Friday, January 23, 2009

Mountain Pass Cove


This is a little idea that occurred while I attempted to create a Photoshop/Painter workflow. I will probably always gravitate towards PS, but Painter really has some great stuff. I find myself going back and forth between the two, often switching when I get bored or don't feel very good about what is happening to the piece. Somehow changing working environments and tools seems to get the creative sparks burning sometimes.

Like most of my posts, this is just another super-quick little idea that may or may not find its way into a more finished piece later.

Friday, January 16, 2009

Inkfish (New Computer Test)


This is a quick little piece I did yesterday after setting up a laptop computer for lecturing and demo purposes. I started off just randomly painting brush strokes to see how the computer could handle high-res files, and it ended up turning into an "inkfish." It sort of looks like the "Beasts of Neptune" piece I did earlier, but it was still fun to doodle.

Thursday, January 08, 2009

Painter??




I decided to try and teach an old dog a new trick. I have been messing around with Painter lately just to see what all the fuss is about. After learning a lot over the last year in Photoshop, I found that it carried over nicely to Painter. It still seems like Painter by itself is a tidbit crippled without some of the editing features Photoshop has, but it is so much fun to get messy in Painter, and the textural qualities have Photoshop beat.

Here are two quick tests I did recently while fussing around trying to get a handle on the program.

Wednesday, January 07, 2009

Every Captain Needs a Ship



A couple posts ago, I mentioned that I am working on a character design for a space captain. The idea for him came from a doodle I did in my sketchbook while I was thinking about my old Neptune paintings. I thought, I wonder what other space oriented stuff I can dig out of my imagination? The thing sort of took on a life of its own, and now I want to take the whole thing further. Here is the original doodle of a rough idea for a space station, and here is a portrait of where I think I am going to take the captain.

Monday, January 05, 2009

Winter Trees in CA


One thing that sort of irritates me about being in the South Bay is there is not a very sharp contrast between the seasons. The main difference is when it's not sunny, it's overcast, and it's not as warm. I love seeing the leaves change in the fall, playing in the snow, etc, so it's a little bit of a bummer, but one great thing about the area I live is there are great eucalyptus trees to paint year 'round. They don't lose their leaves and they have a lot of color in them. They always give me a fun challenge.

This gouache sketch was done on a grey day from my bedroom window while I nursed a cold.