22nd & 8th, a Digital Watercolor

22nd & 8th

This week I worked on a digital watercolor for Leanne. It was suppose to be her grad present when she graduated from NYU last May but I had so much going on that I couldn't get it done until this week. It's the view from her window. I wanted her to have an artistic reminder of her life in NYC...where she lived when she went to NYU, graduated, fell in love, made her stage debut and started her career as a working actress. She even rode out Hurricane Sandy here. 

I did it all in Photoshop. It took 6 hours over three days and had 16 layers. I didn't save each layer so I can't show the progress like I did with the lion painting from the last post but if anyone has questions about doing a digital watercolor, feel free to email me. 

King of the Jungle

King of the Jungle

After nearly a year of traveling, hosting company and having my brother diagnosed with cancer, I finally had two weeks to do nothing but take care of myself and indulge in some art!  I started the month with a detox, (my hubby participated as well which made it much easier to stick to) eliminating coffee, tea, sugar, wheat and dairy. Treated myself to a couple of massages to help speed along the removal of toxins. Purchased a juicer, a Vitamix, dehydrator and a bread machine to make my own gluten-free flax-seed bread. All of this was spurred on by my trip this summer to the Pura Vida Spa in Costa Rica (I'll share photos of my trip in the next post). In the five days I spent there with my mom and my friend Phoebe, I ate a high alkaline diet, had body treatments and left feeling rejuvenated and a lightness of being. When I got back, the stress hit when my brother Ryan was diagnosed with a rare form of melanoma (his treatment is over, now it's just "wait and see"). Stress can take a toll, causing one (uh, yea, me) to indulge in sugary mojitos and sweets. Thus, the detox. Detoxing is suppose to clear your mind as well, improving focus and clarity. I took advantage of that and the free time to delve into some digital art, creating my third painting done entirely in Photoshop. 

Lita and I got together for a digital art Saturday a couple of weeks ago and each of us picked something to work on from a Photoshop Creative magazine. I decided on a tutorial by Emerald de Leeuw on painting animal portraits. Here's a tip: when following a tutorial where the skill level is "expert", it's probably a good idea to be an expert at Photoshop. Unfortunately, I am not, nor did I notice the skill level until after I started and got stuck trying to understand what the hell they were trying to tell me to do. I *almost* chucked the whole thing but later that night, at home, I decided to just do it on my own, feeling my way through an array of colors and brushes and applying learned oil painting techniques. 

It took me 10 days, 30 hours and 40 layers. Titled King of the Jungle, here's how I did it.

The first step was to roughly sketch out the lion. This need not be perfect, I just needed to get the placement of the eyes and mouth correct:

My starting sketch

Next, I blocked in colors. I chose a variety of yellows, oranges, deep reds and browns. I also started the eyes right away, figuring if I gave him a soul, he would stare at me and demand I finish him. :-)

Now, I used a smudge tool to blend some of the colors together and then brushed in hair using a smaller brush, also adding more definition to the eyes and mouth:

  

Now I blended all those strokes together using a smudge tool and different soft brushes:

Repeating the two previous steps:

Next it was time to start blending and adding in details:



Next I worked on mouth detail:

Now it was time to get rid of the "teddy-bear" ears by reshaping and continuing the detail work:

Finally added the whiskers and finished off detail work:

Lastly, I adjusted color balance and contrast to my liking:

I even did a version in black and white with selective color:

I could still continue to work on it, smoothing out hair, adding details but I'm pretty happy to call it done! It's come a long way from that sketch!

Forest Magic, Movies, Sunrises and Giraffes

Hello my friends!
I am still recovering from the flu but feeling better everyday. I can't wait until I am 100% and can get out and about again in the world of the living, although if anyone gets me sick again I will be very ticked off. ;-)
This week I found out my sprinkler system has not been coming on for two months! Thus, not only is everything dead in my yard but the stuff that is living has a white-fly infestation. Let me tell you, those buggers are voracious and not easy to get rid of. I was very depressed about the whole thing for a day or so until I realized this is a perfect opportunity to replace the dead stuff with native plants that will attract even more birds and butterflies to my yard. So, I'm trying to look at the bright side of the buggy situation. Maybe by next summer, I will have a lush garden again and new flowers to take pictures of!

So, what have I been doing since being stuck inside with the flu? I've worked on art of course! I finally finished my first illustration done completely in Photoshop. It was a learning experience for sure. I used all my own textures except for one from Distressed Textures for an overlay on the background. Picking out the textures was quite the fun part as I didn't know after making it into a pattern stamp what it would look like on the page until I started painting it on.

Forest Magic

I first drew a rough draft by hand and scanned it into Photoshop. I realized two things at this point: that I drew her two elbows (haha, talk about double-jointed!) and that drawing this directly into Photoshop would have been much easier as I had to go over all the lines anyways to create the "piece" look I was going for.

Rough Draft

I then began to paint in the textures. I ended up with a total of 40 layers! I used textures I made by running ink off of old Nat Geo pages. I then scanned them into Photoshop and created textures from them. Using the Pattern Stamp, I then created a paintbrush effect and added them to my selected areas, one at a time. Yes, that took forever!

As I began to redraw it in Photoshop, some things got erased and some things got added to improve the overall composition. Finally, background textures where added and some of the line drawing layers deleted. I used an old map texture to create the ground. I loved how it looked!

When I finished, I printed it out on my printer on high quality paper and let me tell you, it's gorgeously rich and delightful! I'm going to giveaway the print so if you comment on this post, telling me your favorite part of the piece, I will put your name into a hat and will draw a winner on Sunday. I will send the print matted, signed and ready for framing! What a fun project! I can't wait to attempt another!

I continued the Sunrise shots this week...somehow that has turned into an iPhoneography series and I just hope I can keep up with it. I really only meant to shoot the first sunrise of the year but I've been up everyday in time for the rest of them. Probably not a good thing since I go to bed late and really need rest right now but honestly, who could resist seeing this:

Sunrise 1.9.2013

And wanna know what else has cheered me up this week? One of my goals each year that I put on my dream/visualization board is "continued learning". Last year I did this with gusto and took way too many online classes that I ended up not being able to finish because of all the traveling I did. I have the same kind of adventurous year ahead of me again but I didn't want to give up on the idea of an online class because I really enjoy learning and being pushed out of my comfort zone. So, I chose one that my friend Constance told me about. It's Carla Sonheim's Year of the Giraffe! It's a year-long art project all about Giraffes! OMG. I love Giraffes. How fun is this going to be? I love Carla's drawing. I would love to be more silly and free. I'm too technical with my drawing. I hope to loosen up quite a bit by the time the year and the project is over. And I can't wait to see what kind of giraffes end up being my companions. ;-)

If you would like to read about the Year of the Giraffe or sign up for the course, click here

And finally...I wanted to share a Kickstarter Project with you and hope you will help this talented group of students complete their film, The Furnished Room. The leading lady is my friend Constance's daughter. You can see the video and learn how you can help get this movie made by clicking here. I donated to the project and it feels good to not only give, but to support the arts. Every little bit will help them so don't be shy! You know you always wanted to see your name in the credits of a film. ;-)

I hope everyone has a great upcoming weekend and don't forget to leave your comment regarding the "Forest Magic" piece to be entered in to win the print!

Gathering Knowledge at the Art & Soul

I just returned from a long trip to Virginia and North Carolina. Here's a tip: Don't take a late flight on the night of the time change. It's really messed with my sleep rhythms!

The purpose of the trip was to attend the 2012 Art & Soul Retreat in Virginia Beach. I went with my friend and fellow artist, Phoebe Ford Reid. We took different classes, meeting for lunch and taking peeks in on each other to see what each was learning. Since I am so far behind on my blog, I'm just posting a snippet of what I learned from two of my favorite classes.

I had so much fun in Wabi-Sabi Wax taught by Serena Barton. She was a great teacher and the class was full of really fun personalities. We learned how to paint with Encaustic medium...beeswax mixed with oil paint:

 Memoirs of Japan

Mixed media on wood

Preservation of Nature

Mixed media with natural elements on wood

Another class I enjoyed and totally fell in love with was Cathy Taylor's class "Finding Your Creative Spirits" where we learned to make our own background papers using the pages of old National Geographic magazines. Once dry, we could then paint on top of them with FW Acrylic Inks (love these inks!) or collage them onto mixed media pieces. Here are some of my results, taken into Photoshop and enhanced with additional elements:

 Forest Tree in Winter

 Left Afloat

Seabed

And a mixed media piece I did after I returned home using one of my big-eyed dolly drawings:

Promise
Mixed media on paper

Of course, there was plenty of time for Phoebe and I to enjoy photography as well! We went to Colonial Williamsburg and the Outer Banks of North Carolina. I've posted all my pictures on Storie which you can see here:
 
I've come back completely exhausted but excited about having the whole Spring and Summer ahead to indulge in all my crafty and artsy pursuits! I'm ready to tackle it all: Digital Painting, Photography, Mixed Media, Watercolors, Sewing, Gardening and even getting back to working on my miniatures.  The whole world of art awaits and I've got my wings on ready to fly!

Digital Painting: Retro Pinup

It took countless hours, tons of layers and a shortcut here and there before I finally finished my Retro Pinup digital painting! I followed a tutorial by super talented digital artist Jeff MD and I have to say that my finished pinup looks nothing like the end result that Jeff created. But, I guess that's what makes it uniquely mine! And, I'm cutting myself some slack since it's only the second digital painting I've ever done. :)

As is usual with tutorials from magazines, not every step is shown or talked about and it's up to the artist to figure it all out on their own. This was the case with the "details" of the painting...the eyes and hands. Being a member of Doll Dreams benefited me immensely in that I had learned through Adriana's teachings how to paint eyes and I've always been able to draw and paint hands so I didn't have to worry to much about that. I had the hardest time with the mouth and teeth and by the time I got to the log, shoes and background, I was tired of working on it and took a few shortcuts so I could finally call it "finished". 

As with the digital Phoenix I painted some time ago, the steps are pretty much the same. I started with a sketch on a grey background and on a separate layer blocked in shadows, mid-tones and highlights using the dodge and burn tools.

Once the shapes have been defined, I hid the sketch layer and began working on blocking in colors. I used the smudge tool quite a bit to blend in colors as well as the dodge and burn to add in lights and darks.

Next up was to blend in even more colors. This was done on a new layer set to Soft Light and clipped to the base layer. I used a Skin Blender Brush and painted yellow onto highlights, pink to mid-tones and violet to shadows. Orange and pink were used on bounce light areas. I kept merging layers and repeating the process until I was satisfied with the look. At this point, I also repositioned the leg to make it more natural. This was done using the lasso, select and rotate tool and then just repainting the areas as needed:

Now it was time to add in details. At this point, I showed her to my grandmother who said she "looks like she's smelling shit". Uh-oh! That's not good! haha! I worked on one area at a time, starting first with the face, hair and bust and trying to get her so she doesn't look like she's smelling something horrid!

 I loved her hairline and nose but had such trouble with her mouth and teeth!

I kept adding in detail such as dots on the top, adding texture and detail to the shoes, log and sail cloth as well as working on the hands:

Hand detail. I used my own hand as a model and kept looking at it repeatedly while painting.

I have to admit that by the time I got done with the face, hair, upper body, hands and top, I had no enthusiasm left for the shoes, log, sail cloth or background. This is where I decided to take shortcuts. I used a texture over lay on the shoes and log and decided to leave out detail on the sail cloth. In the original tutorial, the background is painted in but I decided to use one of my own sea images:

Using the Paint Dabs Filter, I changed the background into a more painterly image and added it behind my painted pinup. A second texture by Jewell was added as well which helped make everything cohesive. I then adjusted levels, contrast and saturation until I was happy with the final image. Voila! A sailor's dream!

There are areas (those hideous shoes!) that could have used more time and care but I was ready to move onto something new and I was happy with what I learned overall. I learned how to create an instant color palette using filters, what the bloat tool can do and how to blend colors. This was done completely in Photoshop CS3. Maybe now, I'll learn how to use my Painter XI software! :)

Creative process of "Harbinger"

"Harbinger"

I had an idea of Lita being "a bringer of things", a Harbinger foretelling events. I did a quick sketch of my idea and began looking through my archives to see what setting I could use. I knew I wanted there to be a seaside cliff. I found the image "The North Sea" from my archives taken during my Coast to Coast Walk in England.

My first step was to turn it from day into a night image. I did this by using colorize in the hue/saturation adjustment. Tinting it blue, reducing the saturation and light. The blown out sky got replaced first with a layer of color, matching it to the image and then with a star field, created by using the Noise filter. To create the clouds, I used a Northern Lights photoshop tutorial paired with this black and white image of clouds, tinted and color matched to the previous layer.

The Eclipse and Lightening were created from scratch using photoshop tutorials. The rain was made using the Noise Filter and Motion Blur and then angled in the direction desired.

Next up was taking the relatively calm sea in the original photo and making it stormy. I used waves from several images in my archives, cutting, scaling, cloning, warping, smudging and matching colors until I was satisfied:

Now that I had stormy seas, I wanted to add a vortex. I used a stock image of a whirlpool and followed a tutorial. This was one of the most difficult parts of the image to work on. It took alot of cloning, warping, erasing, smudging, dodging, burning and perspective adjustment to get it to look just right. The ship was a stock image that was scaled down and skewed to look as though it was being sucked into the vortex. A final layer of Grit was added over the seas and sky to give it a bit more of a dark feel.

Now that the scene was completed I worked on transforming Lita. This was the starting image I chose to use, one which I plan on using again in the future (it has lots of possibilities!):

Using the Polygonal Lasso Tool, I cut Lita from the scene. Using Levels, I lightened her skin. Turning her eyes green was done with the Elliptical tool and hue/saturation. Eyeshadow and lashes were added using brushes. I browsed costume images on Google until I found a cloak and gown that I liked. These were then cut out and pasted into new layers to be worked on separately. Cloning and warping were the main tools used to dress Lita. The cloak was originally on a naked mannequin and that had to be removed. The gown was originally a dull grey color and it was changed using the Color Match tool. Photoshop brushes were used in two colors to give her hair volume, length and strands blowing in the wind.

In place of the skull, I wanted a crystal ball. This was done with a photoshop tutorial and by using outer & inner glow along with dodging.

Finally, a Harbinger is in essence an Omen...so two were added to the image...a black cat which was a stock photo and this image of a Boat Tailed Grackle, standing in for a Raven:

He was elongated using the skew & distort tool and place into the scene. After everything was in place I flattened the image and added the final touches of dodging highlights and burning shadows and viola! A piece of digital art!