Speaking of dusty toys, my faithful G1 phone had its graphics card die out on it (strange, I know) – but thanks to friends, a replacement is on its way. Meanwhile, I am strangely enjoying being a bit less connected for a while.

It seems I ramble more on DA than I have been here. Hence Almost all the writing I did in February was over there. While I’d meant to cross-post, its just not that easy. I suspect I need to create some kind of cross-platform publishing and reading tool. Its hard to keep up with all the blogs, microblogs and various communities, let alone create content for them all.

I have been painting and drawing more, if a bit more slowly. Part of it is working on larger (for me) pieces, and part of it is paintings winding up in odd places. I’ve had the pleasure in recent weeks of meeting Syd Meade, Ian McCaig and Craig Mullins, and managed to get a spot in an upcoming workshop with Erik Tiemens.

We’ve had a few visitors over the last month as well – its always good to see old friends! We are all in the throws of parenthood it seems now, and handling it in our own ways.

Starcraft 2 hit public beta, and has put a serious dent in my painting time (nobody’s fault but my own). I’m terrible, down at the bottom of the copper league, but the matchmaking system does ensure a good match.

A few weeks ago we broke out the hibachi, and started spring early. Nothing like grilling meat over an open flame. Makes me miss some of our cookouts in SF tho.

Signs of age – everyone you know is having back trouble, joint trouble or some other kind of medical malady…

That’s it for now, see you in pixels!

This is probably obvious to anyone who’s been serious about watercolor, or had some training. Since I’ve been kind of winging it, I figure it’s good to take notes

Last year, I started leaving out a tray of pan colors, some brushes, and several bits of paper to deface next to my desk in a quest to actually get Something Done™.  Whenever I have the urge to check a webpage or whatever, I try and channel that into painting instead. Once back from holiday break, I modified my routines somewhat, and here’s what I’ve found.

Leaving trays of fry pans covered is one thing, dried tube colors uncovered is quite another, dust becomes a problem. Plastic palettes are a thing of the devil, and stain entirely too easily.

Paper matters, a lot – especially when scrubbing or blending. Some paints will affect absorbency on the other side of the paper, which only matters if you decide to use both sides.

This brings us to materials in general – you should get the best stuff you can (which may not always be the most expensive), it will help when you’re painting, it really will. Not struggling to make a light wash or mix your colors can make all the difference.

The faster you can pick up and execute, the more likely you are to do so. Execution starts the moment you start thinking about an image. The more heinous cleanup is, the less likely you are to get started.

In my case, the larger the image size, the more “precious” I get. Its easier to throw out the 1″ study than it is to ditch the 6×9 mess. It is generally better to throw out than it is to try to fix, at least in my case, with painting. I take the lesson and try to be thankful. I’m trying to get over the precious thing, honestly.

Pan colors are awesome for sketching, portability and speed. They are terrible for larger images, mixing colors, and large light washes. YMMV, but tubes are better for “studio” work.

Painting from live subjects is invaluable! It seems like my best (and worst) images come from life studies. I’m only now becoming confident enough to forgo doing a light pencil sketch first.

This is probably obvious to anyone who’s been serious about watercolor, or had some training. Since I’ve been kind of winging it, I figure it’s good to take notes

At work, our visiting artists series has returned, providing another source of inspiration.

While here I’ve been posting the whole process of my recent study of painting, over at deviant art I’ve been posting what I consider to be the best of my little studies. I finally moved up in frame size to a larger image (6×9) and surely enough, its slowed me down a bit as I try to plan it more.

I’ve signed back up for version 4 of the pixel corps – it will be interesting because I did notice that the year I gave to PXC was also a year in which I drew almost nothing traditionally… now it seems all I post is traditional.

My thanks to ninja mountain, gurneyjourney, project waldo, deviant art, et al. for providing inspiration, information and plenty of motivation.

Now I just need to figure out how to juggle blogger, livejournal, facebook, deviant art, pixel corps and linkedin in a useful way. To the 2 or so people that read this dreck, thanks!

Here’s what my space was looking like part way through December. It seems as though painting feeds on itself, or it has for me recently. This time around I had more severe failures and what I hope are more coherent successes. I’ve been trying new colors on my palette, and testing various pigments. Not reflected here are the numerous sketchbook images I’ve been doing. I’ve been reading voraciously anything I can find on the subject of painting in general and watercolor in particular. More details and images after the jump!

Working on such tiny images has made me jump up to larger images at last, where I can experiment more with composition and color. This also means more planning, which I’m still getting used to. In some ways I’ve been planning unconsciously – I seem to visit the same types of subjects and compositions over and over again. In some cases I’ll find a resemblance to something I’ve seen recently in the throwaway sketch I’ve just done.

I think larger sizes also make me a bit slower in execution, fussing more about details and being perhaps more patient when waiting for layers to dry. Strangely, I find I prefer the physical act of painting to attempting the same task digitally. I’d rather redo than undo. I get twice the paintings that way! There is also something refreshing about the tangibility of it all.

It also means that digitizing is a separate step, fraught with color errors and other artifacts. Somehow, I’m OK with this. I’ve started posting selected images from the tinies at Deviant Art. The DA community may be the kindest, gentlest way to get honest feedback on your work, I recommend them highly.

My first ‘comic shop’ before I knew such things existed was this place. It’s changed hands a few times, but the store is the same, and they still sell comics.

It may seem odd, but in a career of over 20 years in the arts I have studiously avoided painting. For 14 years I have carried around with me a gem of a paintbox (a gift from my dear wife) which had, until recently, been used mostly for a quick splash of tone on a line drawing.

Taking a cue from an old colleague, and some recent ones, I decided to setup my paints and a healthy supply of paper near my desk, so that when I’m in need of a rest for the eyes or stuck on a thorny problem, I can try and learn something of painting. Yesterday I managed to fill my available display space on my ‘wall of shame’.

Of the 40 odd little images, there are maybe 8 I like, and of those 4 that I really like. But at the rate of several little studies per week, it is exhilerating, and brings back some of the joy and exploration that drew me to art in the first place. I intend to fill the space again, and hopefully improve my numbers

Here are the 4 I like. This red head here on the right is the first, she’s all of an inch across. It will come as a surprise to no one that the ones I like tend to be fairly cartoonish, after all, I did spend a fair bit of time as an animator. Red here is of course one of the more recent of the lot, and the oldest of the four .

Next up is a brunette pirate, shouting enthusiastically from the crows nest. Second eldest in this mini-collection, I’d be lying if I said my daughter’s obsession with pirates didn’t help shape this. Amusingly, the next day she got a spyglass of her very own, having never seen this mini.

Another one inspired by my daughter, this time from a trip to a local park. The trees were elderly and groomed for easy climbing. At some branch intersections, small pools of water had formed, which gave Kae a perfect place to practice her splashing technique. One of my favorite old gags is making tiny things huge, and this was the result. Maybe someday I’ll shoot them with a tilt/shift for extra silly

Last image of the set, and of course one of the newest in the whole batch. Trick or treat is getting near, and this is my take on a witch. She had had companions at one point, it had been meant to be a much softer image, but as painting progressed it seemed much stronger this way. As with all the others, this painting is a wee thing of an inch or so tall, fast enough to make that I don’t fret over it too much, and not enough space to get bogged down in unimportant details.

If you’re one of the few humans that actually read this, thanks for stopping by! I hope you enjoyed seeing them as much as I enjoyed creating them.

After a morning at the beach, what better way to end the evening than a midnight snack at disneyland?