SmART School Week 8

Those of you keeping track might have noticed that there was no Week 7 post.

Right on the tail of the class before last, I was ill - and then I went down to Florida to be with my Dad as we said goodbye to my grandfather. He died on the 19th, a Sunday, and though I was back in New York in time for last week's class, I hadn't actually gotten a chance to draw or paint at all since the previous week. So I showed up for class more or less to just be there, and painted as much as I could after it ended, and didn't bother to write a post about it.

And then I walked into one of the worst weeks at work I've had in a while, and didn't get a chance to make art at all until yesterday.

It's been rough, man.

I did get a lot done yesterday, but I feel awful over how much time I've lost. There's nothing to be done but to go forward with a fire, though.

Whiskey and Water

About a week and a half ago, as I sat in a panel at Illuxcon, something amazing happened: an email landed in my inbox from Elizabeth Bear, about doing a cover for an ebook version of her novel Whiskey and Water - to go live October 4th.

For those of you who don't know, I've been a big fan of Elizabeth Bear and her books for years - those of you who've been with me for a while might remember that two years ago, as pieces for school, I painted mock covers for several of her novels, Whiskey and Water included. The deadline for this was insane, but there was no way I wasn't taking the job.

That evening, I thumbnailed while waiting on line to get my Showcase table, surrounded by great artists, friends, who were excited to help me bounce ideas around.

I sent Bear this thumbnail the next day, on Saturday. On Sunday, I collared Drew Baker just before he was about to leave, and took my reference.

At this point, between the incredible weekend of Illuxcon and the fact that I was working on my first book cover commission, for Elizabeth Bear, due in less than two weeks, I was more or less in a screaming panic - which is why this is the first drawing that I did:

This is where last week's SmART School class came in - and it is thanks to Rebecca Guay that what I turned over for Bear's approval was this instead:

I turned around revisions the next day, character details that I'd neglected or forgotten. I'm really, deeply grateful that this was a book that I'd read and gotten immersed enough in that even years later, I had a clear idea of who I was painting and what I wanted to show.

(Tattoos are hard. I had some specific things that the tattoos were - neo-tribal, mazelike or labyrinthine, intense blackwork - but since I'm not a tattoo artist and also not about to copy someone else's work, it brought me up kinda short. I'm very pleased with the design I wound up making, but that was probably the biggest single issue in this process that wasn't the 'Jenna is too overwhelmed to make good picturemaking decisions' moment from before.)

Those revisions were approved, and I went to the board, a week ago.

I painted small - a board 10" on the longest side - and I am still a little shellshocked that what I needed to have happened, happened: the paint went down as it needed to go down, the decisions I made were the correct ones, the painting built itself up and did not stop.

And on Sunday, I finished it.

It's time for me to stare at a wall until it penetrates that I finished my first cover, for my favorite author, in less than two weeks start to finish. I'll leave you all with how it will appear when it goes live on the 4th.

SmART School Week 4

Whoops, I'm writing about last week's class literally while sitting in this week's class.

So what I brought to class last week was more prepwork, gearing up for the jump to paint.

I'd done that set of color studies for the mid-week critique, and gotten some good feedback from Rebecca about how I was losing my value structure in pursuit of these colors I had in my head. The solo study was done larger, so I could zone in a little more on what I was trying to do. I also got the drawing on the board and scrubbed in a value study.

However!

I also brought something completely different into class!

This has nothing to do with Belle Dame Sans Merci. But that weekend previous, as I was sitting in a lecture at Illuxcon on September 20th, I got an email enquiry about doing a cover for an ebook release of a book. The enquirer was the book's author, Elizabeth Bear, and the deadline for the cover going live was October 4th.

I did thumbnails that day and got one approved, and did my drawing on the day after I returned from Allentown, and I brought it to class because I had gone from nothing to a final drawing in less than four days and just knew the panic was affecting my judgement. 

I'm going to make a separate post about the process of this cover, but I just want to say that I could have wept with gratitude over the critique I got. I went from a drawing that is a bunch of poor decisions stitched together awkwardly, with a figure who was just miles away from the mark, to.... well, I'm sitting here with a finished painting waiting for one last critique round, aren't I? :D

SmART School Week 3

You know when is the best time to post about a class? The night before the next one, just at midnight.

Anyway!

I ran myself into a bit of a corner this week. I needed the full, finished drawing for Rebecca, which meant I needed a full model shoot... which I couldn't rangle until that Friday. That Friday was also the opening for the Spectrum exhibit at the Society of Illustrators, and then Saturday was Art Out Loud, and then Sunday and Monday I had work. So I had a bit of a sprint at the end!

Here's the photo comp that I put together and projected onto my paper, as the base for the drawing:

Beautiful, right? Haha... anyway. About 90% of that comes from my own photos, with the tree in there from my sketch, and the skirt composited from a couple of different images. No armor on the lower figure, and the wrong legs, both of which I referenced separately because it was honestly easier at that point.

Here's the final drawing that I took to class!

I was seriously expecting to get killed this week, since here was where I needed to have solved every inch of the image in preparation for the painting. Instead, this is the paintover I got:

This class is forcing me to come to terms with the fact that I'm operating at a level where I should be trusting myself. I will never get it perfect, but after three consecutive weeks of critique that involves things being pushed, not fixed, I need to start sitting down each time to work without the nagging anxiety in the back of my head that maybe it's all been a fluke and this is the day it stops. It's not just SmART School that's giving me this push to change my outlook - the IMC supports it, as does this past weekend at Illuxcon.

I definitely am still in a position where I have a whoooole lot to learn, but you know, I'm no longer a college student making college student work. I have a vision and a voice that I'm developing, I have definite technical strengths that I am gaining more and more confidence in tapping into, and my weaknesses are being worked on with each new piece.

Though, I mean, it's not like it's ever going to be not humbling to have Rebecca Guay have minimal crit for a drawing of mine.

Evenstar

This is my comic for MoCCA, minus the cover which is, haha, still being painted. I am hoping that there are enough Lord of the Rings nerds that weekend to justify fourteen pages of I Have Too Many Emotions About a Minor Character, Please Hold.

Evenstar Pages 12-13

I started working on this comic with the easiest image for me - the big dark double-page spread one page from the end. It was the easiest way to get myself into the hatching in a context that would be far more forgiving than, say, anything with figures.

The end result needed a lot of Photoshoppery, but I expected that, since pencil really only goes so dark without going past hatching and into full coverage... and the end result is something I'm pretty damn pleased with!

The raw scan

After Photoshop

I need to go back into the original and take out that weird half-panel around the Evenstar the way I did digitally, so I can present it for sale, but other than that I'm letting them stand as two very separate entities.

Next up to bat: not another Evenstar page, but instead, my Month of Love drawing! Stay tuned.

Persephone-thing

Apart from the terrible scan and the forgotten foot, I'm actually really fond of this drawing. 'Far and Away' is its working title, since I can't call it 'A Memory of Spring' while taking myself seriously.

Next up: the studies for the mosaic behind her, since I do in fact know better than to jump right into that. See also, why I spent so long procrastinating on finishing this.

The Long Road drawing, before and after

It's been almost a month, and I just realized I never posted the final drawing for my IMC painting. Before I do, here's a reminder of the sketch I brought:

And here's the drawing I wound up taking to the board, after critiques from everyone:

There's a delicate balance to strike when doing the drawing for the IMC: if it's too rough, not only will the teachers not have much to work off of in their critique, but you get to spend it wallowing in the shame of bringing something that looks like that in front of Irene Gallo and Boris Vallejo and Scott Fischer (see: me, last year. scroll through this post for the 'drawing' I brought and the drawing I wound up with). If it's too refined, however, you get to enjoy watching hours of your careful work get ripped apart, as the instructors point out all of the things you did wrong/could have done better/didn't even think of doing.

I think this year I hit the correct balance. The composition and values are generally there (though I later wound up regretting not having done a more refined value study), and the gesture is conveyed along with just enough details to give the piece context for what I see in my head. Especially when combined with the color studies and initial thumbs, it communicated the direction I see myself going in, and it gave the instructors a clear idea of what I was trying to do - which meant they were able to give me equally clear suggestions on how to do it.

Riverdaughter Drawing

Because Holding the Pass is still fighting me, I have the drawing for my next painting ready to go:

The values are actually almost perfectly flipped there - it's going to be a fairly dark painting, with the flesh portion of the nymph being almost white against a deep green tail. Observe:

Here's the study, drawn doublesize of the final because drawing a back is hard enough by itself:

Precious Burdens Drawing

The drawing for my next painting. I'm very excited about it! It's a simple portrait, to give me a little bit of a breather in comparison to the endless uphill battle that is Holding the Pass - though that simplicity is going to be challenging in and of itself, since it means there's nothing to hide mistakes with.

Kicking and screaming

This drawing has fought me every single inch of the way and now it is time to paint. Finally!

Third time's the charm

 All three versions of the female barbarian figure from Holding the Pass. Now to just place her in the composition and design her clothes...

Holding the Pass drawing

I can't say enough about how essential critique is. The difference between the first drawing and the second is the difference between an ok illustration (which is compositionally About A Butt) and an image that tells a story. I'm so excited to paint this!

Tristan and Isolde Drawing

This is after two days of rolling crits and a couple of rounds of new ref photoshoots. If you recall, it came from this:

Whiskey and Water sketch progress

Lacking any documentation to show you either the new work I've recently finished or even my progress in those pieces, have some older stuff: the progression of the Whiskey and Water sketch, from December'11 to March'12. Watch me learn composition and perspective, and get decent reference!

It's flipped at the end for purposes of book-accuracy on which of the main figure's hands is crippled, and also because the composition is so much better like that. Also edited in the final sketch: the size and placement of the background.

Current projects

Sorry for the lack of updates! I've been running around for the last few weeks - I have three paintings on my plate, with about three weeks to do them. They're all in progress, and I'm not really worried that I'll run out of time, but it still does mean that certain things fall by the wayside.

Bramble Weaver

The City and the City

Whiskey and Water