Wednesday, December 22, 2010

Friendly Skies

On Monday I'll be flying up to Massachusetts for a week to spend some time with my extended family. I hate flying. Traveling through airport security is a hassle, and I always get cramped up in tiny seats with no leg room

I came up with the idea for this painting waiting for my flight home from San Diego Comic Con. I don't know what was about the prospect of spending five hours in a Boeing 737 and dealing with jet lag upon landing that inspired me, but it did.


The final composite sketch was done on several layers of tracing paper - something I tried after getting a few pointers from the great Chris Payne at the Illustration Academy this past summer.

 
Here I did value and color studies in Photoshop. Values first using a layer set to Multiply, then colors on top of them using another layer set to Color. It helps me tremendously to have an idea what the value and color scheme is supposed to look like before trying to paint the finish.


And this is the finish, done in watercolor, gouache and ink on Arches 140 lb. cold-press watercolor paper. I'm quite pleased at how it turned out, especially the clouds. I still haven't figured out how that saddle is attached to the bird.

Monday, December 20, 2010

Train of Thought

I'll be back in Washington for the next couple of weeks for winter break.

I love trains.They are my main method of getting from home to campus and back. The train is nicer than the bus, and I don't have to worry about running into traffic on I-95. Here are a couple sketches I've done on the Northeast Regional:



 Sketching on a moving train can be challenging, especially on the Northeast Regional line between Washington and Newport News. Unlike the rest of the Northeast Regional line, the Virginia portion of the route is actually freight track that Amtrak shares with CSX. It's not as difficult as drawing on a moving bus, though.

Then there's the Cow Catcher incident:


This past October when I was heading from Richmond to Washington, the train hit a snag on the rail which bent the cow catcher under one of the wheels. We had to sit there for a couple of hours until Amtrak could send out their mobile maintenance to fix the problem, otherwise there was a threat of derailment. I guess the train isn't immune to mechanical gremlins, but I'd rather be stranded on a train than on a bus.

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Solomons, MD




Every year my mother rounds up the whole extended family and brings us all down to Solomons, MD for some quality time together. It's pretty far out there (Calvert County, on the banks of the Patuxent river - about 90 minutes from Washington, DC and 90 minutes from Annapolis).

These were my first real attempts at drawing with a chisel-tip pigment liner (Prismacolor Fineliner). It definitely has its advantages in terms of adding large areas of tone. It took me a while to get the hang of it but I think these turned out alright.

Post Number One

So I have a blog now.

Here's some artwork.

A couple from the sketchbook:



One more from the sketchbook, drawn at the Smithsonian Natural History Museum: