Ugly Mug Mondays! #14

I am King Cheez-It. I am not amused.

I was digging through files on my computer and I came across a handful from my last trip to New York. I became overly addicted to Cheez-Its and, well, you've got to do something with the empty boxes, don't you? And sometimes you've just got to wear a box on your head.

Casein on canvas paper. 2.5" x 3.5"

Banskine!

A friend of mine decided to learn how to make his very own little Moleskine journals, and was gracious enough to ask if I wanted one and if I had any special requests for it. Well, it was just too good to pass up to have a custom little Moleskine; my only request was that it have a medium-dark grey paper. A few weeks after having made the request (and having forgotten about it entirely) it arrived in the mail and it was everything I could have hoped for and more. As I was in love with doing casein studies at the time I decided to start painting in the book right away. The paper that he found performed marvelously! It's heavy enough not to want to warp as I slathered water and paint over it, and toothy enough to just grab the paint right odd the brush. I've only done three little paintings in it so far (I've been distracted by other things, mainly Star Craft II), but it's such a joy to work in - especially for warm-ups before settling in for more serious work.

Each of them is casein on paper and done with a larger-than-necessary brush so that I could ignore pesky little details; though that didn't stop me from trying... There are passages in each of the little paintings that I rather enjoy, and leaving as much of the paper showing through as possible has been a fun challenge. At any rate, enjoy. And as always, thanks for reading!




Casein on paper. Roughly 4" x 5".

Ugly Mug Mondays! #10 and #12

My lady has been on vacation for the past couple of days, which has made getting artwork done a lot more difficult than I had imagined. All of a sudden there are three furballs brawling it out for my undivided attention. Needless to say my concentration has been shot. Between that and struggling with my recent painting (which I'll post in a day or so) I've been off track on painting my ugly mug. I did this one earlier in the week, from life. The last few I've done have all been black and white over the white of the page, but I thought this time around I'd try it over a red ground. It's interesting, I think. We'll see where it leads.

Casein on canvas paper. 2.5" x 3.5"



This week's offering I kind of phoned in. I've been sketching a bit more again, so I wasn't really feeling sitting down with paints; and then there was the fuzzy coalition protesting in my apartment - one of whom is a really inquisitive cat that likes to get into everything. On more than one occasion he's jumped onto where my palette is kept and I have no desire to clean up a painted kitty. So I deferred to a quick pencil sketch.

Pencil on bristol. 2.5" x 3.5"

Ugly Mug Mondays! #9 and #10

I kind of skipped last week's Ugly Mug Monday!. It was completely accidental, I swear. I was up late duking it out with the final drawing for my latest full scale illustration and by the time it occurred to me it was something like eight in the morning. Then I spent the past week wrestling said drawing into submission and before I knew it - POW! - it was time for a new week. So I did two portraits for this week, as a way to play catch up. This time 'round I tried working from photo reference instead of sitting in front of a mirror. I kind of felt it was cheating, as I usually (read: always) work from photos, but I stumbled across my senior portrait and couldn't resist.

Once upon a time I had an afro. I thought it was cool. What can I say? Also I have a gap in my teeth. It isn't nearly this bad, but i thought it was hilarious and just couldn't help but leave it. It was originally the center-line in the face and wound up being one of those happy accidents that end up making a picture just that much more whimsical and quirky.

I realized that with the exception of my first week's offering, all of the self-portraits in the Ugly Mug series have been in black and white. There are two reasons for this;

1. I look at things in terms of tone. The simplest way to do this is in black and white.

2. I only have three tubes of casein paint. Black. White. And red. As it would happen I've fallen in love with casein and I sort of naturally reach for them whenever it's time to paint my ugly mug.

That being said, someone once told me I was afraid of color. She was basing this on the fact that everything in my sketchbook was in black and white. Either pencil or pen and ink. I was taught fairly early on that "if it doesn't work in black and white, it isn't going to work in color" and "you choose a color for it's value". These are the two things I hear in the back of my mind whenever I'm painting. So a lot of the time yes, I do work in black and white, but I think it's ridiculous to say that I'm afraid of color. To prove it, I put some red in this one. Hope you like it.

As an aside I really like these two paintings. I think the economic use of brush strokes is pretty cool, and I'm quite fond of the purely implied expression - especially in the second one. I'm liking the direction these are heading in, I hope you good folks do too.

Doodle Doodle Doodle...

I made you out of pixels. Ok, so my talents don't lie in parodying holiday songs. I'm sorry.

Loose 20 minute warm up and experiment rolled into one. I've noticed normally when I work in photoshop I keep the transparency set at about 80% or so. I may get crazy and drop it down to about 40% for an electronic "glaze". (But only if I really want to live life on the edge.) This time around, after I had most of the shapes where I wanted them I started playing around with a really low opacity. I hoped to soften edges and drop in some tone where things should be shifted towards light or dark.

Photoshop CS3. 20 minutes.

Quick Practice

I'm toying with the idea of starting a digital sketchbook. To that end, I may be doing more quick portraits

30 minutes. Painter IX.

Hanh

I was down to my last 4x6 panel a few months ago and I wanted to make it special somehow. I have the tendency to get overly precious about the last of anything I have, even if getting more is a simple matter of picking them up the next time I'm at work. The point is, I wanted it to be good and from the heart. I can be such a sap like that sometimes.

Naturally I spent a great deal of time agonizing over who I was going to paint for the last portrait in this round of 4x6 paintings. Then some friends of mine lost someone to a drunk driver in an accident. They were all devastated, and while I didn't truly know the fellow, it reopened a lot of wounds from when I lost my friend Hanh. I spent the next little bit of time looking for a picture I could have sworn I had. All I could come up with was her volleyball picture and though the face in that picture is less than half an inch high, I couldn't abandon my pursuit.

I've always wanted to do a portrait of Hanh, but never felt capable of the challenge. And though I fought this painting every step of the way and it didn't turn out anywhere near where I hoped it would, I still love it. In many respects it was just like my relationship with Hanh, and it brings a smile to my face.

So this is for you, Hanh. You're never too far from my thoughts and somehow still manage to be a source of constant inspiration. I miss you.

Back to the 4x6

My freshman year in high school I had an English teacher. (Most of us did...) This just happens to be my freshman year English teacher.

Kind of. I started rooting through old photographs the other night during a particularly vicious bout of insomnia and decided to give this one a shot.

Up until now I've been limiting myself to about an hour on each of these 4x6 portraits. Firstly, I cut that time in half. Then I tried to work with a bad piece of reference (there was no real shadow structure to speak of) and I cut the time in half. While I was in school the mantra "you're only as good as your reference" was drilled into my head. This compelled me to learn to take good reference photography. However, sometimes the client provides you with the reference - and when that happens there's often something to be desired.

All in all I think it turned out decently. My wife could tell who it was from twelve feet away, so that's something. Next time I'll keep one of my limitations; good reference and half an hour -or- poor reference and an hour time limit. Baby steps. Baby steps.