The Eyes Have It

By Justin Gerard

Recently I ran into a problem of how to treat the eyes in an illustration I was working on. I was following my reference, but every time I painted them in they stuck out like Mickey Mouse eyes. (No offense Mickey.)



But in my reference the eyes were bright. And don't they call them the whites of the eyes? Are they not white!? IS THERE NOTHING IN THIS WORLD I CAN TRUST?

Before I lept from my chair to go and light the curtains on fire and rip the couch cushions in half I thought, waitaminute, painters throughout history have likely already wrestled with this conundrum. Why should I suffer a mental breakdown figuring this out when they've already done the work! I can relax again. There is objective truth out there, even if sometimes it comes in a thousand muddy shades of gray.

And so I assembled the above collection from some of the artists whose work has been a great inspiration to me. The results have been very helpful for me. My curtains and couch remain unmolested. Sometimes whites aren't always white.

I hope you enjoy.

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Tips and Tricks #1 - Brushes

-By John Jude Palencar



































Tips and Tricks #1 - Brushes

There have been a number of requests in regard to “tips and tricks”. Let me first start off by saying that “tips and tricks” are a presumed method in which an artist can produce, in part, satisfactory results. This is partially true. If an artist places too much importance on a specific trick/ technique the the work of art will suffer from an overt use of that particular technical approach. Simply put... there is no easy way to achieve a true qualitative visual statement. As an artist becomes more aware and practiced in their approach there will be a sense of control. They will be able to set goals for their work. Most of the tricks that I had once learned and adopted have been left behind as stepping stones to my current approach and philosophy to painting.



I think it’s about boiling things down to their purest methods. The only way to produce good work is to work. The dexterity of the mind/ hand connection is the first challenge. After that you have to develop a personal knowledge of various mediums, then you can move on to concept. Looking at a piece of art is easy but really seeing the art is hard. Being able to technically dissect a painting will only come with personal observation and self awareness of one’s own work. Personally acquired knowledge and thoughtful practice will make for a successful end result.



For this first installment of a multipart post I will address: Brushes

These are my opinions and may differ with your preferences and practices.



Brushes - Over the years I’ve used many types of brushes. I used to spend unheard of sums of money on brushes. At the American Greetings Card Company studios I once got to use a Windsor Newton Series Seven #12 (?). The requisition department brought it to me in a velvet lined walnut case. I think the brush cost as much as a automobile back in the Seventies! This brush had to be kept in my locked side work table. Like so many art materials the reason for liking one brush over another is personal. In the past I use to purchase pure sable brushes for finer work. After wearing down countless brushes and going slowly broke I have settled (for now) on using certain brushes for my detailed work and other brushes for developing large areas of the painting.



There is a price you have to pay for quality so I would suggest spending a little more on the larger brushes that will last longer and finding cost effective alternatives for the brushes that you put a lot of wear and tear on. That being said, only you can find what feels comfortable cost-wise and will work for your artistic needs. Remember use professional materials to get professional results. Quality always rules.



Windsor & Newton Sceptre Gold II - Series 202.

This series of brushes are a blend of sable and synthetic. There are affordable and come in a variety of sizes from 0 -15 (I think). The other brushes in this series are 101 and 303. I chose the 202’s because they have longer hair and carry a decent paint load. The other brushes in this series have shorter and longer hair respectively. I still go through them like french fries but they are affordable. Their lower cost and sharp point can render fine detail. I have to mention that they are fairly inconsistent in quality. So grab a handful of this brush and check them for overall form of the brush hair, the point cut and taper as well.



Mid-size Brushes, sizes 5 - 10 etc.... As far as other brushes... I don’t have a preference. I usually inspect the quality and “spring” of the brush as well as the shape of the end hairs. This is achieved by splaying out the hair with the thumb and forefinger. I look to see is anything doesn’t look right. There should be an even contour of shape, The hairs should have a consistent taper. No hairs should be bent or mashed by those protective plastic tubes. I usually keep a variety of shapes and a variety of animal hair/ synthetic brushes within easy reach. Each type of brush has positive and negative attributes.



Large Brushes - For my own preference I prefer the “Hake” brush. It’s a Japanese brush, usually goat hair, sandwiched and sewn between a split piece of wood. They come in a variety of sizes with the largest being around 7.5 inches wide. I have used these brushes for years with watercolor, oil and acrylic. Some of the brushes I have are over twenty five years old and are still going strong. One of the best brands is made by Yakamoto, Japan. They are great for washes or blocking in large areas. Scumbling and glazing are easily accomplished with them.



Weird Brushes and other Mark Makers - The other avenue to consider are found objects or brushes not meant for artistic work. This is an area to use your imagination.



Case in point - I was at garage sale and found a great beat-up wallpaper paste brush that I use to develop uncontrolled washes and interesting marks on the canvas or panel.



My dog’s old wire hair brush (cleaned) - great for etching-like marks.



Sponges, palette knives, sticks and stones, shredded cloth, sheets of plastic. Your hand!



The oldest brush I have is a high quality squirrel hair watercolor wash brush. I bought it for twelve dollars when I was fifteen years old back in 1972 and it’s still in great shape. Twelve bucks was a lot of money in those days.





In Conclusion

Having a good selection of brushes and mark makers is essential. Filberts, rounds, sharps and flats... kinda sounds like music. If you are to be the conductor of your painting having the right notes makes the symphony worth listening to.

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"Lilith"

By Eric Fortune

Here's a little step by step of my recent painting "Lilith". In my sketches you may notice that they are all facing left. I notice myself doing this sometimes and will flip the image just to mix it up a bit. Otherwise, my body of work would be a left facing army of artwork. A teacher of mine pointed this out in college and it's something that I've noticed ever since. Many things were pointed out to say the least. But I'll keep those to myself.

I wanted this to be a somber and moody piece. Reflective but also showing some tension. Obviously, the pose of the figure says a lot. But I'm also using a very muted palette and a lot of soft edges mixed with harder, sharper edges to try evoke different thoughts as well. I wanted the figure to float in and out of existence.

As for time, this piece went rather quickly compared to many of my other works. I think part of that reason may be that I did a lot more large washes in the beginning. I really wanted to build up the value on the piece overall before letting myself get caught up in details. I often see something cool happen in the paint that I'm afraid I'll lose if I don't define it now. By the time I finish the painting that cool mark may be completely unnoticeable. So for efficiency's sake I held off of the small brushes a long I could. Granted there's always some back and forth as you approach the end of a painting to make it as cohesive as possible.

While painting some unexpected things happened that I decided I liked enough to keep. For example while applying some darker washes in the hair some clean water rain down creating these lighter stripes between the dark patches of hair. I hadn't planned for this but I thought it added some extra depth and also accentuated some of the vertical lines I had with the drawing. I try to plan out most of what I want to happen but I think giving yourself some room for spontaneity and letting the painting form organically can lead to some unexpected and enjoyable results. Sometimes unexpected and unwanted results or as Bob Ross would say "Happy little accidents". But years of experience and painting in thin layers like I do helps to be able to deal with these without too much stress...most of the time.

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Doing it for Free, Part 2

by Donato



I'll keep this post short as I am preparing for a convention this weekend, Lunacon, in Rye New York.



Many of you have heard by now about the Spectrum 18 Award winners, if not, Irene Gallo has graciously posted the list online at Tor.com. One of my fellow bloggers, Dan Dos Santos landed his first Silver Medal (congrats Dan!) and I too was a very lucky recipient of a Silver in the Institutional category for my work 'Mind Machine' created for a gallery show last year at Distinction Gallery in Escondido, CA . I greatly appreciate the recognition knowing all the talented artists that submitted amazing images for this annual, and was quite shocked to find out I had such an honor. My point is not about the medal, but to build upon my last post, which was 'Doing it for Free'. If you haven't guessed, by now, the award winner was one of those pieces 'Done for free'. A work which I felt the need to paint because it felt right and knowing I would likely never receive a commercial commission to justify it's creation. Mind Machine was inspired by a quote by a brilliant thinker-



"To myself I am only a child playing on the beach, while vast oceans of truth lie undiscovered before me."

-Sir Isaac Newton





So keep your hand where your heart is, and follow your dreams...they might just come true.



P.s. Here's another piece created for fun and the love of Tolkien which will make its debut at Lunacon.

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Ambition

-By Jesper Ejsing

Here is a sad confession: Drawing; I suck at it.





These last 2 weeks has been creative hell for me. I always thought things would get easier along the way. I always thought: “One day soon, I will reach a level where I no longer have to think about anatomy or dynamic poses. They will just be obtainable within seconds of sketching . And then I can focus on something else”. I only realise now that this is the fattest lie or thinnest hope of my career as an artist. It NEVER gets any easier. Thing is; it gets harder since my ambition gets higher. I am not content with poses or faces I would have been happy with a year or so ago. Hell, let's be honest. Faces I made 3 weeks ago would not be accepted in the current state of crazy ambition I am in right now. The reason is this female wolf-man I am doing right now. Can you say Female Wolfman? Sounds like the sexually confused of the Underworld. Whatever.

What I am driving at is this: It is hard as hell when you are in it. When you are sketching and sketching and nothing you do has that effect in your brain where it suddenly feels like all the puzzle pieces you have been shuffling around for hours, days ( and in this case ) or even weeks, falls into place. “There, I nailed it!” I have had that feeling four times during these 2 weeks, and when I got back the next day, my enthusiasm had faded to a minimum and I saw every fault there was and lost all fire or lust to even start painting that mediocre sketch in front of me. I have transferred this illustration 3 times to a watercolor paper before abandoning it and going back to scratch. I have had my Art Director approve of three different sketches that I abandoned as soon as they got approved. I have painted a version 2/3 finished before tearing it apart…and all in the name of ambition. I´ll tell you.



Ambition is your own worst enemy. But I think it is the only reason that I haven’t dried out years ago. I am never satisfied. You should never be satisfied. It means there is no place else to go. ( Inside I am shaking my head at myself right now, wishing I had been just a little more satisfied ten days ago ) Did I tell you it is the same little illustration I have been sketching for 14 days now? One figure, minimal background, almost free hands in doing the pose…



I can only hope that this dreaded inability to draw something useful is the face that comes right before an artistic jump. Because this afternoon I nailed the pose! Again.



I will stop writing now and start painting before I can regret anything.



The sketches I have posted are not the ones I am talking about, but since it is World of Warcraft I cannot show it yet. They are instead sketches i think succeded immediately. The one with the gollem was only rejected because it was too violent, not because there was anything wrong with it. The more classic portrait version I remember was done in less than 10 minutes, and came right out of the pencil with nothing to it. ( There must be a way to tap into that state. When I find it I will keep you posted. )

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REMINDERS!

Don't forget...

***Tomorrow, Thursday March 17th, is the first of 3 lecture/booksignings that Terryl Whitlatch will be giving. See her tomorrow at 5pm Pacific Time, at the Gnomon Workshop, 1015 N. Cahuenga, Hollywood CA. More info HERE.





***Tomorrow is also the last day to submit your work for our second Crit-Submit. Please be sure your entries are in Thursday before Midnight (EST). More info HERE.

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White Trash Zombie

-By Dan dos Santos



On Saturday, we found out who received this year's Spectrum medals. Like many of you, I always fantasize that "this year will be the year." But of course, reality always comes crashing down and I am quickly reminded that there are a ton of more deserving artists out there. In fact, not only have I never won a medal, but the piece which I am most excited about, and which I think may stand the best chance of winning, usually never even gets in. I confess, I refreshed Spectrum's homepage a LOT that day, still hoping that "this year will be the year".



I don't know if some cosmic force shifted my way, or perhaps those late-night virgin sacrifices really did work... but somehow, I managed to win a Silver Medal this year... and I could not be happier!



The piece that won was for a book called "My Life as a White Trash Zombie", by Diana Rowland.

DAW books, for whom I've been doing a lot of covers for this past year, contacted me about this job. Unfortunately, my schedule was booked totally solid (mostly with their titles), so I had to decline. Fortunately, the Art Director being wiser than I, decided to try again anyways and called to see if I would change my mind. When the words "Zombie Romance" came out of her mouth, I knew I had to take it.



Because the deadline was so tight, I had to come up with a particularly simple piece. I also would likely only have time to come up with a single sketch, two at the most. I explained this to the AD, and she agreed.



The AD was very particular that I make the heroine an obvious zombie, but still attractive. Apparently, someone had tried something similar not too long prior, and sales were disastrous. Making the cover more sexy than scary was essential. I sat down, and quickly drew my way through every trailer park and pink flamingo cliche I could think of. Nothing worked. But something about the pink stuck with me. I sometimes sketch in color (one of the great benefits of sketching digitally), and the moment I saw the way the dead grey skin would play off the bright feminine pink, I knew I had my cover.

To me, everything about the sketch seemed so perfect for the story... just the right combo of sexy, quirky and trashy. Yet, I was utterly convinced that they would NOT approve it. A pink book in the Fantasy section?! A cigarette in her mouth?! There was no way in hell the Sales Team was going to let me get away with this! I sent the sketch along with a short email that said: "Please, please, PLEEEAASE let me do this cover." 

Their response... "We love it!"



As is usually the case with really simple design, I ended up spending way longer than expected on it. Because there is so little to look at, you have to make sure that what is there, is stellar. Knowing that I was going to paint every little eyelash, I shot a bunch of reference. I composed it all in photoshop, mixing several different photos of 2 different models. From there I re-established my drawing, and transfered it to my board.

It may seem silly to spend time drawing in subtleties like the eyebrows, since they are going to get painted over anyways. But, it actually speeds up the process a lot. That pencil ends up showing through in the end, and gives me a very fine level of detail that is a bit harder to achieve in paint. To ensure that they showed through all the paint, I drew those elements much darker than the rest. The AD had questioned the amount of blood on her chin, so I kept that part of the drawing super light in case I needed to revise it.



Applying a color transparently over a white surface results in a much brighter color than mixing it with white (which tends to make most colors chalky). Since I wanted a sickeningly sweet pink background, I started with a vibrant wash of oils. This also let me see the color relationships almost immediately so that every decision afterwards would be easier to judge. You can already see how much work that pencil is doing for me at this stage.

All that's left is to just do it. In the image below, the painting is near completion. I typically paint the flesh tones beneath the hair, and then paint the hair on top of it once they are dry. This makes it easy to wipe out brushstrokes if I mess up some of the overlapping strands. Here, I am one coat away from finished, so a few elements as still missing, like the tuft of hair near her ear, as well as the nose stud. I also decided to make the eye a milky blue to add to the zombie theme.

That's about it!  I sent it off to the AD, who happily approved of it with the exception of a few changes. She wanted to have no blood on her chest, and also asked that I make the eye look human again, feeling that the dead looking eye made her less attractive. Both totally valid decisions. The completed image with type treatment is below. The book, which is getting some great reviews already, is due out in July.

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