Doodles part 2

Drawing is thinking. Instead of forcing it, I start by scribbling light random lines of basic geometrical shapes and then let the mind fill the rest of what they could imply. Later I just refine the selected characters for further uses in comic or illustration. Drawing is like gymnastics, if you don't practice on a daily basis, raising the bar little by little, the muscles will wither.

Pocket sketching part 1

It's summer job time again which means plethora of pocket sketchbooking to keep me sane. Just mindless brainstorming without prejudices which usually produces surprisingly weird stuff, which is awesome. This is my fourth moleskine pocket sketchbook going on since 2009. A loyal companion that book is, always there to remind me to draw.

Self-portrait (updated September 23)

Academic self-portrait, Flemish layer painting technique, oil on canvas 46x54cm. Left: preliminary study. Carbone and chalk on tinted paper.

Edit September 23: Finished after four month break, on September 4, I took a more critical look and checked  the proportions from mirror, turned the piece upside down, sideways and evaluated, measured by eye sight again and again, squinted eyes and refined until every millimetre seemed right. The Rubens study I did this summer gave me the information  to refine this further from previous stage too.
Historically, for artists, painting a self-portait is not just an effective form of practicing skills and one's eyes, but a much more intense way of self-examination than just looking at mirror.

Color sketch (nude)

 

guache

 

 

This would be the last page from my moleskine sketchbook. I used one croquis drawing for reference and made a quick acrylic sketch from it.

Face studies

Analysing some faces and drawings (Raphael).

Master copy WIP (updated, May 4)

 See latest stage here (September 4): Ingres copy almost finished

May 4, working on background and details 

We're having a drawing and painting course where we need to copy some piece of art. I chose The Valpincon Bather by the French master Ingres in order to practice the very difficult nude painting genre, particularly depicting skin, as an arguably logical continuity for the intensive life study workshop I attended and also because figure painting and drawing is a classical measure of artists skills and some videogame, film and animation studios may ask for references of figure painting for evaluation of the concept artist or animator candidate's skill level.

Here's the initial charcoal drawing, then the underpainting stage where I have drybrushed titanium white on earth green. Then on to glazing and background.

Friday May 20 I added some glazing and worked the surroundings further. Sorry for the bad cell phone photo, the flash light reflects from the wet surface unfortunately. It was difficult to find decent reference images of the painting, some were obviously taken at close range, giving a bit fish-eye effect which explains the strange wide shoulders. This is 120x80cm, 80% of the original's size and I have to speculate the colors between several reference images, thus, I'm putting my expectations to 80% success for the time being.

Animal sketches

Random animal sketches. Ink and watercolor on moleskine sketchbook.

Easter meditation WIP

This Easter I thought it would be appropriate to explore some spiritual matters and meditate through art, seek peace of mind that way. So, Revelation work in progress:

Color and lighting experimenting in Photoshop. Still needs work on details, and outlines have to be removed for credibility.

 

About two hours of work and still going...
 Second stage: added round top, blocked character forms and worked an underpainting
Original red pastel drawing.

Hand study

Charcoal and chalk on recycled A3 paper

March life study

 

Chalk and guache on black paper, 160x100cm

 

Charcoal on litoposter

Graphic representation technique course works

 

Graphite

 Dry watercolor

 Wet-on-wet watercolor

 

Scratchboard technique

collage

 

 Ink and guache washing technique

   

Final work: illustration for a fairy tale about the birth of the mountains in Lapland. Acrylic on canvas. This was displayed at the Rovaniemi Design Week exhibition at Lappia-talo.

Color study 2

Life study. Guache on black paper. 150x100cm. 1 hour.

color study

1 hour color study / speed painting. Chalk and guache on black paper. about 100x140cm.

By the way, I'm going to use this blog as an art experimenting channel from now on. The graphic design material will be displayed at the tumblr blog

Life drawing

 

 Compressed charcoal sticks on litoposter.

Sanguine pastel pencil on paper. 150x100 cm

Painter 11, 4 hours.

After months of intensive anatomy studying, I tried to draw this without a reference. Looking critically now, the construction is a bit hit-or-miss. strange shoulders, too beefy arms, flat head, somewhat implausible neck angle and as a whole a bit illogical character.