Doodles and Illuxcon notes

Been a while since I last posted sketchbook nonsense so figured I would toss some of that up here along with some notes I took from Illuxcon 4 demos.



Petar Meseldžija:
(on how do we infuse emotion in art?)

- Be emotionally involved with the subject, identify with it.
-Icons are a great example of transcendental vs. our material world- the painter of icons is a medium between those two worlds. The connection has to be pure and to be pure they must submerge themselves in religious life. The artist-monk creator of icons prays before painting in order to align his spirituality.
-An artist lives his art- painting techniques are a pool of emotions, past experiences, memories, etc.
-Immerse yourself in reference (as a mode of inspiration) and identify and pull from that. Old photos in particular have that gut feeling attached to them. Also refer to the work of the masters.
- Emotion --> Inspiration --> Express emotion through art technique.
-Master your technique in order to concentrate on truly free expression and not worry about how you're painting. 10-15 years of practice in order to really master.



John Harris:
-Wherever possible don't resolve marks (lets the viewer dream throughout the work)
-Play with storytelling throughout- continue to ask questions about the characters (seen or unseen). If you have an interest in the people/creatures/beings involved throughout the painting process your audience will too.
-Shadows indicate bulk.
-Play with what captures your eye (both Harris and Petar Meseldžija hit on this point which I find interesting...) If you're interested you'll make it interesting. Give the paint a chance to play and play back.
-Make sure your piece is consistent in feeling- if something is defying scientific laws or seems to be don't worry about it too much- odds are there's a realistic (if bizarre) way of explaining it and we don't know everything about this realm/reality yet, so how could we know how others function?

Illuxcon 2011 (a photo post)

(Cap.'t Jack- mascot of Thierolfolis' car)

I can honestly say best weekend of my life. When thinking of this whole event my brain fizzles out into a series of happy sound effects so to break it down more logically than that I'll start with the beginning.

On Friday morning my roommates and I woke up at around 5:00/5:30 am. It was a dreary way to start the day but we had to get an early start to get to Altoona by lunch time or so.


Unsurprisingly we got lost once right on the way out of Columbus but after that we were back on track.


The sun eventually made it's appearance in a very diffused grey way....but things soon got more interesting as we got into West Virginia and eventually Pennsylvania (West Virginia = cute towns, PA = hills!)


As we wound up in little townships we became distracted once again by really cool buildings...


And as we got further along the surroundings became more and more interesting. (yes, I'm probably technically photo spamming by this point but.....)


But once we get into the huge rolling hills Altoona is really close.


We wound up in Altoona and checked into our hotel successfully. Then we were off to find the con! We started out ok- we had our directions, knew it should take us about 15 minutes to get there.....but we drove around for a solid hour. There was lots of sarcastic screaming and yelling as we drove around on the insane hills completely losing track of where we were supposed to go but we finally came across some Illuxcon attendees who were kind enough to give us directions. Turned out we'd been vaguely circling it for about half the time we'd been driving.


(note for anyone including ourselves who goes next year- find 7th or 8th street and follow that in directly downtown, find the cathedral and then somewhere to park).

I didn't take any pictures inside the con gallery itself (apologies but I was far too enraptured by all of the amazing artists and their work). However I finally got over my awkward self and talked to several of the artists and every single one of them was extraordinarily nice and helpful. After a afternoon full of amazing people and art we drove back to the hotel and grabbed a bite to eat and then took a much needed nap (most of us were running on 2.5 hrs of sleep....). After that we took off to the artist showcase for up and coming illustrators. There was some pretty fantastic work there as well but I think if I get to work over the next several months I might be able to snatch a table with a decent amount of decent art (we'll see what goes).
But after all of that I have a new goal in mind- not only keep up with class work but to complete a finished illustration every two weeks.
However after the showcase we chatted with several other CCAD students also in attendance for a bit before making our way back to the hotel.

The next day we went to a cemetery we had stumbled across the previous day- it was gorgeous but unfortunately many of the markers were in disrepair. There were also several iron crosses which I have never seen before.



Moving back to the con however we visited several lectures and I took pictures during Petar Meseldžija's demo/lecture. It was fantastically informative and inspirational- couldn't have asked for a better look at his process and work.



We also attended a couple other lectures (Donato Giancola's on painting skin tones and John Harris' oil painting demo) both of which were also very inspired and educational!
Later on we went to the gallery once more for a last round of purchases and chats and also to give this guy to Petar Meseldžija.

He is based off a drawing of a giant by Petar Meseldžija (this one here) and I created him as a thank you gift for Petar as he had been kind enough to review my portfolio over the summer when I had sent him an email. I was beyond grateful and wanted to give something back. I was nervous beyond belief but he absolutely adored the little sculpture and I was blown away by his gratitude! I got a hug, a picture, and an autographed book from Petar himself and was absolutely ecstatic the rest of the night. Needless to say I'm still elated over the event and my whole year was made as a result!

Later that night we attended the Illie awards and a small section of the Art Jam- I was sketching the whole time since my inspiration could no longer be held at bay (will be posting the results later today/tomorrow). But while at the Illie awards it was clear that the whole event (and even art in general) isn't just about the artwork but also, maybe even more-so it's about the community. I cannot even begin to express how thankful I am for being able to participate in such an awesome event with so many exceptional individuals- if you are on the fence at all about going next year don't be. Go. It is definitely worth every penny and I know my roommates and I will be back again in 2012.

All the goodies I came away with this year- clockwise from the top-most piece. (Gary Lippincott, Illuxcon 2011 poster print painted by Petar Meseldžija, Omar Rayyan, Mark Zug, Tyler Jacobson).



And the book I still cannot believe I received from Petar, with autograph! The book is Flesk Prime which takes a lovely in-depth look at five different artist's work and their backgrounds- would definitely recommend picking up a copy if you don't have one.

Landscape Painting

(a rare "artist habitat"- presumably the artist ran away into the brush)

I figured I would give a more in depth post on what occurs on location when painting at parks for this class (mostly because I had time to goof off with my camera this last time).

The park we painted at last Friday is the Highbanks metro park (about a 30min drive outside CBus). It was a brisk day but the hike from the parking lot to the back field we painted at keeps you warm long after you're done walking. Basically we hike until we something that we want to paint then stop and set up. Everything was going really well (nice overcast conditions, nice weather, nice space, nice trees, nice colors....etc).

(le in progress painting)

But about an hour and a half in Mr. Sun decided to peek out and being the genius I am I had forgotten to take pics of what I was painting before it became sunny. The sun was also shining directly on my painting making it really difficult to figure out the colors I had down compared to how they'd been and how they were now. This is where that photo opportunity sneaked in.

(bad sun BAD SUN)

(as lovely as this lighting is it was ALL WRONG)

I got to play around with my camera buddy for a while before some clouds decided to creep back into view and I was able to shoot my reference and essentially finish my study.

(macro shots are fun)

On the way out I took pictures of everything (terrible side of college- deprivation of nature)

(NOM)

(some of the trees were just fantastic!)

(this guy and several slugs wanted to hitchhike back with me for some reason)

We're blowing these studies up in class as studio paintings and I'll post more on that when it gets further along.


This weekend however I will be at Illuxcon- if for some reason you read this blog and are attending as well shout at me and I'll say hi or something.

So many things so little time...

For internet that is. Once again my lack of posts is in no way reflective of the amount of work being accomplished in apartment R this year. I do have a large post planned for landscape painting (again) and illustrative drawing but I have so much work due this upcoming Tuesday I wouldn't expect them till a little later.
In the meantime here's the most recent project for C.F. Payne's class (Illustration Styles and Concepts). The assignment was meant to establish lighting for photographing reference and working from that. It was also meant to build on our previous assignment (master studies of portraits- John Singer Sargent and Dean Cornwell were my choices, shown in that order):



So for this most recent assignment we had to shoot good reference and create a portrait of a character from a novel/graphic novel. I wound up doing Arthur Dent from The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and I'm rather happy with how it turned out (especially color-wise).

100th Post!

(and there was much rejoicing)

Today I want to post a bunch of my work from landscape painting thus far- it's been a really nice class so far and I've been picking up on a lot of stuff I'd been missing in my painting. And hey- playing with oils twice a week? It's keeping me sane.

We did some palette knife paintings which I conveniently forgot to take pictures of....but I'm cozy and comfy watching The Mummy while wrapped up in my Wall-E blanket so I'm not moving for a while. Luckily I have everything else we've done so far. First up- in class painting and the first time we were allowed to use both colors and paint brushes (huzzah!)


Amazingly enough it looks better in the picture I took.....but moving on! We went out to a park on Wednesday because for once it wasn't raining (apparently this has been one of the wettest Ohio autumns on record). But of course we get there and get going for about an hour before it starts to rain. Moral of story? Paint as fast as possible and revise later.


And it was unfortunately slightly damaged from the rain (you can see all the little missing flakes) but we (my roommies and I might go back to the park to hang out and paint this Sunday). If that doesn't happen we're supposed to go back there in class on Wednesday if it's nice out.
Then today was also a b-e-a-utiful drizzly disgusting windy cold miserable misting day of grossness. But we went outside anyway. Take that weather. We went to a different park and hid under shelters while painting. Got a bit more accomplished and took pictures at the end to work from to try and finish it up.


I particularly like what was going on in that section in the back on the right:


Granted I can't get any decent pics of it now since it's still wet but later this next week when it's done and dry expect an update.

Illustrative Drawing With Mr. Tardino.

This class. Finally a workload that is threatening to cave my entire life in on itself in an enjoyable way!
Illustrative drawing is one of my classes for the fall 2011 semester. Essentially we (the students) are each creating our own story for which we are designing characters, creatures, environments, etc. The fall semester centers a bit more around animals since we are able to go to the Columbus zoo!
My story is still a work in progress (as is every other story in the class)- but a quick summary of what I have typed up is here: (scroll past if you'd like to avoid reading)

So if you scrolled past basically all you need to get out of it for now is it takes place in Russia in the early 1900s (around 1905-8) and the animals involved are a Silver Langur, a Siberian Tiger, a Grizzly Bear, and two Timber Wolves (brothers). So far our class work has been mostly sketches and studies. I'll shut up now and let the pictures do some talking.



These three painting sketches were (as Tardino called them) "dream-scapes"- essentially quick environmental studies to get a mood and atmosphere across to the viewer. But from what I hear (from my roomie who is in the Monday class) he didn't want figures in them yet? Then again the example he showed us had characters in it so I just don't know anymore. But this is what he's getting.



Then some skeletons for all the beasties....and some walk cycles HERE and HERE.







Then some studies from the zoo itself....

All in all lots of work and I'm curious to see what my finished works wind up looking like for this class.