Finished Painting!!!

Yay! I finished it (kinda). There’s one or two places that need a quick touch up but it is, for all in-tents and purposes, done. As I was painting it I noticed a few things about the original, especially in comparison to my reconstruction. One of the interesting tidbits is how the overall composition changed when I removed the people, boat and racks(in the bottom right). There was something about the drying racks especially that added a balance and nicely filled the space, removing that moment of visual pause between the grass mounds and tree.

Another interesting thing to note is the artists use of scale and placement of the mountain/hill in such a way that the hill is both in the middleground and background. It serves as an object in the front and a backdrop for the trees and houses.

The last fun thing is how the artist has reduced the human presence, architecturally speaking, to iconic and minimalist figures that are even shroudedby mist. The roof, wall and door of the houses provide all the detail needed to understand the nearby dwellings. It also allows the focus of the painting to move around and doesn’t distract from seeing the whole image.

That’s all folks! Perhaps I’ll do some diagrams of this before starting the next one…

Stuff

This is just random stuff… a sketch of the Invisible Man, a rooster and knife I did with a quill pen of my own making, and an idea based on Vanishing on 7th Street. Now that my scanner is up and running I’ll hopefully have some regular posts. ; )

Based on “Vanishing on 7th Street”

A first attempt at using a quill pen I made

The Invisible Man

Barry Illustration

Here’s a quick cap on the Barry Illustration I’ve worked out in my sketchbook. I’m going to post the other project illustrations soon and once I’ve found a “stable” job I can hopefully regulate sleep and work hours a bit better. : )

Initial Idea

color and value studies

“final” idea

 

Aztec Creation Myth

This is the final assignment for my illustration class and the topic is creation stories. A few stood out to me for different reasons. The Zoroastrian one made me think of landscapes and classic painting techniques and montaging the many pieces of the story into one image. The Chinese one made me think of a more sci-fi take with a egg/embryo floating in the clouds; perhaps a recreation rather than the first. I ended up choosing the Aztec story about a woman twice impregnated first by an obsidian knife and then a ball of feathers….. (yeah, I don’t know either). Her first children are 200 brothers and the moon goddess who are pretty offended that  their mother becomes mysteriously pregnant a second time. This time the woman gives birth to a fully armored god of war and a sun god who then proceed to behead the offended goddess, with the help of a firey snake, and toss her head into the sky giving us the moon.  : )  I wanted to give it a bit of insanity so I’ll compose it very simply with the different elements but mess with the representation a bit in the manner of Hiroyuki Imaishi’s style in Dead Leaves, Oval x Over, etc.

Medusa final!

Horse process and final!

Horse/Screened image progress

sketch drop

Medusa progress

Horse Illustration process!

Not much on this yet… the assignment is to deal with a screened image so eventually there will be spears crossing in front of some as yet to be finalized version of a horse.  Inspiration is from a poem in Job 39:19-25.