Progress...

Well, I have no excuse. I just have not been posting. In fact, I let my webhosting lapse for no other reason but laziness. I wish I had a better answer than that. However, I’m going to try to renew my commitment to posting more of my work. Though the site has been quiet for months, my attempts to hone my art have not. I have been doing quite a bit on that front.

When last I updated, I had started on portraits. This was just in its infancy when I went dark. Now, I have managed to make some real progress!

​Check some of these out:

“Audrey”

“In the Studio”

I have really improved in the amount of detail. I’m starting to figure out how to create depth and shape with the correct kind of shading.

“Ready for my Close Up”

In the image to the left, I managed to even create the illusion of a shallow depth of field. It so far has been amazingly fun to see where things started and where I’m at now. Portraits have been a very food excersize because it has forced me to look at details. When doing figure drawing I only had to focus on proportions, but I always struggled with faces. I manage to find a good rhythm for easily pumping expressions out. However, the expressions always were medicocre at best, and laughable at worst.

These pieces helped me figure out how angles help with emotion and convey different levels of intensity, Its been fun. Then, like I have done with many of my artistic trends, I’ve tried to add color...

This one is one of my favorites. I got the shading right while still using one color. Using an airbrush tool allowed me to create different shades of the same color. Before, I was trying to use three different colors to convey the differences in tone and the results were terribly inconsistent. Here, the girl looking to the sky actually feels like light is reflecting off her face. It has added contours. Unfortunately, for this drawing anyway, it happened completely by accident. And so I started a journey to re-create something with the same aspects.

I had varying successes and many more failures. However, I started getting a knack for how lighting works. I had taken a course on shading at my local community college, and that made all the difference. It as almost night and day how different things started to look.

Another thing that you may have noticed is I’ve stopped trying to exaggerate features. I’m trying for very natural proportions of features. So far I think I’m getting better. The eyes no longer feel like they are too big. The noses are in the correct spot in relation to they’re mouth. Things are looking up. What I’ll be practicing next are practical ways of being consistent.

“Looking to the Sky”

Here is one more that I am pretty proud of. This is one of my first ones in a while that didn’t have a reference image! This one was done entirely from the ol’ noggin.

Anyway, that’s all I have as far as an art update. Plenty of showable stuff. So just because I havent updated in a while definitely doesnt mean I’ve been slacking off of getting better.

Some days are better than others. I sometimes work for a really long time on a piece only to delete it out of frustration. I think many of you could relate. But, looking back on my previous work, I can see that definite progress is being made.

In fact, in the coming weeks, I will be making some changes to the site to reflect this progress. I think I am going to have a page for my best works and a page dedicated to progress. I plan on putting several similar pieces, one old and one new, side by side to illustrate how dedication to getting better at something can pay off.

Until then I hope you have enjoyed this brief look at what I have been doing since October. I hope your 2018 has been going well and I hope to entertain you much more going forward.

Be excellent to each other....