Rubik's Turns 30

I recently found out that the Rubik's Cube, which I have spent many frustratingly fun hours solving in my lifetime, turns 30 this year: http://www.rubiks.com/World/Rubiks%2030.aspx

Of course, I've only captured the winning moment in my piece Mastery, shown below (e-mail me with purchase inquiries).

Drawing Magazine Article

I am so excited to be featured in an article in the Winter 2010 edition of American Artist Drawing magazine! The article talks about my path to becoming an artist, as well as some of the techniques used in my hands and self portrait drawings in colored pencil. You can subscribe to Drawing magazine on the Artist Daily website or order a copy of the Winter issue here: http://www.interweavestore.com/Art/Drawing-Magazine/Drawing-Winter-2010.html

People's Choice Award

I just found out that "Coming Clean", above, won the People's Choice Award at the CPSA Chapter 112 "H2O" Exhibition. I'm so honored that people chose my piece as their favorite!

This piece will also be in the upcoming American Juried Art Salon Fall-Winter Exhibition, which is scheduled to open online at www.artjury.com on December 12th.

Fall Offering

Fall Offering

9"x12"

$500

I finished "Fall Offering", shown above, and have added it to my online Hands Collection. Today I also started working on a larger figurative piece, which I hope to post soon.

Fall Offering - Work in Progress

I started a small (9"x12") piece this week on Pastelbord using Neocolor II watersoluble pastel crayons underneath colored pencil, and I thought I'd post the step-by-step progress. I don't always apply the Neocolors in block colors like this, and this was kind of an experiment to see how dark I could get the background. One word of caution - if the Neocolors are applied too thickly, the Pastelbord will resist any additional colored pencil on top. I learned this the hard way! This piece isn't quite done yet, but I wanted to get it mostly done so that I could finish it up on Monday and work more on a larger piece I have started (more on that later).

"Coming Clean" - Done!

Here is the finished piece! I ended up adding more warm tones to counteract some of the strong bluish-purples on the lower portion of the hand, but the reflections are still cool overall. I also smoothed out the texture in some areas, and added water dripping from the fingers. This was a fun piece for me - I really enjoyed all of the detail in the hands with the veins and water droplets. It's amazing how many colors go into skin other than just the typical peach, tan, and brown!

Hands Progress 8

Now that I've done some work on the fingers below the hand, I think that the cool tones on the hand are appropriate. I may still add some brown to tone down some of the blue tones, but in general I think it looks realistic, along with the cool reflections on the fingers. Next I will work on the water dripping from the hands. After that, I will evaluate the piece as a whole, make finishing touches, and then it will be ready to be photographed and added to my Hands Collection.

Hands Progress 7

As I mentioned yesterday, I am adding cooler tones on the bottom of the hand, which are reflections coming up from the water below. Here you can see the cooler tones, which look unusually bluish-purple next to the unfinished fingers. I will move on to working on the fingers next so that I can evaluate the colors in context, and then I might adjust the tones a bit.

Hands Progress 6

Today's update on my latest Hands piece shows some my progress on some of the darker shadows. The light is coming from above in this piece, and also is coming in from a window, which is why the highlights are cast with a bluish tone. The shadows, on the other hand, are warmer. When I reach the bottom edges of the hands and fingers, I will add cool reflections coming from the water below.

Hands Progress 5

Well I did end up making some progress today, mostly because I have so much free time being unable to do much at all with this injury! I've worked on the water spilling over the hand, and also the top portion of the right hand a bit. Sometimes when drawing hands I force myself to move on to another section because I can get carried away with the detail in the texture of the skin!

Hands Progress 4

Well, here's a small update - I'm starting to work on the thumbs and water stream. It will be slow-going for the next few days though, because I have an ankle injury that requires rest and elevating my leg, which makes it very difficult to work on art. I hope to be back in full force after the 4th of July though, so stayed tuned!

Hands Progress 3

And now the fun begins! I've started using colored pencils in the wrist area toward the top left-hand corner. As I mentioned earlier, I want the skin to look more realistic, so the tones are significantly subdued from the neocolor painting shown in the previous entry.

As a side note, my hands and wrists do look pretty veiny in warm weather, but I also like to magnify the intensity of the veins and skin texture in my hands artwork.

My Next Hands Piece

I'm starting another Hands piece, based on some photos that I set up and shot of my own hands. I am doing this piece on another type of Rtistx panel, the 420 series, which is designed for watercolor. I am going to do an underpainting using Neocolor II watersoluble pastel crayons, and then go over the piece with colored pencil. In the first progress photo shown here, you can see my initial sketch and I have applied neocolor pastels to the entire piece, using white and light blue for the background. In the second photo, I have applied water to the piece, letting the colors blend together. I am not worrying about detail at this point, as I will be covering much of the piece with colored pencil. The bright colors will also be significantly subdued, once the pencil is added.

Drawing Hands

I've noticed that when I do a portrait with hands, people will comment how real the hands look, sometimes without mentioning the face at all. At first I was surprised by this, but I think that the hands can be an important element in a successful portrait. Hands are expressive - think of what a person conveys with their hands tightly clasped, revealing white knuckles. Now think of what a person is saying with their hands at rest, palms open. Sometimes hands along with a person's body language can be more revealing than their facial expression (which in general we're pretty good at faking). For this reason, I like to take my time rendering hands. In fact, I've decided to do a few pieces of hands alone - this first one is appropriately titled "Witness First Hand".