Showing posts with label Water Color. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Water Color. Show all posts
Friday, January 20, 2012
Day of the Dead Man and Woman
Tuesday, March 29, 2011
Day of the Dead Skull
After observing pieces my artist idol Jason Lambert, my wife said I should paint a "day of the dead" skull. You know me, I'll take any challenge that comes my way, so that is what I did... and this is the result. I really like how it came out. I used the water color tray again, I figured "why mess up a good thing?" I have had such success recently, I feared going back to liquid.
The blue was a pain, it didn't come out very well in the picture. Also, be kind your judgment of the black eye shading, it kept getting wet and lightening up (this was 3 coats of black). I decided to put my name in the background, and figured what the heck, and threw C.A.'s name in there too! I think I may be doing more "day of the dead" theme paintings in the near future... it reminds CA of "Little Big Planet"! holla if your an LBP fan! Until next time... Remember Your Death!
Saturday, March 19, 2011
Cut the Sh*p!
OK, I get it! I am not a landscape artist...yet! I just thought that every artist should be good at painting landscapes and real life, but I don't even really like to paint like that. I would love to sit in front of a building and make it look like a photograph on my canvas, but I'm not there yet. I like tattoo art, and I'm good at painting flash and why not just stick to what you're good at, right!? So, for all of you that missed my most talented flash pieces, they are back in full motion!
For this project, I decided I was going to do 3 different attempts at the same piece of art: acrylic, liquid water color and spit shading of Sailor Jerry's "homeward" flash piece. (pictured above)
My first painting is acrylic, I first sketched the piece with pencil lightly to get the ship where I wanted it. Next, I went dark to light, starting with the water, then the top of the ship downwards. I would like to share that acrylic without water in it drys extremely fast! I mixed blue and brown together to get the darkest color. I then used blue on top of it, followed by blue mixed with WHITE!!!! Yes, I went out and bought white acrylic because I was sick and tired of using 5 colors to make a picture! So, the sky blue followed by yellow to highlight the wood and brass.
Next, I threw some white on some areas to try and pop out the sails, ship bow, brass on top, masts, etc... The flag came out like garbage, but believe it or not, the flag was not really my main focus. I cared more about the stupid seagulls than the flag! Also, I thought it would make the waves pop if I used my shiny silver sharpie ... ummm, in the sun it sort of sparkles and does it, but not in the evening time (so, mixed media piece?).
Lastly, I took out my watercolor sharpie and went over the drawing to give it more of the tattoo vibe. Overall, I am pretty proud of it, compared to my other acrylic pieces!
Onward, to my preferential media, watercolor! As always, I lightly drew the ship and water and even the seagulls. From light to dark, yellow, dark yellow, watered down blue (sky blue), light blue, dark blue, red, brown, black. I love the way the wood on the ship turned out, it fades from dark to light very well. The waves are even pretty fun. I like having the U-shaped cut on the bottom of the piece, instead of it looking like I am attempting to paint an actual scene. The red sunset pops the ship much more and I tried a little more to help out the flag.
Finally, let's get down to what I know how to do and what is going to make this ship look like Sailor Jerry himself did it - Spit Shading with watercolor! I made some tea and painted the paper with 3 coats to get the paper more antique brown. By the way, this paper is the cheap paper, not thick, and not as good quality as the other (ran out).
Then I penciled down the image (for the third time!) and threw it in my work bag. I brought a water dish, paint tray, black, red, yellow and a napkin and painted this during my lunch hour. From yellow to red to black. Also, I did not trace this with sharpie; I painted the outline with my brush. Took about an hour and a half to do the whole piece.
The trick with spit shading (for me) is to put the solid black down, clean your brush, then pull the paint outwards and it should become lighter. When your brush gets dry, use your spit to get a really controlled amount of water on your brush. You don't want water globs on a light painting like this! I tried to get the flag to look a little better... whatever, stupid flag! I think the water came out kinda cool with all of the different blacks giving a rippling effect.
I asked my painting amigo how to fade the sails better, she said that gradation is the most studied and practiced part of watercolor and acrylic and there is no super special trick. She gave me a tip which I will share. Fill with water (from your brush) the area you want to be the color, then dip your brush in paint and dab the water in spots and it should move to the corners and fade by itself... haven't tried it, just sharing the wisdom! Let me know how it works.
By the way,
I used a #3 brush for acrylic and it took an hour to paint
I used a #3 and #1 brush for the first watercolor and it took an hour or so
I used a #1 brush for the spit shading and it took about an hour and a half.
My new insights are:
"Take your time, the final product will come. The most fun is not so much looking at your finished piece as it is dreaming of what it looks like with every little stroke and dab of paint."
"Don't be afraid to try something different, it is just paper, you can always make more, who knows, it may be awesome!"
"Fading, shading, gradating, whatever you want to call it, is freakin' hard to do!"
"Flags are dumb, don't include them in your paintings unless you want them to look worse!"
For this project, I decided I was going to do 3 different attempts at the same piece of art: acrylic, liquid water color and spit shading of Sailor Jerry's "homeward" flash piece. (pictured above)
My first painting is acrylic, I first sketched the piece with pencil lightly to get the ship where I wanted it. Next, I went dark to light, starting with the water, then the top of the ship downwards. I would like to share that acrylic without water in it drys extremely fast! I mixed blue and brown together to get the darkest color. I then used blue on top of it, followed by blue mixed with WHITE!!!! Yes, I went out and bought white acrylic because I was sick and tired of using 5 colors to make a picture! So, the sky blue followed by yellow to highlight the wood and brass.
Next, I threw some white on some areas to try and pop out the sails, ship bow, brass on top, masts, etc... The flag came out like garbage, but believe it or not, the flag was not really my main focus. I cared more about the stupid seagulls than the flag! Also, I thought it would make the waves pop if I used my shiny silver sharpie ... ummm, in the sun it sort of sparkles and does it, but not in the evening time (so, mixed media piece?).
Lastly, I took out my watercolor sharpie and went over the drawing to give it more of the tattoo vibe. Overall, I am pretty proud of it, compared to my other acrylic pieces!
Onward, to my preferential media, watercolor! As always, I lightly drew the ship and water and even the seagulls. From light to dark, yellow, dark yellow, watered down blue (sky blue), light blue, dark blue, red, brown, black. I love the way the wood on the ship turned out, it fades from dark to light very well. The waves are even pretty fun. I like having the U-shaped cut on the bottom of the piece, instead of it looking like I am attempting to paint an actual scene. The red sunset pops the ship much more and I tried a little more to help out the flag.
Finally, let's get down to what I know how to do and what is going to make this ship look like Sailor Jerry himself did it - Spit Shading with watercolor! I made some tea and painted the paper with 3 coats to get the paper more antique brown. By the way, this paper is the cheap paper, not thick, and not as good quality as the other (ran out).
Then I penciled down the image (for the third time!) and threw it in my work bag. I brought a water dish, paint tray, black, red, yellow and a napkin and painted this during my lunch hour. From yellow to red to black. Also, I did not trace this with sharpie; I painted the outline with my brush. Took about an hour and a half to do the whole piece.
The trick with spit shading (for me) is to put the solid black down, clean your brush, then pull the paint outwards and it should become lighter. When your brush gets dry, use your spit to get a really controlled amount of water on your brush. You don't want water globs on a light painting like this! I tried to get the flag to look a little better... whatever, stupid flag! I think the water came out kinda cool with all of the different blacks giving a rippling effect.
I asked my painting amigo how to fade the sails better, she said that gradation is the most studied and practiced part of watercolor and acrylic and there is no super special trick. She gave me a tip which I will share. Fill with water (from your brush) the area you want to be the color, then dip your brush in paint and dab the water in spots and it should move to the corners and fade by itself... haven't tried it, just sharing the wisdom! Let me know how it works.
By the way,
I used a #3 brush for acrylic and it took an hour to paint
I used a #3 and #1 brush for the first watercolor and it took an hour or so
I used a #1 brush for the spit shading and it took about an hour and a half.
My new insights are:
"Take your time, the final product will come. The most fun is not so much looking at your finished piece as it is dreaming of what it looks like with every little stroke and dab of paint."
"Don't be afraid to try something different, it is just paper, you can always make more, who knows, it may be awesome!"
"Fading, shading, gradating, whatever you want to call it, is freakin' hard to do!"
"Flags are dumb, don't include them in your paintings unless you want them to look worse!"
Saturday, November 13, 2010
Conservatory
I bought a water color tray so i could travel and sketch whatever i see in a quick amount of time, instead of using water color tubes. I went to the Cincinnati Conservatory and had a blast sketching the waterfall and some different plants that caught my eye. I really liked using a tray!
Saturday, August 28, 2010
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.
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.
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!
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!
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