Pitch Perfect Musical Swap Process

While the piece I did yesterday isn't really in line with the rest of my work, I proved to myself a few things that I thought I'd share with you.

I'd never seen Pitch Perfect before I got the sketch, actually hadn't even heard of it.  I didn't know who Fat Amy was, was completely clueless as to what horizontal running was referencing.  So I do what I usually do when I have no idea what something is: I call my younger sister.  And then I Googled it.  And once I figured out what I had been handed was more than a little intimidated.

I downloaded as many photos of Rebel Wilson as I could find and wondered all day what I was going to do.  That night I watched the movie with my friend Cathy and found some kind of affection for pieces of the story and the characters, and with that tenuous interest developed I stumbled on an idea and ran with it.

The biggest problem was that I didn't have any photos of Rebel Wilson in the pose that I needed - and even if I did, I'm not sure what would and would not be considered plagiarism in using a photo of someone as inspiration for a final painting.  I've also never done any kind of caricature (not that this was going to be one) or even tried to create a drawing of someone without good reference for what I was doing.  But I ended up finding two photos with the same-ish lighting that were kind of what I was looking for and I did a sketch or two to see if I could combine them into what I was looking for.

A week is not a long time to throw something together, so there was no time for second guessing.  It was close enough.  Combined with a photo I took of myself in the pose I wanted, I think I managed pretty well.  

I ended up doing the whole thing in watercolor and colored pencil - no acrylic under-layer   I missed that piece of it, I think, and I will keep doing the under-layer in acrylic.  I'm not quite sure what the difference was, just that I didn't feel that the watercolor was going down the same way.

So then I scanned it in and did some editing and created the background in Photoshop.  You can see the final piece here, along with the sketch I did for Sound of Music.

Ten Paces and Draw Swap: Musicals

Hi all!  This is the "big reveal" of the collaboration I told you about a couple of weeks ago.  Ten Paces and Draw is an online collaborative project for a community of illustrators and designers.  Every week they do a swap where sketches based on a common theme are swapped and finished by another artist (in a week).  I got a sketch from Irena Freitas from the movie Perfect Pitch which you can see above on the right next to my final image.  Oddly enough she ended up getting my sketch for Sound of Music and did a really beautiful final piece based off it which you can see below:

And, yeah.  That's it.  Told you it wasn't a huge deal.  You can see the rest of this week's swap here.

Drive-by Post

Sorry, guys.  Not much more than a drive-by post today.  I am under strict instructions that I cannot show you what I am working on until it is revealed on the 18th.  So you're just gonna have to wait.

Still plugging along on . . . everything.

Remember to check back next week on the 18th to see what all the fuss is about (or don't, it's not that kind of a big deal).

Dragon Tamer: Still a WIP

I imagine sometimes that this stage of painting is not unlike being pregnant.  The vision of the final is so close to being real, but there's still so much time to put in before you see it.

Meanwhile you just feel fat and irritable.  Those of you out there who have been pregnant, let me know.

I did a study over a photo of the Dragon Tamer piece and it was . . . not a pretty sight.  So after aimlessly perusing the internet for "photo night scene" and "moonlit person", trying to remember the name of night paintings I'd seen or come across, and countless other queries, I hit the books.

Which is honestly what I should have done in the first place; I own a copy of "Color and Light" as well as "Imaginative Realism" by James Gurney, after all.  My obsession with books can get me into trouble sometimes; I have so many that I forget or get overwhelmed by too much information.

If I hadn't been so busy looking and reading I would have kicked myself - all the paintings, all the information was there.  At the very least I had a new direction to try and take the color studies.

And as you can see below, take them places I did.

Glowy dragon needs to not make a reappearance. 

Meanwhile I was also working on the final sketches for the Save the Dates.  Simple, I kept telling myself, beautiful color, strong shapes, concentrate on the feeling.

I can't help but think that simple really just means LOTS of work, but maybe I'm doing something wrong . . .

Last year when I went to Tennessee, I went to Cades Cove (possibly one of my favorite places on earth).  We got there before the gates opened and were able to drive through just as the sun was coming up over the mountains.  There was fog and fall trees and deer and it was amazingly beautiful. So when I started working on this piece, that morning is what I was thinking about.

The first one . . . wasn't awesome.  At the very least it didn't get me excited to start the piece.  It didn't recall any of the beauty, any of the feeling I was trying to capture.  There were things I liked, but overall it was just boring.  So I did another one.  It was better, but my struggles with Dragon Tamer have shaken my confidence, so I kept at it, trying to find something that really worked.

I looked up some morning fog, looked up paintings of fog (oh, hello Turner, hello Whistler), trying to just steep myself in the essence of what I was trying to create.

So I made, like, a million color comps.  And then just quit and broke out the watercolor paper and started doing it old school.  I didn't have much more success.

So here's where I am with Dragon Tamer:

Wait, aren't those color comps, you say? Why yes, yes they are . . .

Because this is where it is in real life.  Still.  I still can't seem to find the key.  I've been taking it into my room at night, hoping that by looking at it before I fall asleep, I'll be able to work out the problem in my sleep.

It hasn't worked.

And here's where I am with the Save the Dates:

Color comps everywhere!

Fog doesn't usually drift like this, I am discovering . . . 

I haven't done so many color comps since I was a sophomore in college.  Little Red Cap tricked me with how very easily the steam effect was created and I dived into the color comps here thinking "Fog is like steam, I got this!"

WRONG.

Fog is not like steam.  Especially fog that has light coming through it.  And I can't seem to make up my mind as to what this is going to look like - realistic?  Stylized?  And I'm worried about this nagging voice that's telling me to go make maquettes for the owls so I can light them (shut UP!) correctly.

Both of these were supposed to be DONE by now.  I have a schedule!  Save the Dates were supposed to be a mash up of watercolor-y effects goodness.  In-and-out, easy-peasy.

Freaking owls.  Freaking fog.  Freaking DRAGONS.  Do your worst, you won't win . . .

Working on something for Ten Paces and Draw: check back February 18th to see the final reveal.

Holy crows, I really am a masochist . . .