assignment 4 finished phew....

I've just signed up for the blog, so I figured I should put something up.

Just finished this,I think it's too cartoony with hindsight, but I enjoyed doing it, and its too late now to do it again anyway!

I'm really enjoying seeing other folks work on the course, it's just like being in an art class. (which is what it is of course)

I've no more time to stand and stare, Assignment 5's already there! (made that one up myself)

any thoughts on lesson 5?

I just watched lesson 5 and it looks like things are getting pretty technical. If anyone has any thoughts or experiences on choosing a palate, I'll be curious to hear it

painting progression on the bearded one...

Here's my progression of the painting portion so far. I'm enjoying this one. There's obviously a lot to be done. I'm glad we've had a good while to work on this week's assignment.

Oprah Final

I spent more time on this than I wanted to, but at least it's finished. On to the next one!

Beardman progression

Here's my progression so far of the Beardman. The thumbnails are the same as I posted earlier. I added emphasis on what was going on after the thumbnails. I really liked how #1 turned out and almost started fleshing that out to paint but something was bothering me. I didn't really like how his face was kind of tall and skinny and pinched in. It was more straight than I wanted. Then I sketched out a side view and I liked it but I'm really set on doing a 3/4. In doing the side though, I realized how angled his face was so I tried to push that and sketched #3. I started to see how it could be angled even more so I pushed it further in #4 and even started out drawing inside a rhombus like the one you see there. I also liked how his face was giving off a "stair step" effect so I tried to incorporate that into the caricature. I sketched on top of #4 to get the final sketch on the right. There are still a few issues I need to work on. Also, the more I try to get it to look like the actual person, the more it leaves caricature and goes into portraiture. I still like it more than #1 though which I almost settled on.

*sigh*

I am working on lesson 4 for Jason's class and am not pleased with how things are coming out... I'm just in the thumbnail and sketching phase and am still unsure...

Kathy was the most fun to draw, although a bit of a struggle also. I think I have the most likeness with her, though.



I'm pretty certain I am not working on Matthew... he's got a great face but I don't think I am capturing the character much.

Right now I am leaning towards the beardman, I had the least trouble with him (the likeness isn't there yet, I was more focusing on structure).

Beardman sketches

I'm glad to be contributing this blog. I've been watching what's going on here for months and it's actually what made me decide to take Jason's class. I feel like I have improved a ton already. Here are some sketches for week 4. I chose the Beardman because after seeing the last class' work it seemed like most everyone else chose the other two references and I didn't want to be influenced by those. I'm having trouble exaggerating the features and I tend to border on portraiture. I know that I really need to push more in the very loose thumbnail stage.

Oprah...continued

Still working on this one. Since values have always been my biggest challenge, I'm going with the grayscale rendering and then color afterward. She's a very tough caricature in my opinion. Reference photos are tough because she has different hair in every one as well as different weight and different levels of airbrushing by whomever took the photo. Hopefully I'm getting the likeness, here.

As usual...any critique is welcomed.

Reuben Awards

I just read on animator Nancy Beiman's blog that Silver won a Reuben last night!

http://dailycartoonist.com/index.php/2008/05/24/stephen-silver-win-television-animation-award/

Congratulations, Silver!

kathy wip

I just want to show I am working and not just stressing on this lesson

thoughts on lesson 4 (now gone)

I typed a bunch of stuff I was thinking about this lesson, and when I read it later it sounded dumb. So Ive just posted a wip which you can see in the post above.

this is lesson´s 3 final result.
I´m pretty glad with this one,
it was one of the most enjoyable assignments!

Caricature - Week 3

Here's my week 3 rendering of the famous Gary (he should be famous by now with so many people painting him)

I had a lot of fun seeing this image come to life.
I'm way to far behind though, I'm really glad we have two weeks for the next one.

I can't wait to see what everyone comes up with next!

Gary -- Caricature Lesson 3

Here's the Gary value painting for Caricature lesson 3 -- Jason did the actual caricature, and I did the painting. I think he's a little too dark overall, but this was a very good exercise. Looking forward to lesson 4, where we get to do value paintings of our own caricatures!

copyrights??

Hey Schoolism teachers- 

Could you share with all of us some info on copyrighting our art? 

Is it necessary (when is it?) , and how do you do it?

thanks for sharing your wealth of knowledge!

jon

Will Oldham, aka Bonnie Prince Billy

Finished this up tonight, just in time to make it a little gift at a free show that he is putting on in the headlands above SF. For those of you who do not know, Will Oldham is a sort of modern day Dylanesque western music singer song-writer. He's also been known to show up in Kanye West (stronger video with Zack Galifinakis) and R Kelly's "trapped in the closet" videos. A real character!

Any critiques would be welcome! I definitely question the background. (its a scanned piece of rough drawing paper, the textures great and the goal was to eliminate a computer generated looking background but does it work?)

AND- Im calling all of you from Jasons first class out -- (except patrick and dan...) 

Get to work and post!

Jon

Simon Cowell update

Here's a more finished sketch of Simon Cowell, I'm going to start painting tomorrow. Any comments are welcome.

Oprah

Been so busy with editorial cartooning, haven't made the time to work on caricature. Thought I'd better change that, so here's a rough rendering of Oprah. This will be full color when completed, hopefully by the end of the weekend. This ended up being an amalgamation of about three different references.

You'll notice I took Jason's lead (from his blog postings) to put a copyright notice on the image. More artists seem to be doing this, likely due to the pending Orphan Works Bill. Whether the threat is real or not, never hurts to slap a copyright on Internet stuff, I guess.

As always, critiques are welcome.

Mass Update

Digital Painting - Color Sketching




Caricature Week 1


Caricature Week 2


Things have been super busy for me, but the classes keep on rolling.
The color sketches are from Bobby's digital painting class and they lead into the final painting (which is due today, crap).

The other images are from weeks one and two of Jason's caricature course. I've got to say that Jason's course is awesome, but it is not for the weak and it will take up a lot of your time, so be prepared for long hours!

Great work everyone, I can't wait to see more!

Caricature: Week 1 Studies (Suzane & Chris)

Hi all,

I thought I'd go ahead and follow Brett and Dan's lead here. These are two of the bigger versions of the 5 citizens that we had to sketch thumbnails of. The main point was to do quick proportion and exaggeration studies. I think these two sketches of Suzane and Chris turned out pretty funny. I have a side view study of Chris that I'll probably finish up sometime later. Looking really GREAT so far everyone!

Simon Cowell sketch

Here's a quick 15 minute sketch for my next portfolio piece - Simon Cowell from Britain's Got Talent / American Idol. This was just going to be a quick thumbnail to test out exaggeration, but I liked where it was going so I stuck with it, and I think I'll use it as a starting point for the painting. Any comments are welcome.

Caricature course -- Lesson 2 assignment

Say hi to James, Brian and Nate. It's fun to visualize faces as having animal-like characteristics and pushing shapes with that in mind.

Caricature lesson 1

Here are some bits from my assignment for lesson 1 of Jason's caricature class. I recently got a 9x12 Wacom tablet and am finding it much easier to use than the old Graphire4 4x6 tablet, which had a drawing area of about the size of a photograph.

My final at last

I finally got around to finishing this, I made quite a lot of changes in the end, but pretty pleased with how it turned out. It's already been said a lot, but this course was amazing, and I've really enjoyed seeing everyone's progress. I'll look forward to seeing where we all take it from here.


(click to enlarge)

Ponderings about Life Drawing

For the first time tonight, I went to a life drawing session at a local performing arts center... and found it much different than what I am used to. Usually, I go to a coffee shop or mall and do quick little 1-2 minute sketches, and these I do as memory sketches (ala Silver), where I capture a moment in time in my head and then draw it and create a nice little character sketch. This is especially fun at the mall where there is a kids' playground in the middle and trying to draw the little kids running around... you never get more than a few seconds to get that 'snapshot' in your brain. And it is lots of fun!

Tonight, I went to a regular kind of life drawing session and it was ... different, to say the least. The 2 minute poses were fine, I could draw from memory and get down the basic shape and gesture, and they came out smooth and fluid. But then we went to 10 and 20 minute poses and ... I don't know... they weren't as fun. Maybe because the poses weren't as natural, but it seems like my 2 minute memory sketches were a lot better in terms of their structure.

How about anyone else out there... how do you do you life drawing, if you do it at all? Do you prefer doing the quick memory sketches like at a coffee shop or mall, or do you prefer the studio atmosphere?

-- Brett

From Hell's Kitchen...

Well, bar crits, I'm calling this done for now. Great to hear feedback if anyone has them.

I don't know why I would want to paint such a puggish man - but doing so will always remind me to work and be passionate about the creative side of myself. Yes, it's only a show, but hey, it's a fun watch!

Oh and if you haven't jumped on board Jason's course, seriously think about it!! I wouldn't have dreamt to finsh such a piece to this quality and with this speed a few months ago!