Click through and take a look at Wil Freeborn's stuff over time, he's really developed a particular style with watercolors, I think you'll find it quite nice.
Well folks it's been a bit of a crazy week here in Comfortable Shoes land. It's been 95 degrees with 80% humidity and I pretty much melt in that kind of heat. All I want to do is sleep in a room with AC. Iv'e been sketching a lot but I haven't had a chance to post any of the pics. I've got some plans to, man the plans.
I'll start with the rough news. I have a lot of family spread out around the north east. Part of my family comes from Buffalo and part comes from DownEast Maine, where I grew up. I live in Massachusetts which makes a good stopping point when family goes out to visit in either direction. It's kind of a nice thing. So I got a call Wednesday night, after I worked for a 10 hour day and got stuck in traffic for 3 hours, that my father and my grand mother were coming to visit. Now we keep our house clean but not… GrandMother clean. I was unsure of when they would arrive exactly so I left work early that day and rushed home.
It was 95 degrees that day and about 85% humidity. I blitz cleaned the house in a couple of hours. Have you ever scrubbed toilets and vacuumed in that kind of heat? Neither had i, and I'll never repeat it. I swear I lost 20 pounds in sweat. By the end of it I was a sweaty stinking mess. Anyway. I clean ed and cooked dinner,then stayed up until 10pm catching up with the folks. Then got up at 3 AM to see them off the next day.
So I didn't get much work or art done until later tonight. I came home from work crashed and then started drawing and painting. I'm in an art groove today. My pieces are coming out in a way I like. I feel good and I feel confident in them. I've been painting and drawing almost everyday for 2 months now. You can see the difference in my work, I can feel the difference in my brush strokes. I can feel the control of my brush. I'm getting there.
I picked up 2 wooden panels, on hard board and one 3/8th birch plywood. Tomorrow I'm cutting them into 1×1 foot squares to start painting on. I'm also going to show you how to make a cradle for wood panels. It's pretty easy with a few basic tools. I'll get into in a video later this weekend.
Anyway, lots of work going on, I'll get lots of pics and video this weekend.
An art journal flip with commentary by the artist. LOTS of great info in these 2 videos!
Part 1
Part 2
When I tweeted at Amanda Palmer to ask if she'd tweet me a pic of her hands I didn't know what to expect, I certainly didn't expect to get a very very cool picture of her hands and a Mary of Guadalupe. Too cool. So I waited a bit to draw her hands, I wanted to be sure I was getting the hands mostly right before I made an attempt. I think I did pretty well with this one, even putting in the image of Mary behind her hands.
the sketch with the photo.
close up of the sketch
with most of the background painted in. It's missing Mary's face color, some white and some black
Finished! Let me know what you think.
I got into a groove yesterday and did a bunch of full size hand drawings/paintings. Here they are:
Very happy with these.
This time around I wanted to take up the whole page and really concentrate on the light, shade and shape o fhte hands. This picture is of 2 people holding hands. It's really sweet.
I started out with one of my gessoed sketchbook pages, rough. I used a 0.5 pencil to rough in the shapes and shadows.
I used an 0.9 mech pencil to add the lighter shadows and some of the background.
I really wanted to go darker with the background so I sharpened up a 5B pencil and layered in a ton of graphite. I used wild brush strokes to blend the back ground.
I finished up with some 0.9 pencil for details. The Left side of the top hand should be moved about a bit but it works for the most part.
By now you are all well aware that I enjoy creating portraits. I’ve worked really hard to have my own style but retain a sense of realism. I’m excited to now be able to work on commissioned portraits. If you are interested in having me create you a portrait please email me.
More information:
I work in a style that is very me, so be sure you have browsed the gallery of my art to be sure you like my style. I work in black ink and create sensitive cross hatching to create areas of shadow. The background of the portrait will be painted in one or two colors, which you may leave up to me or specify. If you have me working on a portrait of your daughter and her favorite color is violet I’ll mix a shade of violet and have you okay it.
As the work progresses I’ll email you progress shots and include you in the process as much as possible. If I’m able to do so I’ll record the process and create a video. When you see the finished piece you won’t be surprised but simply overjoyed.
I like to keep my pricing reasonable. The prices are based on size and materials used.
Pen and ink with single color watercolor background on acid free archival paper, single portrait:
All sizes except the trading card size are matted and bagged in a KrystalSeal bag. The trading card size will arrive in a standard trading card sleeve. All pieces will come with a certificate of authenticity.
I also create unique one of a kind portraits in mixed media. The background is a combination of collage and acrylic paint with sketching and writing within the layers. In the area I would like to create the face I scrape an ultra thin layer of white paint, on which I draw the portrait. The portrait is drawn in a variety of colors. You can request that I work bright and I’ll use a bright color to start the portrait instead of gray. The image is built up of layers of gray, white and black. Around the portrait I’ll layer more stencils and more layers of bright acrylic paint. I may add a variety of other media to the portrait if I feel it needs more texture or particular pops of color. These portraits are 11×14 in size, come with a 16×20 mat and ready to be framed in a standard size frame. Each will also arrive with a certificate of authenticity. These portraits are $75+shipping.
Part of what I really like about my current sketchbook/journal are the edges of where the layers of paint are visible. I really wanted to capture that on some wood panels for finished pieces of art.
I started with some gesso board panels, these are used for painting or making scratchboard. I'm painting on them. I have both lightly textured and smooth. They are 5×7 in size.
I started by randomly laying down red, yellow and dark green paints. I let this dry and then I put a VERY thin coat of gesso over the whole thing. I let that dry and I began with the layers of color. My goal was to get the edges uneven and layered looking like in my sketchbook. I used lots of colors and layers to get the look.
At the last layer of color I scraped some white paint over the center of the panel, so that the magenta paint would show through the layers of gesso. I then used my ROUGH brush to scrub the magenta on to the panel.
The final step was to put 2 rough thin layers of gesso onto the panel. First with the brush strokes left to right, the second with strokes top to bottom. The final very thin layer was left to right and brushed on softly with minimal brush strokes. I brushed to the edge of the panel with dry brush strokes.
Here's what the final panels look like. They will be ready for some portraits in a few hours. The layers of paint need time to harden before I hit them with a pencil. Check out the edges on these, I'm pretty happy with how they came out. THOUGH I htink this effect would be easier with some larger panels. I looked to buy a few 3 packs but ACMoore doesn't carry the gesso board anymore, so I'll be looking at Michael's the next time I get a 40% off coupon. I also looked at Home Depot to see if they carried the small masonite/hardboard panels like they used to and I couldn't find anything but the 4×8 foot panels.
I swear the colors on these are much more intense in person.
I had a very long week at the DayJob. (I mean that in the best possible way lots of good stuff, but very tiring.) Sp my usual Friday routine is to come home, change into arting clothing and get to work at my easel. I started out but right after the first drawing I knew I needed a nap. So I hunkered down and crash for an hour or 2. Honestly I was never able to get into the groove for a significant amount of time.
I sat at my easel filled a page and got up. Normally I'm able to sit back down and get right back to it. You can see in my drawings how on each page I start out rough and work my way to the groove again and again.
To say the least it was frustrating, but I hope that this is not a pattern of events that will occur every week. I'm alright with taking a nap but not the never getting into a groove
The pics:
really cool mixed media image really like the splashing of paint.
