This new style thing finally starting to come together

Or, the maddening process of deconstruction and reconstruction.

Here's the first result that I'm maybe a bit happy with:




Deconstructing how you imagine and compose your images and reassembling the into a new way of working is a frustratingly slow process. Actually it's not just reassembling, because it involves trying to incorporate a whole lot of new techniques and ideas, so it's a really messy maddening process. Mainly because you know you have to do it to expand your art, but you're not making any money while you're doing it, and you really don't know if you're going to end up with anything sellable at the end either. Ack.

Here are a couple of detail photos. (All taken with my phone, so photo quality might not be great)








Cheers,
Marcel

New workinprogress

My latest attempt in my search to find a new painting style, at the Underpainting stage.




Cheers,
Marcel

Rocket boy experimental

- this is the other experimental painting I finished. You can read more about them here.

Here's a detail image:

Cheers,
Marcel

Painty painty - next phase of experimentals

Close up of my plan for world domination, er, I mean of my latest painting experiment. There are still a few additions I want to try out with this, but this layer of paint needs to dry first. There are also a bunch of little things that I'm not entirely happy with, but overall though, it's getting to where I want it, which makes it a successful experiment.




Cheers,
Marcel

experimental paintings (includes robots and blimps)

Here are some smaller painting experiments I've completed recently:

8x8in

20x20 in

5x6in

20x24 in

Scratch them out - new digital painting

1st of a series of digital paintings I'm embarking on. Not sure where this series is going to go or if it'll be worth the effort, but what the hell, I have a day job, so I can indulge in some experimentation now and then.

cheers,
marcel

Starting a new digital painting series

This is a doodling around draft image, and as you can see, I'm still learning this medium. And hoo boy do I have a long way to go. But I have a series of illustrations in my head that I really want to do, so I think it'll be worth it to spend the time to develop a new style to do them in.

cheers,
marcel

Robots go ArtRage

Yesterday I found ArtRage, a digital painting program and used it to colour this robot drawing.

(I've been trying to find replacements for Photoshop, which is very expensive to buy new.)
I was looking at GIMP, which is a free open source program. I really didn't like GIMP very much and found it really frustrating to work with. It has a lot of the features of Photoshop, but I got too frustrated trying to figure out how to use it.

Then I found ArtRage, and the demo worked well enough that I bought it. ($59 compared to PS's $799)

The ArtRage app and UI is designed well and if you're used to colouring in Photoshop, then it all translates really well. You can paint in layers, and as you can see, you get a really nice effect with the oil brushes. Next I'll have to try out the inking and the watercolours.

It does have some drawbacks and isn't really a Photoshop replacement. It can't open more than one painting at a time, it's doesn't have Photoshop's gradient tool, and it can't record actions and apply them to a folder full of images ( very handy for resizing your digital photos for web uploading ), and importantly for my photo documentation of my paintings, it can't correct lens distortion. However, what it does do, it does well, and it's well worth the purchase price.

Now I just have to find something that can open the NEF files from the Nikon and do batch resizing on them and also allow me to correct lens distortion, and stitch together composite shots of paintings, then I'll be all good. Yikes, I might just have to buy Photoshop anyway...

Faster, looser, scribblier!

I've been experimenting with some different painting styles, which you can see in the photos.








Instead of being focused on heavy paint, strong colour, and the quality of light, these pieces are much more spontaneous and focused on having fun with the drawing.








I've really enjoyed working this way, but the important question is whether or not people would like to buy them. I guess the only way to find out is to do a bunch and send them to the galleries!

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

New canoe

I'm trying out a bit of a different style, more focused on the drawing rather than the painting.



- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone

Wind, blimps, farm, twilight

Hey everyone, I've uploaded my newest paintings to my website:

"November farm twilight":

"Windy shore blimp service":

- Posted using BlogPress from my iPhone