Stego -thumbs

So Mum said that Jake liked my sea monsters painting so much (gave it to them, at the time there was only one kid) and now there is Fin so I'm doing a dinosaur painting for him.
I no longer have any acrylics (my least favourite medium on earth) and so I'm going to have to do it in oils which will be a long process I think. But anyway, I wanted to show my cute little colour test image because it will probably be cuter than the final painting HAHA!

Click to enlarge

Here it is. there is a thumbnail sketch and a marker thumbnail I did of what I wanted the colour scheme to be. I do this for most of my art work, on varying degrees of depth. 

These sketches are about an inch High.

The final painting will be oil 16"x18" on stretched belgium linen

Oil Paint Catalouge.

Well, Kitty and I often buy oil paint just because we can, and we want to but we never seem to know what we have, so I'm cataloguing them here! I'll put them in sections for brands, favourite being the top and not so gret paint brands at the bottom.

I have some not so great paint because sometimes not so great paint is sometimes excellent for encaustics or other things. so thats why I have... I'll put *'s beside by main colours, and # beside my favourite encaustic colours.

Its a long list but I barely use them all HAHA! The ones I use mainly are my 3 primary and white.
I like the other colours for random encaustics, and stuff since with encaustics I don't often mix, I use straight from the tube colours.  I'll also list my mediums and stuff as well!

Oh, as a side note, I don't use solvents at all ever. to clean my brushes I use Masters brush cleaner.

Mediums
M.Graham & Co. Walnut Alkyd Medium
Gamblin ColdWax Medium

Gamblin
Cerulean Blue Hue: pw4,pb15:1 Semi transparent
# Transparent Earth Red: pr101, Transparent
# Brown Pink pr101,pr149, Transparent
Radiant blue: pr29,pw6, Opaque
Radiant Red: pr149,pw6, Opaque
Radiant Yellow: py83,pw6, Opaque
Radiant Violet: pv 23,pw6, opaque
Radiant Green: Sample size
Quinacridone violet: pv19, transparent
# Transparent earth orange: py42,pr101, transparent
# Transparent earth yellow: py42, transparent
*Hansa Yellow Medium: py74

Holbein
Cinnabar Green: py43,53,128,pg36 Semi Opaque,
# Hydrangea blue: pb15, semi transparent

Winsor and Newton
Indigo:  pb15,pbk7,pb29 Transparent
* alizarin crimson: 1,2, pr83, Transparent
Naples Yellow: pw1,pw4,pbr24


Stevensons
# Cadmium Orange: po20,pr108 Opaque
# Paynes Grey:pbk11,pb29,
Cadmium Red Middle: pr108, Opaque
* Ultramarine Blue: pb29,
Azo Red Middle: pr188,pr170,pw4
* Titanium White: pw06, Opaque (Vehicle is safflower oil)
* Cadmium yellow Lemon: py35, opaque (I'll be switching to hansa yellow as my main colour when this is empty)


PBO XL (fast drying. matte colours)
Dioxazine purple: pv23, transparent
Raw umber:pbk7,pbr7, opaque
Titanium white: pw06, opaque
# Steel blue (x2): pb15, pb27,pbk7, semi opaque
English light green: pg7, pw6, py1,py65, semi opaque
Bright Green:pg7,py3, pw6, opaque
Crimson: pb3, semi opaque
Madder Carmine: pg8, pr5, pr12, Transparent
Green Earth: pg8, py3, pw6 semi opaque
Sap green: pg8 transparent
Yellow Ochre: py42, opaque
Cadmium yellow Deep imit.: po20,pw6,py65, semi transparent
Ultramarine Blue: pb29, Transparent
Cadmium yellow lemon imit.: pw6,py3, semi transparent
Cadmium red deep imit.:pr112,pr170, semi transparent
neutral grey: pbk7, pw6, opaque

Embers and Frost

Well, 3 paintings on one day! A new record. Safe to say I'm getting over my slump. Now that the weathers cooling off I will start getting back into Encaustics too!

Anyways, I broke out my airbrush on 'Noplan'; the painting in my last post, and the techniques I used in there made me want to experiment more with airbrush.
There is a very basic technique that must airbrushers come across by accident, and most times unhappily. YOu get it many ways: paint too thin, brush too close, too much paint released too fast... you get a dot, then these little tendrils of paint wiggle out all over ruining your perfect fuzzy dot! It can be frustrating to a beginner. I happen to think that the effect is pretty neat, and exploited it in 'Noplan' quite a bit.

Today I painted 2 paintings for the anonymous art show they're called "Embers" and "frost". They're a pair (diptych)  and they were both donw using the spidering technique with airbrush in a differnt way from "Noplan".

 

Embers came first with a light coat of a couple different yellows, I then added some cad orange into the yellow and kept spraying. I never cleaned out the colour before adding more, it gave it a more gradual  transition between colours. I really saturated this one, and let the air push around the thick puddles of colour. as the air focused on one area it would push colour away revealing the under colours and create neat funnels of overlapping colours. 

Frost was after, i had it painted upside down the whole time and it wasn't until i turned it over (to the way it is now) did I actually like it HAHA! i used a more standard spidering technique this time, but i did alot more "drilling" to the base colour in this one. Both were gessoed with canvas coloured gesso, to the warm colour of the gesso i think really looked great peeking through the really cold blues.

And there it is. Not all airbrushing is flaming Harley tanks, and naked women with badly proportioned bodies.

Noplan - Painting for Work

So we put paintings up in frames we have for sale at work to show how the frames look with stuff in them because frames are often difficult sells since people cant envision the way the frame could work with a painting.
Ann asked me to paint on a 11x14 canvas panel last week to put them in the new contemporary frames at work and so I did. I got a rough photo in my poorly lit home before I took it to work. It wasn't quite dry so there are some cloudy spots around the mesh. I'm going to take better photos at work on tuesday, in the frame as well so you can see that.

Here's my painting. Can you guess how I made it?

 

I'll Tell you: I gessoed the canvas with Tri-Art Canvas Gesso (canvas colour) and did some rough blue and green patters with dry brushing. I then Took my Iwata Airbrush and with some Createx Green, white, and Golden Blue's and greens (switched often without cleaning the brush between colours. gave some nice blended colours) I would let out alot of paint onto the board so I had a fair puddle, then releasing the air only (dual action airbrush necessary) I pushed the paint around letting it spider when it wanted to and creating all the ripples and variations in colour. I played around with that for quite a while. The paint was quite thick. I took some mesh and pressed it into the paint to make little rough mesh marks, and I also sprayed using the mesh as a stensil.Then I waited a bit for it to get at least dry enough to work with. While it was drying I spray painted some of the mesh green. I then tore the mesh into strips and layed them on the canvas board. I dumped some polymer medium over the mesh (straight from the bottle *plop plop*) and used a palette knife to spread it out. I left some sweeps of polymer over the larger area but kept it quite thick where the mesh was to hold it in place. I made some adjustments to the mesh when it got shuffled.

I then took some Schminke powdered pigment (bronze) and dumped and sprinkled it around (haha, pretty expensive to dump but I did it anyways!). Finally I took some other mesh scraps folded it up and scratched some of the paint off the canvas, and rubbed it to distress the canvas a little. I dragged some of the polymer around too. 

Thats it! Took less than 2 hours I think total, but it looks alright. WHen i have a better photo of it completely dry I'll post it available as a print :)

Alberta wax Flowers

I finally did another "painting"... Art, work, piece... whatever. The point is - its art, and i did it. God its so satisfying. watching my fingers as I type covered in Canvas coloured gesso, its like being back in my comfy clothes.



How its made: I had a regular cheap 8"x8" canvas and added a couple coats of Tri-Art Canvas gesso (canvas colour. Its like a buff). i dry brushed some Tri- Art Burnt Umber on there to grunge it up, and then did a bit of dry brushing of the Gesso again.

Once that was dry I got my tin of Gamblin cold wax and with a small palette knife spread a thin layer on. I used that layer to stick down my dried flowers. I then took the cold wax and carefully spread it all over the top of the flowers to hold them in place. I varied the thickness of the wax in some areas. the Wax is not transparent completely so it will stay opaque on some areas. it will stay pretty close to how it looks now when its dry. The result is some varied textures and opacity. I think it has a neat antique look to it.

What do you think?

verve gallery auction

MY art is up for auction (as well as others) on Ebay right now! proceeds go to the Boys and girls club of Canada! This is a collection of pieces that were painted by 6 artists of various backgrounds. The pieces were painted live at the RDS Skate Supply Lower Lonsdale Block Party and Skate Competition. Each artist was given a 3' x 4' canvas and some spray paint (compliments of Opus Framing and Art).

my painting is in it:

Charity Painting by `guruubii on deviantART

View Ebay Auctions: [link]

My painting for auction: [link]

Please pass this along and spread the word for the sake of the chillin's and for my ego. HAHA! its for a really good cause :)
Thanks guys!

2 oil paintings

Well last night was productive. i spent some time and finished the humming bird painting for mum. It doesn't photograph well, so I'll have to wait for a good day to take it outside once its dry and attempt a real photo.
I think it turned out rather well. thankfully I was able to salvage some of my fucked up areas.
I'm pretty pleased with how it turned out overall.
The lighting on the branches turned out well, and i think the composition is pretty good as well.
I'm not used to painting realism. Not since highschool had I any desire to really. But this was mothers request, so this is what she got. Not saying its "realism". It looks more fantasy to me ;p 8"x24" cradled panel.



I spent a good 8 hours yesterday painting my second painting. From one of my own photographs of Hoodoo's from Dinosaur national park in Alberta. I had a few very nervous times painting this one, let me tell you! the grass i had painted as solid masses, and then painted the negative space. since I'm used to working light to dark with my markers, I thought that would be an easy thing to do! Not so much! HAHA! I kept confusing myself with what i was doing. Part of a learning curve I suppose.
I'm pretty happy overall with this painting as well. I'm going to wait until I get a decent picture before posting it anywhere for prints.
15"x12" Hand stretched 12duck canvas. (and I didnt stretch it, but the person who did, sucked. I might have to restretch)

there we go! oil paintings! Woot. Now I'm off to spend the day creating more art with Jammy, at her house!

RDS block party

SO I googled the RDS block party and i found myself on a blog :p

Bottom Picture

LOL :p Wierd stage of the painting too HAHA!

My completed painting is going to be hanging in Verve Hair Lounge until its auctioned off. If you happen to be in North Vancouver, please stop by and see it :)


Charity Painting by `guruubii on deviantART

Working on Conflagration Bg's today. I dont know If I'm going to use the one I've done so far. Photoshop is easiest, but man it would look so much better traditionally....

Copics maybe?

I dont know...

Encaustics2 - evolution of decay

So Today was my second adventure in Encaustics. I'm doing pretty well with it i think, All things considered.
so there is my panting 'Decay'. It looks a little mouldy. I was surprised i ended up liking the finish result after my distressing melt-my-whole-painting-with-an-iron-and-watch-it-drip-on-the-floor fiasco.
So Encaustics is pretty interesting. If you haven't tried it, you should. its great fun :)
I used many transparent oil paint colours, R&F encaustic Medium (I'll be making my own from now on, i have 15lbs of beeswax, i just need to buy the resin), and some iridescent powdered pigment. Check it out:
Thats my little silicone muffin wrapper that I use as my palette XD I have tons of them I set them on a cookie sheet over the burners on my stove LOL. The irridescent looked like melted gold :D Neat!

I've discovered that the biggest enemies of encaustics are impatience, and too much heat. I burnt some of my pigment when I wasnt watching the temperature of my pots, and I melted off most of my painting when I had it looking pretty good, and I was never able to recover it. Oh well, Life goes on.


So here is a detail close up of the bottom corner. I used some Opaque pigment in Medium to achieve that mould look. I was surprised it turned out as well as it did. OMG I had one heck of a scare with it :D I accidently spread that colour over the whole thing HAHA! I melted it off though, thank goodness :B


I buffed it to a shiney shine with a nice soft cloth and I was pretty pleased with it over all.
If I was smart, I'd get painting that humming bird I need to do, but I'm out of mineral spirits too. Oh well :B HAHA!
Hope you like it :D




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Now playing on Winamp: Gordon Lightfoot - Wreck Of The Edmund Fitzgerald

Painting Updates

I have even more on the go now, HA HA! I can;t seem to stop starting new things and experimenting. I think my "on the go" painting count is up to 5 now. One Acrylic that will likely be finished in Oils since I'm not terribly fond of acrylic, one Oil abstract, the humming bird, once concept for an Encaustic painting, and a plein-Air piece that I probably wont touch anymore.

Okay First off, the Humming bird for my aunt Cathy. I work on it very infrequently because I am using oils, and a great deal of layering. I've gotten to a point where its starting to look done ish, but there is a lot of work to do on the branches in particular. The preview I've posted here is a bad photo that took a bit ago. Its drying in an awkward place with bad light so its hard to get a good picture and getting it down from its tower is a bit tricky. So deal with it. A good photo will come when it's finally done... Anyways, as you can see, its coming along. The humming bird is a little bit fantasy but you know... thats me bebeh!

I think it should be pretty nice when its done... I hope. When its done Mum will pay me the remainder.

What do you think? Any Suggestions for how I should finish it?


Next up, The encaustic painting I did today. Whoo! after so much anticipation I finally did one! HAHA! Anticipation for me anyways, I've had the supplies for so long now. I'm not 100% pleased with it. I think its a bit gloopy for me, but I still like the effects, and I had fun doing it. The luminosity of it is really stunning.
I used a few transparent oil colours, and some B.C. Beeswax, and R&F encaustic Medium since I havent gotten up the courage to make my own medium yet (and i haven't got the Resin... its sitting on hold at work).

I painted with it on my easel in a verticle position to get the nice drips, and I even took a heat gun and melted spots on the panel to create some lighter areas where the wood of the panel shows though and make more drips. I like the over lapping textures of the smooth wax pouring over the scrumbly wax.

I collaged a couple bone photos into it as well, as an experiment for a future project. Overall It turned out well and it was a promising experiment to lead into more adventurous encaustic work.

I've got a little Plein-air wet canvas carying apartatus I'm going to share on Experimental Guru later on as well! I made it to hold and carry my wet canvases when we went plein-air painting last weekend. It served very useful! That should be interesting! check it out :D

Airbrush painting

Posted my first real painting with an airbrush last night. I am so pleased with it :)
I used a series of home made stencils for the background, and freehand the bottom half with airbrush. Then i painted some gouache details, and a bit of beach on the ground, and finally painted in all the mist in the BG. that's when I though I should pull some colour up to the top and added some of the orange foliage. I then pulled off the stencil masking off Bala, and coloured her in markers. Some of the airbrush sprayed underneath the stencil, and that worried me at first, but in the end I think it helped create some unity with her environment.
What do you think?

Encaustics

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Now playing on Winamp: Tracy Chapman - Cold Feet
via FoxyTunes WOO! so there was an Encaustics demo at Opus today, and I was so happy to be able to see it all! It was definitely inspiring and totally awesome! I'm going to be experimenting with this technique as soon as possible!
For those that don't know, Encaustics is painting with pigmented wax! it has an awesome depth and texture to it!

I've also found that I have developed a considerable bank of knowledge in regards to traditional art supplies in my head. As a result I've now started a separate blog for the purpose of sharing that information. its called Experimental Guru! I'd love if you followed it. I'll not only be adding all my product knowledge in the form of reviews, but also tutorials, general technical information, studio safety information, and other tidbits of information. I'll also be making sure to properly tag and organize the blogs so that you can easily browse and search.

If you have tutorials please leave a comment linking to them over on that blog so I can properly promote your tutorials and information as well! lots of stuff from the United states (and around the world for that matter) I dont know about or have access to, so if you have related information on specifics, I can add that to my list :D

I'm pretty excited!

My new oil painting is still too wet to apply my tape layer. I think I have at least another week to wait! HA! I should have done the base layer in acrylics so it would dry fast, but - live and learn.
My Hummingbird painting is finally dry enough to work on the next layer so I will be doing that this weekend I hope as well.
I've got 2 TruFax comics in the works right now, that I should be posting one of this weekend as well.

**New, Trufax #2 posted today!

Abstract and WIP

I completed an abstract painting a week or 2 ago, but its still as wet as the day I painted it in some places. I Photographed it anyways, since spring is coming and here that means the sun and cloud swap out all day.

I also Photographed another stage of WIP of my painting for Aunt Cathy. (seen here) I ran out of mineral spirits but it's starting to come together it seems. I'm quite fond of the Transparent Red Earth, and the Brown Pink Gamblin paints I got! They are exactly the colours I needed! thank goodness!

I was a little hesitant about painting an animal without an under drawing, but it seems to be turning out okay so far! I like the structure the bird has, and I like how hes looking in contrast to the BG so far. Nice! i ran out of mineral spirits right in the middle of my painting, and I couldn't stretch it anymore so I had to stop.

I'm doing some caricature portraits of some people at work that will be working their way into the mini comics I started. The Comics will be posted on Drunk Duck and you can always see the updates on the feed on this blog to the side. Hope you like them!

About Abstract

I'll admit, I always hated abstract. I never saw the point of it! i never thought it took much skill or had that much emotional basis, or any skill to do. Now that I've done some myself, I'm seeing things differently. It's art work based out of pure passion for art - the need to create. I find myself just eager to do it more and more. I don't have to worry about anatomy, or structure. I can take the knowledge I've gained and just let go. I can create compositions and arrays of colours without needing it to necessarily make sense. Actually it was 2 people who brought me out of my abstract shell - Limnides, & Ladydove7. Seeing their work made me see the passion in these types of work. Then I started going to galleries where they had so much abstract it blew my mind, and I actually started to understand and enjoy looking at them as well.

Anyways, so thats all for today. I haven't done anything interesting with Conflagration unfortuntely :(

New painting

I did a new oil painting last night. It looks all right I think. It's got some pretty heavy layers of wax and paint so It will be a while before its dry enough to take out and photograph, and it will never be scannable.
I've noticed a trend when I pick up a panel to do an abstract, I tend to lean towards Greens or Purples. I wonder why that is? It's not really something I see mirrored in all my work, just in abstract.

I wonder who else has little quirky things like that? Do share :D

First Posts are the hardest

Well, Here we go. First posts are always a little awkward :p

I'll summarize my intentions :)

Starting this year, I plan to really gear towards being "an artist" as opposed to being a freelancer with small jobs filling spare time.
This year I'm starting to keep better records of my expenses and claiming them, as well as making better receipts and tracking of commissions and freelance work.

I'm also planning on answering more calls for artists and getting my work in local galleries. Decembers Anonymous art show where I sold my painting was pretty awesome, I'd like to do more of that!

Kitty and I are also planning on attending any and all comic conventions we can this year to sell art work and the Daqueran comics. Very exciting!

I spent a few hours modifying a template to make this blog layout so I hope you like the look!

What to Expect here:

• I'll be posting sketches and works in progress for Conflagration and other Projects
• Posts about my achievements and trials of working on the projects
• Status reports of the projects!

Should be a lot of fun I hope :D