Well, that’s life, really.

I started the color knowing that I didn’t have the colors I wanted for the skin tone and everything pretty much went downhill from there.  Unfortunate.

Oh well, as a black and white piece it’s not bad.  Screwed up her hair a bit, but it came out pretty well considering. I wish I’d spent some time in HL or at DB getting some markers.  Only have a handful atm.  I also need to invest in some marker paper.  If anybody has any suggestions I’m listening.

Well, that’s all for today.  Enjoy your Halloween.

I decided to do a quick sketch of Ghoulia (my wife’s favorite) day before yesterday which came out rather well.  Today I was just farting around and started in on my favorite of the characters, Draculaura.  I’ll admit that my DL is a bit more… shall we say developed than the original art, but then, we can always imagine that it’s her 17… hundredth birthday.  LOL

Anyway, it was a lot of fun working on it, and even coloring was enjoyable.  I need to get some more Copics soon, as my collection doesn’t include any grays.  A horrible oversight indeed.  My Skin Light as well is starting to dry out, sadly.  I might try adding some denatured alcohol to the inside tip to get some ink flowing, though I’m not sure if that’ll be sufficient to get some color flowing again.

I’m starting to get a feeling back for proportions.  It’s always difficult to come back to something.  I was really upset a few days ago when I picked up a pencil and saw how much my skills had degraded.  Oh well, at least I did actually pick up a pencil.

No real name to this sketch or anything, although there’s some part of me that wants to do a background for it and really finish it into a workable piece.

Honestly, I’ve found that I enjoy doing manga-style figures more than anything.  I mean, I enjoyed oil painting and I still do to some degree, and it’s not that I don’t feel at home there, it’s just that at this point in my life I really enjoy doing the female figure (there’s a surprise), and I really like the stylistic expression of the manga style.

Before I put everything aside I was really starting to come into my own in this genre.  My own personal style was starting to come through and I hate that I put it down at all.

People seek out bigger challenges, and that’s true of me also.  But at the same time I think I was listening to what I thought people around me were saying.  It’s easy to be embarrassed when you’re almost 40 and you still draw comic book characters.  On that note, I wonder how Stan Lee feels about that.  Now that’s a laugh.

Either way, this post is to commemorate a small step forward into my own artistic journey.  It feels good to be back on the path, but also kind of strange because the surroundings are familiar but it’s a step that I don’t yet know.

As an aside, I wish that I could have drawn like this when I was a serious anime fan.  The cons probably would have been a lot more fun.

I might actually get back into posting something here whenever I get my mojo runnin again.  Did this one real quick while I was warming up.  It’s just nothing, really, but was fun.

The really unfortunate thing is this piece will lack the essential likeness of a portrait.  Her face is not long enough, her nose is also too short.  Unfortunate but true.  But hey, my dad likes it.  Can’t be all bad, right?  Yeah, right.

She’s really taking a lot of time.  I’m not sure if I’m better off to start over fresh with the same image because I’ve failed so miserably to capture a likeness here, or simply plod along and create a separate art piece.

Why does this happen to the works that I like?  I always end up saying, “Oh screw it,” and gessoing over them.  Either that or just burning them.  Either way, it’s better than the dreaded, “Oh, that’s nice.”  You know the one you get from family and friends when you show them your ill-form art experiments.  Yeah, that one.

(sigh)

I’m just having a hard time seeing my work as anything but mediocre right now.  No, it’s not even mediocre.  Bad would be a better word for it, I think.

But anyway, to leave things on a lighter note (haha).  I did do something worthwhile today.  I helped my cat express his inner badazz.

Nonetheless, on the artistic front, I’ve started a children’s book.  I might scan the layouts for that and post them.  Not sure.  I’m thinking of publishing through lulu.  I might try to find a traditional publisher.  Then again I might not.  It all depends on how much patience I have when I’m through with it.

Other than that I’m just feeling pathetic and that doesn’t translate well in painting.

But aside from my mini-rant.  I need more filberts.  They’re my favorite type of brush and I use my 2, 4, 8, 12, and 16 all the time.  My favorite is probably my 8, but it’s still a bit too large sometimes.  I need another two 8′s, at least one 10, and another 2.  I’m always washing that 8 and 2.  It’s annoying, but it does keep the paint flowing.

As you can see, though, I still have to fix her mouth and put some more work into her eyes.  They’re not quite right, and it’s bothering me.  The shadow beneath her chin as well is not large enough.  Never mind that I didn’t get the tilt of her head right from the beginning and it’s making it more difficult to keep at this painting.  I am shocked, however, that I’m doing so well.  It’s starting to look like her already, which is great.  I mean, you don’t want to see the last portrait I tried to paint.  It wasn’t… good.

Anyway, I thought I’d go ahead and post this because I’m still up.  I have a long day planned tomorrow and I shouldn’t be, but painting always invigorates me.  It may be the oil stench, I don’t know, but it’s good either way.  I enjoy painting pictures immensely.  If I were able to do anything with my life and make a living at it, it would be that.

Well, I’m only 36.  It’s still not too late if I keep at it, and try my best.  It’s a good thought, anyway.

I think I did well on her face though.  Very good likeness, and I didn’t even cheat.  Like wow.

But on to the next project.  I had asked my wife a few days ago to think of people that I could do portraits of.  It came to her today.  Bernadette Peters!

Now, Bernadette Peters is one of my favorite actresses.  I remember some things she’s done rather well, particularly that she voiced a character in Animaniacs, if anyone remembers that.  And of course, her appearances in The Jerk, and Annie were inspiring.

Speaking strictly from the gonads, MAN she’s hot.  I don’t mean hot in the sexpot way that whatshername from the Transformers movie is hot.  I mean an all-around appeal hot.  She’s bright, funny, quirky, cute, talented, bouncy, and has a perfect nose.  What more could you ask for?  Oh, that’s she’s still active, takes her craft seriously, and is 60+ years old and still looks like she’s 30!  Yeah, that’s hot.  No, I think that has surpassed hot a long time ago.

Yes, she’s the kind of hot that S-J-Parker wishes she was.  There’s not many stars that I’d have a hard time talking to for fear of making a complete and utter fool of myself, but Bernadette Peters is certainly one of them, even if she does like Pit bulls.  And so, I thought it fitting that she would be the subject that I used to shift gears into paint.  And since I’m scared silly of large canvases, I saw this as the perfect opportunity to do a “big head.”

Now, let me explain why I hate the “big head.”  It’s easy.  Not to say that it’s simple, no, but it is easy.  Making a figure agree and set itself off against a complex background is hard.  You have a lot of elements to deal with, but with a big head, all you have is a big head.  Portraits are tough, but doing them more than lifesize makes them much easier.

So yes, I’m transitioning to paint with the “big head” as much as I hate the “big head,” but not really because it’s easy.  I like this photo, and hand, hair and props make it quite challenging.  But it is still a “big head.”

Well, wish me luck on this one, although I already see a few mistakes that I’ll have to fix in my grisaille.

The original photo is, I believe, a Helmut Newton, but I’m not sure.  It was in with some of his other stuff, and it might be one of his.  Either way, the photographer was brilliant, although I don’t think I would have allowed so much makeup on the eyelids.  That’s not skin, that’s makeup.  I can tell.

This time I dug out one of my Jodie Foster pics from the file and went to work.  It’s gone incredibly quickly, particularly since I did this one the hard way.  I did not, however, use bristol for this one.  This paper has much more tooth than bristol does and that’s probably part of why it’s gone so quickly.

To be honest, most of the reason this has gone so quickly is because I’ve really enjoyed doing this one.  Jodie Foster is one of my favorite actresses all the way back to the original Freaky Friday.  I’m very much a child of the 70′s and 80′s and it shows.  Never mind the fact that she brought Agent Starling to life in Silence of the Lambs.

You know, I was upset at first when I found out she wasn’t going to be in Hannibal, the sequel to Silence of the Lambs, but after watching it I understood why she wanted to have no part in the film.  One or two good scenes and an hour of gore.  Great.  That’s what sarcasm sounds like.

Anyway, I’ve really enjoyed doing this one.  She’s almost finished, and I’ve only put about three hours into it.  Very good, if I do say so myself, for three hours of work.

This one, I’m framing.