Artist Network Article

On Februrary 6th, my first article went live on the Artists Network! The article is about how I find inspiration from the materials that I use to make art, and how I think some artists might overlook what their supplies can do for them. I'll also post some of the art I created for the article to prove my points.

https://www.artistsnetwork.com/art-mediums/5-essential-artist-supplies/

Supplies: Daniel Smith & Sennelier Watercolors, Holbein gouache, Mitsubishi and Faber Castell Pencils, Stillman and Birn Alpha, Epsilon, Gray and Beige Nova paper.

SketchKon 2018 Fun and Sketchbook update!

On November 2-4 in Pasadena California, the first ever Sketch Kon was held and I had the pleasure/privilege to represent Stillman & Birn at the event. Stillman & Birn, for those who don't know, make my favorite line of papers and are, quite literally, the only paper that I am willing to draw on anymore. I spent that weekend manning the Stillman & Birn booth, talking with attendees about making art and art supplies, and showing them some of my work and talking about my process. It was probably, one of the best weekends of my life. I was surrounded by so many creative people, I was representing a product I believe in, and I got the chance to draw some cool things!

Below are some of the highlights of the sketches I did at the event. These were done in 2 of S&B's newest lines of paper, the Nova series which come in Beige, Gray, and Black toned papers. These were mainly done in my beige and gray books, I'm building up my skills to be able to tackle the black paper, and I used gouache, watercolors, poster paint markers, pencils, inks, and acrylic inks on these. That's a loooot of tools to use, but this paper is amazing!

Character Design painted before my flight to Pasadena

Drawn on the flight to Pasadena

Sketches of restaurant goers on Friday night

Some demonstration sketches and a Moscow Mule from Saturday night

The Westin Bar on Saturday Night

Church across from the Westin, drawn on location and painted at the airport before my return flight

Character drawn during the event and painted after I returned to GA

Summer and Autumn

So I've been motivated to paint more and to focus on illustrations instead of just my usual ventures, so I decided to take a leaf from Alphonse Mucha's book. I loved Mucha's work a lot in undergrad, and at a friend's place recently I saw large prints of his Seasons, and I decided to try my hand at it. Here are my Summer and Autumn.

Tools: Watercolor, gouache, and water soluble pencils
Paper: Stillman and Birn Delta sketchbook

Hannibal for Heroes Con

I wanted to have a new print to sell at Heroes Con this year, and with time of the essence, I decided to to do something with Copics. I got the idea to draw Hannibal this way after some fun experiments with Copic wide markers in my sketchbook. I just love how it smears the color but doesn't remove the line, and gives it a shimmering light feel. So here's the finished piece! I'll be at Table AA-48 with (hopefully) this print, original pages, and comics for sale and I'll be doing on site commissions! Come by if you can!

Tools: Copic markers, Caran D'Ache watersoluble pencils and gouache
Paper: Stillman and Birn epsilon paper

Life Drawings - eyedrum session

Here are a few of the good drawings from today's 2 hour session at the eyedrum in Atlanta. It's a really fun and interesting space to draw in, and everyone there is 11 varieties of inspiring. Seriously, I saw some awesome acrylic and oil painted works in the 2 hours which make me feel like I need to push myself even more. I think the most important aspect of any artist is that sense of pushing yourself and your art past your current limits. The moment you think you've learned all you need or that you settle on just one media or tool, how can you continue to grow? With that in mind, I hope you enjoy my attempts at getting better at drawing the human form and using watercolors and a sanguine colored pencil.

Tools: Watercolor and Caran d'Ache sanguine colored pencil
Paper: Stillman and Birn Delta and Gamma sketchbooks respectively

Sketch of the Day: Irene Adler and Sherlock Holmes

This is today's warm up drawing, and I think it turned out pretty well. I'm a big fan of the show so it was easy to think up this idea, which honestly, there's not much too it. Although I think this has all of the stuff I tend to do well with. I really liked using a caricature for Sherlock to show that he's a little turned on.

Tools: Pencil and Winsor Newton Brown Madder watercolor
Paper: Stillman and Birn Gamma Sketchbook.

Portraits of Mom

This is one of my school projects this quarter, a 6-pager done for my self publishing class with Chris Staros. It was a great class, I learned a lot about the comics industry and now I think I have a more pointed and professional way of approaching it. In addition to lectures we also had to do a 6 page short story and print it out into a mini-comic.

This comic I didn't do as well as I could have. I was going for a chunkier inking approach and in the end I went too far and sacrificed precise lines for more haphazard ones. I've gotten praise for the art and I got a good grade on them, but in the end I feel like this was a fun experiment in artistic styles that I'll take a ton away from, but the next work will probably be a hybrid ink style of this comic and my Calla of the Sea pages.

Story-wise it was fun to do something emotional again. I haven't really been able to tell a story like this since KCNO so it was fun to stretch the tear jerker muscles again. I think this is a fairly decent story with a responsible ending to the sadness of mourning. I'd like to do more of these shorts related to art, but we shall see. The summer is long, they could be drawn!