Art Share: November!

So, at the beginning of November I had a request for art and creativity from people I knew, as well as people that read my blogs. I used my birthday as a guilt trip for art, but in the future I won't use such a tactic.

Here's what people contributed during this round. Please note I do not own any of the artwork, except for where I note that it's my piece. Any copyright infringement/art theft is responsible by the person that submitted the work.

Mike Larsen

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Rafael Villapando

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Nicholas Ferguson

The sea is calm,
Making a lite shhh as it softly cascades up and down the rocky beach.
The wind begins to pick up,
Whistling as it moves between the blades of the grass that lies further up the bank.
The rain starts,
...Beating a slow tap tap taptaptap on the surface of the water.
Lightening peals down the sky,
Thunder starts a slow, rolling growl.
The wind becomes a gale,
Whistling turns to howling as wind passes between everything.
The waves become swells,
Crashing against the rocks, sounding like a ferocious onslaught of symbols smashing together.
The rain becomes hail,
And the tempo of falling ice increases.
Lightning flashes everywhere,
Thunder rapidly crescendos.
And then, all at once,
Energy seems to dissipate and everything becomes calm and serene once more.

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A line scrawled across a page,
It's meaning lost ages ago.
A sentence stopped dead,
With words unsaid.
A painting full of color,
...Yet still lacking.
A song full of words,
But devoid of emotion.
A dusty camera,
With a burned out bulb.
A sculpture,
Missing it's final touches.
A poem that lies unwritten.
The things Artists suffer from,
The things that Artists strive for,
Are what makes an Artist stronger.

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Sandy Stokes:

Editor and Co-Publisher of La Conner Weekly News

the grass froze last night
sun sparkles in white crystals
crunching under shoes

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Danni Wilkins

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Starr Arens

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Candace Feingold,  with Kelly and Tara Gilkey

There once were two medium sized monsters named Zebo and Stonkerston. They were the outcasts in their home of Stronkstonville because they weren’t part of the Big or Small monster club. They were medium monsters. The leaders of the big and ...small monster club bullied poor Zebo and Stonkerston. It was sad. One day the MT&T started a contest for the monsters to create an advertisement for MT&T. The winner got a remodel of their school. The big and little monsters had ideas but nothing connected them. They wanted to create an ad to show the bars for the company. However, they had a medium sized problem; they didn’t have a medium bar. Just then they realized that they needed the medium monsters Zebo and Stonkerston. The Big and Littles went to Zebo and Stonkerston to ask them to help with the advertisement. Zebo and Stonkerston agreed to help only if the Big and Littles would stop bullying them. The Big and Littles agreed to stop and shook hands with each other. All of the monsters won the contest and Zebo and Stonkerston were never bullied again.

THE END

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And of course, my own work that I did between the time the event started and ended (even though it wasn't a Requirement).

Music Art

I've been doing some music-related art for some awesome people, primarily my roommate Rtist, and awesome Norwegian musician, Binärpilot.

Here is some of the artwork I've been doing for both of them, as well as some links to their stuff.

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Below is the base artwork for Rtist's "University on Fire" for the project he's called Soul Searching. Being his roommate, I'm constantly hearing the mixes and work that goes into it, so I'm a little biased, but I like it. I also get to work with someone on creating art. Doubleplus!

You can find the download site through this shortened link: http://dft.ba/-3Tz
For now this is a temporary link, and he hopes to allow the downloads on a more "stable" site. Being his roommate, I should have the replacement link before anyone notices it's down.

This was using GIMP once again, and my tablet. The lens flare was added the very last on my end, (on GIMP, if you can believe it), and I dig it a whole bunch.
Here's the version he put out with the song (which is downloaded with the song in the link above).

I also did an alternative version, which was more of my vision than my roommate's. If you prefer this version, then when you download the song you can grab this one and swap it out on iTunes. I think with all of the covers I'll do at least two versions, unless both of our visions are one.

I sketched out the emblem on GIMP, but then built the whole image in Inkscape.

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These are "bumper cards" for Binärpilot's music video of "Underground" off of his new album, Nordland. I've been pretty active about spreading the album, so I did a review for it, and he asked me to do artwork for him on the music video. Also, you can order a hardcopy of the album here.

First off, here's the video for the song:



And below is the artwork:

If you've seen some of my latest posts, especially this one, then you know I'm really into black-and-white graphics at the moment (while still dabbling with color).

Both of these were sketched and worked out in GIMP, and then touched up in Inkscape, especially the word and "record-ball" in Underground, and the screen on the monitor.

Have a great Sunday!

Art Sharing Challenge!

My birthday is coming up in the next few weeks, and people keep asking me what I want for my birthday. Honestly, a lot of things for this list, but one thing I thought would be really interesting is to ask a lot of people to draw/create something and put it out into the world.

So, I'm using my birthday as more leverage to get people to do something creative and share it with the world. it may sound narcissistic and selfish, but it's for the Greater Creative Community!

So, pick up your pencils, pens, paintbrushes, and any other instruments of Awesome, and create something. It can be a poem, a dance routine, video, sculpture, sketch, doodle, painting, etc. Anything! The emphasis is on Creating and Creativity!

Post a link to your creation here as a comment, or on the Facebook event (but please not both).

All submissions must be posted/linked by the end of November 21st (wherever you live), and sometime in the following week I will have a post (or a series of them) showcasing everyone's creativity!

Just remember that the response time to share the posts is directly related to the volume of said posts.

Go forth and Create, and spread the news!
The shortened link is: http://dft.ba/-ArtShare

Have an awesome end of week!

Recent Stuff

I was looking through a lot of folders of artwork and pictures of such artwork, and I realized I haven't posted some of them, so that's what I'm gonna do.

-Enjoy!

My Nightmare Before Christmas Jack-O Lantern of Jack Skellington! Everyone I was carving with was doing Disney themed characters, so mine technically fits. Design from scratch.

Part of the pumpkin collapsed, so I decided to try and save it by making it into a crown. Half success!

 Before I left the newspaper, I drew a little cartoon of a Newspaper Fiend on the whiteboard. This is where the staff writes what is incoming for each week and what's held, etc. so it was taking up too much space. To remedy that, I decided to ink a more permanent piece that wouldn't intrude with routine.

And voila! It's all grown up, and still enjoying chewing on papers! The frame I had I got from a thrift store. It was all torn up and dinged, so it looked like the "fiend" was trying to get out.

At meals, I've been drawing requests on napkins (I may snag all the photos other people have of them and compile them here soon). Anyway, my brother made a Deadmau5 costume for Halloween, and I decided to give him a gift to go with it. Double BAMF Deadmau5!

I find it ironic that I've been drawing on napkins a lot--the chat-drawing program on the threads I drew these on is called Napkin.

My friend Ethan, the one with the board, is living closer to me, so we've been trading art back and forth. We've been posting artwork on each other's doors to find, almost like a weird conversation. I'm gonna take pictures of mine and his, and hopefully in the future readers can follow the "conversation" on here.

Board Reveal

This post is Ethan-friendly, because if this is posted, then he's seen the completed works, and now all of you get to see it. If you are lost about the references, check out the first post about this project.

Also, the idea of me even wanting to paint on skateboards was originally inspired by the amazingly wonderful Tran Nguyen when she painted a skateboard here, here, and here. Tran, you are so awesome!

If you're too lazy or focused on this post--my friend Ethan is a skater and wanted a blank board arted up. He gave me creative license over everything. His only stipulation was that he wanted to sign it when it was finished.

The board stayed in my room for about a week before my paint supplies were moved up here, and then another week while I prepared. Over this past week I've been dabbling on painting. The majority of it was done before class on my slower days, and then at night while my roommate was out--so that I wouldn't be in the way or tempted to play Halo: Reach with him.

Here is the process, from start to finish, in a series of pictures. Some of them are grainy/glared because I was using overhead lights instead of natural light--because it was night.

At the end of this post, I'll list the colors of paints I used for which parts, just because I know people are gonna ask me.

Original sketches during one of my meals.
The image of the squid/octopus seemed to be my mind's main focus.

Before I went to painting, I needed to play with colors and design, so I sketched it out using GIMP and my Genius Tablet, as usual. I really wanted to use all these blues and greens, and then set it all off with the bright, hot pink.

The board, with a sketch from a China marker, seen with my usual acrylic set up and newspaper to keep messes to a minimum.

Off to a good start. I was really surprised how easily the fluid acrylic covered the large areas I needed painted first. I was experimenting with color mixes, and because of how bright the sky was, I decided to change my original intent for the squid's psychedelic color pattern in my original digital draft.

After a few layers on the sea to get a variety of tones, I realized it got really dark, and that it would dry a little darker. It was here that I officially decided to change the squid's color to something less blue...

And that color was pink! I mixed varying levels of pink to get these nice tones for light and shadow effects. This is more of the "natural" image we have of Architeuthis and his kin, even though they are more naturally red/white and every other color.

I mixed even darker tones for more dramatic shadows, and decided to put some seafoam on those peaks.

Started using white and black for highlights and defining details. Notice the bubbles, wave peaks, and seagulls.

 Hanging in Ethan's room after the reveal. We just have to figure out where we want to sign our names.  Additional highlights and details were added all over to give the depth I wanted.

Here's Ethan's response. I was originally going to ask him what he thought it was, but he turned around right away because he hadn't pictured anything in his mind.



By the way, he loves it!


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And as promised, the color list:

All of these colors are Golden, Fluid Acrylics. They're higher-grade and a little more expensive than some other ones, but they work for me.

Sky: Titanium White and Primary Cyan
Sea: Ultramarine Blue, Phthalo Green, and Primary Cyan
Squid skin (varying tones): Titanium White, Pyrrole Red, and Pyrrole Orange
Seafoam: Titanium White, Primary Cyan, and Chromium Oxide Green
Squid skin (dark): Titanium White, Pyrrole Red, Quinacridon Burnt Orange
Eyes: Hansa Yellow Medium and Titanium White

Thread Art, Part One

Thought I'd share the artwork I've been doing on Binärpilot's Community (Binärmmunity) threads. A few requests were even made, and I carried them out pretty quickly.

Also, these were done in the threads' drawing option on the comment box. You can only draw in black, erase to white, make each brush smaller/larger, and undo something (no redo). The simplicity is very liberating. And also Zen-like. I used a mouse on this first one (I was at work), and on one other that I actually mention in the pic.

I'm putting them altogether here so one can scroll through and see the progression, and see all of them in one spot without getting lost in the threads.

Enjoy!
(By the way, they're enlargeable).

Due to the onslaught of dino-related scribblings by fellow Binärites, a separate Dinosaurs! thread was created:

At the same time, I started a separate thread for Artwork--discussions and fan-made artwork. This was when I was experimenting with the full-black, while drawing in white process:

Back to the Dinosaurs! thread:

I was requested to draw "a T-rex battling a Triceratops, where the T-rex wins"--and that's what I did.

When I asked for anymore requests, I received "man flying in space rocket away from dinosaurs in space suits with big guns and metal claws?"--and this too I completed.

On the Artwork thread, I started doodling one of my (apparently) favorite things: Squids!

Although the piece "Robot Fighting the Kraken Whilst Proclaiming the Release of Binärpilot's Nordland to an Onlooking and Perplexed Lighthouse Keeper" is technically the newest piece (as of posting this post), the following one will finish this post:

A request of "A triceratops with magic(?) powers killing a T-rex. Magic powers could mean anything, I guess. Laser beams 'n shit like that." The original T-rex vs. Triceratops was part of a jaunt between two friends over who would win. This last one was requested by the same person, as a consolation for the first.

 
So yeah, these are my thread-based artworks, and now I'm off to bed.