Tattoo Paintings

I finally felt up to drawing some serious tattoo style painting. I felt these were some classic images. I got them from a "book of tattoos". Once again, i had a problem with the background. I did the blue first, but I tried to steer around the outlines because the color was so dark, i didn't want it to affect the color of everything else i would paint over it. I ended up messing up the picture by putting way too much blue on the blade of the sword.


I got this book called "Tattoo Bible vol. 2" and it is awesome, so many great images. I wanted to zoom in on this gypsie and just capture her head and put a flower behind her to add some depth. I also did 2 new things. One, I painted the background with old coffee which was supposed to give a cool "old" look to it, but the coffee wasn't black enough. Two, I spent alot of time layering, especially with her scarf on her head and her hair.



I tried once again to make a Koi Fish, much better attempt than my first one! I did alot of layering, no background first, I just went with light to dark. I love the colors of the water and that Japanese water came out great.


My mom always said i need to draw religious images, so this painting is dedicated to her. Our Lady of Guadalupe. I didn't put a thick outline around her, i'm not sure if that was a mistake or not, but she doesn't pop very much. The background rays came out very cool. The layering on her clothes took forever!

This painting is awesome! I poured a bunch of coffee grounds into a cup with water and heated it up. you cant see it too well in this picture, but I layered the coffee 3 times and let it dry each time. It is a great trick, you just need extreme black coffee! I think this picture really captures that old school "sailor Jerry" tattoo style, which is what i was going for.

Advanced Colored Pencil

After getting tired of water coloring i went back to colored penciling to try and learn more about lighting and shading. I was looking at a "fantasy water, land and sky creatures" book and it had pictures of these fish, so i made a scene and colored it. Someone told me outlining things with a prominent color used will pop the image more, so that's what i did. I sort of looks like all the fish are electric!

This image came to me one night when my wife was a week past her due date sleeping on our couch at like 10 at night. I just kept thinking of our little girl and wanted to draw what i saw in my mind. I had the book i mentioned above, the angel's outfit and wings came from that.


This is a picture i have always wanted to capture on paper, the end of "the end times". When St. Michael finally kills Satan! Mary is praying to the side. I used the book above to inspire St. Michael and Mary, but was still my own.



My newest drawing right now is this frog, so cool! i didn't want to paint him, i felt i could capture him better with pencil.

Let the Water Coloring begin!

I was trying to think of what wouldn't be to hard to paint, I decided on flowers. I didn't want to paint landscape, this image is actually out of a tattoo flash book! I combined the yellow flowers and vines to make the picture more interesting. I realized having a plain white background is extremely boring!! I also learned that it is ok to use water, i tried to do the cool, tattoo "spit shading" for this, but it didn't do what i hoped it would.

Attempt #2, I decided to put a background to my painting, out of the same tattoo flash book, I grabbed a few different flowers to paint, but i did my own colors. I also tried to add a Koi Fish, i don't know if it was very necessary. I used water this time for the background and most of the flower stuff. I used a little "spit-shading" on the flowers. I also was told after this painting that when you do water color, you always paint LIGHT TO DARK. that was a huge help!! Probably the best peice of advice I have heard up to this point.




Here are more flowers out of the same book. Painting the background last is not a very good idea! I tried to use the back of the brush to make a "grass-like" background, but it looks like a cat got to it. Flowers were all spit shading, so i could control the amount of water on the brush.


I did this painting much later, it was my present to my wife for our anniversary. My first painting with no previous sketch on the paper. I ended up looing up what the heck a hummingbird looks like up close online! I just went for it! I painted the background before hand and only did parts that i knew would show. Advise: paint the whole paper the same color if you are going to do a background, otherwise it has different colors in the painting where you want the same color (e.g. my hummingbird wing and top of the blue flower!). It's not the best, but it is cool because it is all out of my heart and mind, not another artists!

Fantasy Drawings

Wanted to draw a fantasy world free hand out of boredom!

I got a book on "how to draw a fantasy world and characters" I made up my own scene, just used image ideas from the book

My second attempt

My final attempt i put on water color paper and decided to go for it! I learned a lot about colors and how to layer colors. This was a big undertaking for me. It pushed me to want to really get better at water color. Also, it reminded me i need to practice drawing and just using colored pencil more as well!

Tattoo Style Drawing

My fist attempt at a rose and Japanese clouds (which are very hard to draw!)

A Skull (dedicated to the brothers of SOS)

A Rose (after much more shading practice) and ball point outline

Sparrow

I always wanted to draw a Koi Fish, also my first attempt at drawing water. This image came out of a "history of tattooing" book, this was tattooed on a old Japanese guy

I did this dragon without looking at my paper almost, i just followed my hand with my eyes as I stared at the picture because there were so many lines. I love this dragon head. My wife insisted I stop stretch my ability and make my own dragon body... not too good!

Sitting outside one day, felt colorful and copied a bird, then just decided to sketch around it. people like this one!

Nature and Animals

I had a great book on how to sketch with graphite pencils.

Then I tried to experiment with ball point pen

Wanted to try and draw reflections on the water

My personal favorite of my nature drawings, using ball point and graphite pencils

CAT

This was in a "history of tattoos" book, but it was a realistic tiger drawing

Sea Horse

I thought this martini glass came out amazing, it re-motivated me to keep going

I finally got colored pencils and tried learning at square one, how to draw a circle and apple

Portraits

I decided that everyone wants to be drawn as a cartoon, so i drew my wife.




This was a guy at the airport working at his computer, i asked if i could draw him... he copied it and posted it on his desk... He was proud!




I found another cool book on how to draw realistic people, this was an example one.



I was siting at Starbucks during my lunch break and wanted to draw a person, the book i had showed how to draw heads and had separate eyes, noses, facial structures, i added the bodies out of imagination

Cartoon Pictures (My first drawings)

These are my first attempts at Cartooning using Chris Hart's "Big Book of Cartooning".






This is what happened after I found out using a ball point pen can pop the character off the page!





I Then decided to try and make a whole scene with a background




And after the feeling of mastery, i combined a bunch of characters together to make a scene of my very own!

A Greeting Card Dreamer

Over the past 3 years, I have found that no greeting card says what I want to say and how I want to say it. Usually, I want something meaningful but funny. So, I began creating my own greeting cards with "sharpie" markers. They bled so I trained myself to keep the color in the lines, but I knew that if I ever wanted to submit a card to Hallmark or any other card company, I would need to actually learn how to draw cleanly outlined characters with real facial expressions!

At the beginning of June, 2010, my 8 months pregnant wife, CA, and I moved to Cincinnati, OH. I found I had a lot of extra time on my hands since my wife was too hot to go outside in the 100 degree weather. So, we began going to the library. She was checking out pregnancy books so I decided to check out a few cartooning books. My favorite one was Mark Hart's "Big Book of Cartooning" (My cartoon pictures you see are inspired by his book). In time for Father's Day, I made my first "real" Greeting Card and realized I that actually enjoy drawing a lot!

Within the next month, I bought a pack of pencils, erasers, a pencil sharpener and a pad of paper; this became my official hobby. I began drawing every night and found that I needed darker pencils. I picked up a pack of graphite pencils and began drawing black and white with more detail. Then, someone tipped me onto something that changed everything: using a ballpoint pen to outline my pictures. It made all of my pictures have a little more POP to them than before.

But as I continued to draw in black and white, I began longing for color. I also wanted to start drawing that "Sailor Jerry" tattoo style, so for my birthday on July 10th, I got myself colored pencils and my wife bought me water colors, water color paper and an assortment of paint brushes.

Since then, I have checked out over 50 books from the library on pencil sketching, drawing, water color painting and a few tattoo books (my favorite right now is "The Tattoo Bible vol. 2").

I am hoping to start painting with acrylics soon but I promised myself I would try to master the media I'm still working on before I dive into a new one.

With this blog, I am hoping to find people that are learning how to draw or paint. I am also hoping to receive some constructive criticism from more advanced artists, since I am self taught; I would love some expert advice on my paintings and style!

Thank you for looking at my blog. I hope you enjoy what you see and again, please feel free to offer any comments you have on my pictures and thoughts!