Saturday, June 30, 2007

Weird locusts


A small sketch of my new painting project which is about these locusts that look like horses. What more is there to say?

Friday, June 29, 2007

Two works finished



Woops, got so carried away with painting that I didn't keep up with all the step by steps. It was the NYC heatwave. I couldn't go out so I just sat in front of my easel. Sometimes, for variety, I stood in front of my easel.
Here's the two pieces: The Losing Team and Blow. I'm loving doing this work but today I must go out and buy more paint. I'm using a lot more paint with this technique than I used to. And brushes: I'm messing up my little brushes, which I never even used before.
I'm curious if anyone will figure out they are apocalypse paintings and/or assign hidden meanings to them.

Sunday, June 24, 2007

Losing Team



Here's what I'm up to with the Losing Team. It says: "You find yourself on the losing team", on the upper curve of the yellow part. I traced the curve, then I scanned it into Illustrator and picked out a suitable typeface. I used the pen tool to create a curved path that matched the scanned curve and wrote the words. Had to do it 3 times: the first time the words were too big, the second one, I lost, and finally got it right. Lesson: next time, do a bunch of different sized types. I also decided to paint the halo around the lamb in gold.
And also, here's the finished drawing for Blow. I have to decide on the color scheme.
My next project will be the locust that look like horses and eat you. I bet you can't wait to see that one.

Monday, June 18, 2007

Blow


Here's the smaller piece I started. It's about 12X16. From the Escorial Beatus, if you are interested. It's one of the trumpets blown but I forget which one...the second? Anyway, I liked the tones of brown. Sorry, the photo is a little skewed.

Sunday, June 17, 2007

3 Against 1



OK, I cheated a little. 3Against1 is already finished. It took....maybe 2 weeks to do. It's not that hard ...sort of coloring in the lines. Maybe I shouldn't admit to how easy it is? I drew this one 'sort of' free hand. Meaning I did graph it out but changed the figures as I went along. Artistic vision or lousy math? I don't know but I can never fit the image in the grids I make.
But I'm having so much fun doing these paintings that I've started 2 more...REALLY and truly just started them yesterday. Here's one of the beginnings. I think I'm calling it: the losing team.

Saturday, June 16, 2007

Final Version and something new



Ok, here's the final, I think, version of The woman and the Dragon. I had to do some final touch-ups on the outer frame. I tried making it look old and antique but it just looked like a dirty canvas. So I redid the whole thing in white and painted the edges in Paynes grey. I also studied some other versions of the same image and realized that my instincts had been right. That wasn't St. Michael on the upper left: that's the woman. So I had to redo my little narrative that I had written in the spaces where the original had Latin 'stuff', to include the woman's part of the story. And I added a little guy in the lower right corner, for my own amusement. So I think it's done.
And here's the next piece I'm working on for BWAC's Big show. To me, it's not so big: 60X36,