Past and present

Found this really interesting merging of past and present photographs.  Turns out the building bubble in Ireland did not obliterate all the character of our towns.  Kudos to the artist  Colm Williamson. 

After Jean Jaques de Boissieu A Male Saint

After Jean Jaques de Boissieu  A Male Saint 

This is a master study of a work attributed to Jean Jaques de Boissieus  A Male Saint (1781).  I saw this painting on the Sothebys auction site.    What really struck me about this painting was the execution.  I didnt know much about the Boissieus.  Turns out he was best known as an engraver. 

A search of internet could did not reveal any other paintings.   Estimate for auction is only $8000 to $12000.   

Olympic Diver Oil Painting

Olympic Diver Oil Painting

Last Olympics I had a tv card in my computer.  I recorded a whole set of sports that arent usually televised.  At the time I had the intention of using them at some point.  The ones that were really stricking were the divers.  The filming of these was really high end stuff.  Along with the slowmo it was possible to isolate the diver from the background.  It was from one of these sequences that I grabbed this image. 

Olympic diver

Monk Character

Monk character

I was messing around with some doodles when this guy showed up. Dont know where he is going. 

Trappers Return

Trappers Return

This started off as a random doodle exercise but with the idea it would be some environmental piece.  It continued form that to the final piece.  About two thirds way through I tried to move to a more finely rendered piece but it just didn't work so I scrubbed the layer and kept the roughness.  It was a good exercise and a different way of working for me.  

portrait practice 4

Portrait 4

Another episode of Awesome Horse last weekend.  It was a painting demo with a live model.  I didn't have the courage to reach for my paints so I retreated to Photoshop for this.  Original image and submitted results are on Facebook. 

On the Road

On the road

Add caption

This was an image that started out as a straight forward study but after about an hour I changed it up.  It was a good exercise.  I got the clouds and God rays from another photo I had. 

Dog sketch

Dog Sketch

I do some dog sitting from time to time.  This dog likes to climb up on the table where the computer keyboard and monitor and sleep while I work.  She has been doing this since she was a puppy.  This is a quick sketch of her taking a nap.   

After NC Wyeth Awesome horse

After NC Wyeth

Awesome Horse did another episode last Saturday.  It was based on the drawing on the right side of the brain approach to drawing.  There were two studies.  The second was this NC Wyeth that I painted upside down during the episode.  It was an interesting exercise and is a recommended way of learning to draw what you see not what you think you see. 

Kagan Krall Bloodsports 10 final

Kagan Krall Bloodsports 10 final

This was my final submitted image for Bloodsports 10.  Went in a different direction for this image.  First off it is deliberately brighter.  Moved out of the shadows that I worked in for the previous entries.  This was a move to try and push the rendering and drawing - there was no where to hide.  The second thing is that I changed the character from a man as mentioned in the brief to a woman.  This was because I had not had a chance to design many female characters in these challenges. I worked with a number of characters this was a leap for me.   Oh yeah,  threw in a pet for good measure.  I wanted to depict a strong female character but offset that somewhat with the inclusion of the shopping bag .  This was a last minute decision and included it but kept it a deliberately low contrast so it would not be a focus point.