Just calling to say "Hi"

Dear Diary,

Once again I’m just passing by and I thought it would be nice to say hi. I have nothing to show you. All of my accomplishments today left no tangible trace. I did due diligence at my job; I happily fulfilled my family tasks and I walked Nacho for an hour; I worked out in the morning on the elliptical machine, and I finished The Seventh Seal by Ingemar Bergman. I’ve been a fan of this movie since I first saw it in the Guild and Studio theaters in my college days in Berkeley. I lived in an apartment above the theaters and went to the movies two or three times a week. In my four years as a student, my best times were spent watching movies and working in the Bear’s Lair cafe in the student union. I disliked everything else about my formal education at UC

Page 40, Tuca Wearing a Gas Mask, is Finished

I decided that Tuca would wear the first gas mask I drew for him. The Nausicaa mask looks too much like the lungs of a small animal, which is not the thought I’d want to enter my readers’ minds. Now I’m off to work on page 41.

Speaking of pages, there are 75 pages in this, my third book. That’s about 30 pages more than are in the first two books in the series. My next work contract begins August 30, giving me about 35 days to complete the next 30-plus images, add the dialog, process everything in InDesign, and publish. No amount of can-do positive thinking can deceive me into believing that I can meet that schedule.

Whenever I find myself dealing with a tight deadline, I think of all the time I spend enjoying interesting challenges such as learning how to paint reflections on face mask lenses. And then I think of my impossible schedule and wonder if I should spend more time developing a simpler cartoon style. And, yes, I have been working on that project in my sketching time.

A Lazy Sunday

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Now that the Al Fresco Art Club meets on Saturdays, my Sundays are mine to do with as I please. When I’m at loose ends, I like to take my mind out of gear and let it idle for a while. My big achievement today was to do an hour of yoga and watch an hour-long tutorial about using Clip Studio Paint EX for creating manga. It was entertaining and useful. Check it out: Webinar – How to create your manga from start to finish and where to share it! with Kat Jackson.

Painting a Rock for a Children's Picture Book

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I’m painting a scene where my characters are walking among huge boulders. I spent an hour trying to paint this rock. But there’s something missing — context. It needs some characters walking past it to give it scale. Standing on its own, it reminds me of a piece of pie. Some areas at the bottom that look okay, but the top looks too smooth. It needs sharp edges where the rock’s facets turn from light to dark.

When I run into a newbie problem like this I eventually remind myself that I’m a rookie at painting and that I’m on the right path. I’m stubborn and curious — I know I’ll get it right if I soldier on. That’s what art soldiers do.

More Clouds Inspired by Maxfield Parrish

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More clouds. Clips Studio Paint EX, Photoshop brush by Victor Staris

Today I made another practice run at painting clouds. As before, I used Clip Studio Pant. I painted on one layer because I feel that working without multiple layers really makes me pay the price for not being present when I start throwing the paint around. When you paint on one layer, every stroke counts.

Ecstasy, Maxfield Parrish, 1920

My inspiration for this exercise was Maxfield Parrish’s painting called Ecstasy. Here’s a low-res version of that painting. I’ve seen dozens of versions of this picture on the Web and the colors are never the same. The Wikipedia version is tinted blue. I like this version because the clouds are golden and pink. Someday I’ll repaint this picture and include the ecstatic woman.

The color gradations in this painting are incredibly subtle. I would love to see this one in person.

Another Attempt to Paint Golden Clouds

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Golden clouds, following Victor Staris’ How to Paint Clouds Youtube tutorial.

Today I practiced painting clouds again. My inspiration is VIctor Staris’ How to Paint Clouds tutorial on Youtube. It’s designed for beginners like me. I’ll practice painting clouds again tomorrow.

I painted this picture with Clip Studio Paint rather than Photoshop or Painter. I’m just more comfortable with CSP than with the others. I used Victor’s Photoshop brushes again — they’ve got a good feel to them.

Rebelle 4 was released today and I dove in to test the new oil painting tools. I soon realized that painting with digital paint that reacts like physical paint is really weird — it’s oil painting. It’s going to take a lot of practice before I’m confident with Rebelle. My plan is to finish up my Adventures of Jimmy Jay picture book series with Clip Studio Paint so I can keep the same style for the next four books.

TMy copy of Rocky, Vol. 2, Strictly Business by Martin Kellerman arrived today. It’s going to be fun reading it before I go to sleep. Rocky is a foul-mouthed, down and out dog who draws a comic strip. It’s just my style.

Learning About Concept Art

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My version of Victor Staris landscape. Check out Victor Staris’ Youtube channel

My goal is to create a world for my characters. For the first book I didn’t have the chops to create an environment for my characters. For my second book, I worked on creating background images for most scenes. Now I want to be able to create a world for my characters…and for myself. I love concept art, especially fantasy concept art like that in the Lord of the Ring’s movies. I especially admire the paintings of Maxfield Parish. His golden clouds rocky my boat.

I’ve painted this scene from Victor’s tutorial four times. I get a little better every time. I started the painting using Corel Painter, but I became frustrated when I couldn’t find a suitable brush among the thousand or so in that program. Instead, I imported Victor Staris’ Photoshop brushes into Clip Studio Paint, which now can import Photoshop brushes. They work great in CSP. Victor generously shares his personal brushes with the world. Victor, thanks!

Lesson 7, Part 2 - Recognizing Shapes and Values

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Painted with Corel Painter’s Blocky Background brush found in the Sargent brush set

This is the final painting of the final lesson of Isis Sousa’s Digital Painting course on Youtube. I recommend the course to anyone who wants to learn the basics of digital painting. Sousa sensei starts the course by explaining the restricted set of brushes that will be used for all of the paintings. For each lesson she provides reference photos, and students can follow along as she does a demonstration painting of the assignment.

The course is given using Corel Painter, but the basic principles of digital painting apply to any full-featured painting software.

Lesson 7, Part 1 - Shape Hierarchy

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Reference photo from Wikipedia: Two Indigenous Men, a photograph by Roosewelt Pinheiro/ABr - Agência Brasil

Today’s lesson has two parts; I completed part one, which was to paint a protrait from a reference photo of a Brazilian indigenous man. For this lesson our task was to focus on, 1) recognizing shapes; 2) identifying the large shapes and painting them first, then painting the smaller shapes within the large shapes; 3) working with the largest brushes possible to avoid the inevitable temptation to dwell on details. We used the unpredictable Sargent brush, which has a high degree of randomness built in to it’s soul.

It was fun going through the ugliness of the initial stages to see the image come to life when I added the highlight to my subject’s upper lip. Pow!

Lesson 6, As Final As I'm Going to Make It

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Temple of Isis at Philae

I’ve completed Lesson 6 of Isis Sousa’s Digital Painting course on Youtube. The hardest part of this assignment was to paint relatively straight lines. There are also many parallel lines in the reference photograph, and those are hard to replicate without resorting to a digital perspective guide. The temple also has many delicate carving on the faces of the pylons. I did not include them in my painting. In the interest of time I decided to let the rear towers remain unfinished. However, I did add a figure to give the image a sense of scale.

Lesson 7 will cover portrait painting. This will be the most challenging lesson.