Portrait of the Wasp as a Young Man - WIP

I'm really enjoying painting bugs, if you can't tell. This is my 5th project for my Art 86 class. I'm just having a bit of fun with this one. Of course, I usually try to have a bit of fun with the art I'm making. If it's not enjoyable, why would I do it?

This is still a work in progress, I've got a lot of rendering and fiddling left to do. Mere details, really.

Update: March 14, 2011
I finished it ages ago and forgot to post about it. Silly me.

Insects

These are some large insects I drew for Art 86. I used the Airbrush variants in Corel Painter and reference photos gleaned from the internet.

Anatomy project, WIP

I can't seem to stop posting about projects I'm working on. This is the last post today, I promise. This is my third project for Art 86, nearly done.

House v Death Cat, Round 2

Version 2, colored using a brush I created.

House v Death Cat

This is just something I did as a lark. I'm thinking of using it for an assignment, but the assignment involves creating your own brush in Corel Painter and I didn't do that for this piece. It's Smooth Ink Pen and Dull Conte, but I didn't change anything special about the brushes, except size a little.

I'll post the second version of this when I get it done. I'm thinking of doing a watercolorish brush, but I might go with something more opaque, something more saturated. The last couple of images I've created have been low saturation, which I guess I'm finding interesting right now.

Because I was Bored

I thought I'd draw something that I didn't have much invested in and would relax me. I don't know how relaxed I feel right now, but this is the result of a fifteen minute drawing spree. I traced over a random image I pulled from Google images and added some color, all done in Corel Painter. I think I should do this more often.

Spaceman - actually finished

No, really, this time I'm done.

Thom Yorke, Man of Awesome

This is for an exercise using the Cloning brushes in Corel painter. It's Thom Yorker, man of awesome and lead singer of Radiohead. Much time was spent on this image. I loved every second of it.

This is also Thom Yorke. You may notice that it's the same portrait, but looks different. I rejected it for turning in, but still wanted to share it. He looks kind of insaner in this portrait, which amuses me greatly. It's also much starker than the other one, I think because of all the aggressive brush strokes.

Random comic

I drew this because I was bored; it was inspired by Carl Sagan's quote: "In order to bake an apple pie from scratch, first you must create the Universe." (Paraphrased, as I'm too lazy to look the exact quote up - if anyone is interested, it's from the series Cosmos.)

Feynman - portrait

I felt like drawing someone's portrait today, so I went with Richard Feynman. This was made in Corel Painter using the 2B Pencil and Soft Pointed Blender. I took the image off of "Six Not-So-Easy Pieces."

Spaceman - finished (more or less)

Finalized (for now) version of the Spaceman painting I started two weeks ago. I think I can polish it up a bit, but it's good enough to submit for my class.

I had thought to add a very translucent layer of red on top of the other layer in order to colorize it a bit, but I like the colors as they are. I may play around with that.

Art 86 exercise

First exercise of Art 86 (Painting with Computers) class. Just a doodle, really. I can already see things that I should change in order to make it a better image, but I'm too lazy to make the changes.

Spaceman—WIP, ±40%

A work in progress. I've already spent at least 4 hours working on it. This is the basic structure and color. I'm hoping to add more detail before it's due.

Made in Corel Painter with Oil Pastels and Acrylics. Mostly Oil Pastels.

Abstract exercise

I think I might try doing a few more these. They were an exercise that I had to do for my computer painting class, meant to get the student familiar and comfortable with the software and tablet. I'm a little of both, so I think I was able to loosen up this time around.

Art art art art

I've started school again. I'm taking ART 86 (Painting on the computer) again. Hopefully I'll have exercises/projects that are more exciting this time around. Here's my first exercise for the class:

It's a flying shoe. I was inspired by one of my shoes poking me in the back. I don't know why my shoe was on my bed. But it was timely inspiration, at least.

Made with Ballpoint pen, Flat color, Nervous pen and Smooth round pen variants in Corel Painter.

New drawing, WIP

I haven't really practiced drawing this summer, so I thought better later than never. I finally got around to installing my Wacom tablet onto this laptop. This is the result of one hour of effort on my part. Not very interesting perhaps, but practice is practice.

Drawn in Corel Painter, with Wacom tablet. I think I used charcoal brushes and the "Just Add Water" blender. It's not of anyone in particular, I'm just drawing from imagination. Maybe I'll find someone in particular to draw eventually, but for now I just need to re-familiarize myself with the program and the tablet.

I'm so happy that I can use my tablet again.

New t-shirts

These are the new shirts for sale in my etsy shop (*coff*www.etsy.com/shop/theartfulscientist*coff*). I'm really happy with the cat shirt that I printed, mostly for the color choice. I think I might try to get some more brown shirts so that I can print that color combo again. It just seems to work so well. The blue/green combo is just funky (in a good way) to me. Also, it's the pigeon shirt, which seems to get a lot of good comments, so why not make 5,000 more of them?

The Return of the Artist

After a long, activity filled absence, I'm posting this so as to give everyone a glimpse of what I've been up to (the parts I'll admit to anyway).

I set out my printing supplies, do a few test runs and realize my stupid squeegee is too small for the image I'm trying to print. I run down to my local art supply store, and while they have decent prices on the items they carry (and they're local, so I like to support them), they don't have the squeegee I'm looking for. So, I hop back in my car and drive to University Art, which is minutes away from closing by the time I get there (5:30 pm? really?) and I find a really nice, hard squeegee that'll do just fine. I pay for my new squeegee, get back in the car, realize I need gas, remember that I've left my ink uncovered back at home (letting it slowly dry into a hardened mess, meaning I'll have to mix more paint dammit); I get gas, drive back home and find everything as I'd left it - ink, small, old squeegee and all. The ink hadn't dried very much, thankfully, so I mix a bit of water in it to loosen it up, get all my printing things lined up to do a test pull, do the pull and am pleased with the result on paper (which is almost too small for the image, but that's a minor point).

And now I have five more shirts to sell. Today is a good day.

Now I just have to find my ink roller so that I can print some cat shirts.

I wish I could do this full time. It's so fun!

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In other news, I've started an Etsy store in which I'll be selling t-shirts, digital prints, and whatever else I feel like making. I've got a few items up, so check it out!

http://www.etsy.com/shop/theartfulscientist

Body Parts

Mostly what we've been drawing in my portrait drawing class has been parts of the face. I assume that we're going to eventually put it all together, so I'm not too concerned about it. I think I've progressed a bit since my first work. I've also discovered that mechanical pencils > woodless graphite. But I'm still thinking about that one. I don't know if it's the paper that I'm using, or the way I draw. My technique could be wonky. But my technique works well enough with my mechanical pencil, so I'm going to stick with it for now.

Now for pictures.

Latest Craze

I think I've discovered a new and exciting way to waste both my time and my money: spray-painting t-shirts. It's quick, easy, and fairly inexpensive. I mean, a can of spray paint costs like $5. And t-shirts are dirt cheap.

I'm pretty sure I have way too many t-shirts as it is. Guess what everyone is getting for their birthday/Christmas/gift-giving event? Yup. I try to keep it original.




I made this shirt in my garment printing class. I'm very much in love with it. Ok, so there's some spattering on the right shoulder because I forgot to protect the rest of the shirt from the spray paint. But it's Darwin! On a t-shirt! I'm very happy about this development.

Introducing: squidpanda

This came from over-caffination and boredom at work. Well, I waited until I got home before I started on it, but the concept (or random idea, really) came to me at work.

Exercises

I drew these for my Art 4A and 4E classes.

Flier

Revised the poster I made for Open Studios. Ok, "completely redid" would be a better way to put it. It's more or less done, I just have to finish the "contact" info part. And probably tweak one or two things.

Flier

I made this for my art club, the Foothill Art Society. Made with Adobe Illustrator, of course. Nothing fancy, either, since it's for a one-time event.

I'm going to have more artwork to show from last quarter soon, I just haven't been able to get to campus to use the scanner. And I've been struggling with computer drama, as well. But that's more or less all over now.

Contour line study

This is a design I created for a project in my 2-D Design class. I really like the contour line/topographical map feel of this piece. Also, white, black, and red is a great color combo and I've been kind of obsessed with the combination for a few months, basically since my Website Design class.

I haven't been able to upload any new pieces due to technical difficulties, but that's all gonna change now. I have a new computer and it's finally more or less updated to a modern OS.

2010

Happy New Year! here's hoping things are looking up!