrylic and then Alkyd here.
Opaque, thicker paint for painting light. Alkyd in this case.
I think I'll do more like this. I'll tape at least one of them.
This one's yours, Jack.

I still like oil better

I don't know why that disappoints me.
This was alkyds but I consider it oil.

Golden Open Acrylics. First shot.

The jury is still out on these in this house. I do like that they stay wet for so long and that I can dry them w a hairdryer when I'm ready. I do like that when they are dry, they are tough, like regular acrylics without sealing them.

But there is a lot I really didn't like. Keep in mind this is after one session of play.

They stay wet for a while, but "set" to a strange consistency right away - after the water evaporates. Once they are in this stage they have a really odd "pull" to them that I didn't like at all. Not tacky, exactly, but gooey. Glycerin-like.

They are exceptionally translucent and you need to use a LOT of paint to get any real covering power. More than other acrylics I've tried. I only used Titanium white and burnt umber on this. Other colors to come next.

Right now, I'm leaning toward the Atelier Interactives, I can let them dry right away, or keep them open with water (or slow drying medium) or open them later with water. They aren't the most potent pigments in the world, but much stronger than the Golden Opens of the same color. I suspect it has to do with the whatever vehicle they are using to keep them open.

More play is needed.

oil sketch videos up

Had to split it up into 3, 10 minute sections. It was very late when I did the overdub so you'll have to forgive me. I should have written an outline to talk to.
Edit: The blog I mention on color is http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/

Alkyd roughneck

I will have a video of it up in the next few days. Seems it's 30 minutes total. I will keep it real-time and do a shoddy voice-over. Hopefully it will address some FAQ. So if you've asked a question (or do in the next day) I'll try to get to it.

Narrow escape

Painter.
Something is wrong with my painter at work. Every 10th stroke or so, I get a horizontal streak going off to the left and fading out. Like an old Bob Peak painting! It worked fine a few months back. This happen to anybody else? I even got Corel's service pack. No good.

nails

Quick, aimless thumbnails inspired by Marco Bucci's recent posts. Brain reset.

Sorry it's been so long! I paint all day now, so I must be getting it out of my system! At least a little.

More posts on the way.

Atelier interactive demo

Tried to get the palette in there. The only thing of note is that I'm occasionally spraying the thing with water. This somehow re-hydrates the already dry (but not cured) acrylic. Making it workable again.
I also only used a big flat brush. Even with fast work, there's little reason to go smaller. It makes you think in planes and directionality and helps prevent excessive noodling.

oil speedpaint 4

I added raw sienna this time and it took me way longer to do. 35 minutes. Why raw sienna? Why? Maybe it was because I had little idea where I was going when I started.

Oil Speedpaint 03

13 minutes for this one down to 7 something. I will eventually post the finals. Enough of this for now. Tried to get the palette visible, as limited as it was. All of these were done with

• Ivory Black
• Burnt Sienna
• Titanium White

Just to get a warm cool mix.
I think the hardest thing about these was the fact that I was doing them flat on a table and I couldn't get around to the left side because the camera & light were in the way! All my brush strokes kinda went from left to right. Unexpectedly frustrating.

And another oil

19 minutes compressed to 7. Better white balance this time.

Alkyd & Oil

10 min, down to 7.5 min. Should have a few more like this soon.

Don't even look at his sister

Wasn't til the end till I saw the Earth Worm Jim'ness. Ah well.
Also I did an interview with SideBar that was just posted. At the very least, go look at the list of previous podcast interviews they've done. Tons of very cool stuff.

interior quickies

sloppy oil wipe-out over prismacolor

sloppy acrylic

thumbnail

Sorry for the stretches between posts. I have more to put up soon. These were just PS doodles.