Brendan James

This is a piece done in photoshop that I started last night while watching the Bourne Ultimatum. I didn't get very far. So last night I saw an ad on facebook recommending Brendan James's newest album to those who like Jon McLaughlin. After listening to the sample tracks on itunes, I bought the album. Brendan James has a beautiful voice and it was his voice that allowed me to concentrate on this piece enough to finish it. Music is so essential to my art. Trying to draw in total silence is absolutely horrible! I have been without my ipod since it was stolen in february and it's been pretty awful. I'm waiting for one that a friend is giving me, but it has yet to arrive and its been near 8 weeks. I'm dying a little inside. This piece is also a preliminary color sketch to a possible oil painting that I'll be doing for my friend Josh. I haven't decided if I like it enough to paint it. Any suggestions or comments are welcome.

One of many

School has started up again and I am sadly not a part of the chaos. This is a mixture of feelings. I have graduated less than four months and I'm in a bit of a raw panic as to what to do with my life. So to challenge myself, brought on by my little sister doubting I could do it, I will make a drawing or painting by the end of each week and post it by Sunday.

This is a small drawing of a Sprite bottle that I bought when I went to the beach with a few friends. It's pretty small and lightly drawn with a 2h pencil and colored using a set of 24 Prismacolor Lightfast colored pencils. The image is about half the size of a colored pencil. I work small so unfortunately the Sprite logo can't be seen. I messed up on it a little anyway. So this is my first piece. Hopefully I'll be able to have a portrait up some day. I hope you all like it.

Movies and Oil Paints

For weeks now I've been itching to paint, but held myself back for various reasons. Excuses really. I didn't feel as if I should paint unless I had something pre-planned and well thought out. Well, my mood decreased and I became more irritable; the heat not helping. I drew and colored, but what I really needed was to paint. So I did. I just painted. I used one paint brush, a size 4 Flibert Winsor & Newton and 7 colors. I just let my hand paint and work out my many frustrations rumbling through my head and irritations coursing through my fingers. The colors may be vibrant and may blend a bit too much, but it shows exactly what's been going on in my mind. There isn't clarity just yet, but it's breaking through. When it dries I will go back into it and make the rays of light more prominent and with more warmth. The top was an earlier version.

My beautiful J.C. Leyendecker poster that I got for Christmas, framed and hung on my wall as of this early evening! Right above my desk so that I can be inspired by this incredible illustrator! Leyendecker is hands down my ABSOLUTE favorite illustrator of all time! I had it custom framed by Jerry's Artarama and it costed me quite a pretty penny, even with a 40% off discount. However, it was beautifully done so I have no complaints...only my bank account is severely disturbed by the amount. And my father.

The final thank you cards

The sakura flowers were taking too long to draw so I switched to little vignettes of a tree on a small hill against a blue sky. I wanted to go for a relaxing feel to the image. Did I succeed? Nothing calms or makes me happier than a beautiful day.

I have finished! My scanner isn't the best, so there is actually more fullness to the tree on its right side. However, I may add more darks in the field of grass. Comments?

The Tuscan Sky

I decided to experiment with a landscape picture that I took in Italy for a thank you card to my great aunt Alice rather than draw the sakura flowers (cherry blossoms). Those tiny flowers are really time consuming. These are six very small drawings on a 4 1/2 by 6 1/8 tinted canson paper, though I cropped off the bottom area that I didn't use. Different combinations of blue and white were used for the sky and varied greens for the landscape. For the darker areas in the trees I used black, very lightly. I also layered some of the colors. The bottom right has non-photo blue over white. My goal was to achieve a bright sky. I wanted my great aunt to feel the openness of the scenery and feel relaxed looking at it. I'm not sure if I accomplished that...

I'll post the final piece later. Perhaps I'll get it done by tonight.