Sunday, August 29, 2010

Gary Kelley

Do you love Gary Kelley's work as much as I do?
(He's the guy who did those cool writer murals in the Barnes & Noble coffee shops, in case you don't know who he is). Of course he's also done so much other amazing work. He is in the 'god' category of illustrator, with many well-deserved awards to his name.

I remember back in school we somehow acquired a small traveling exhibit of award winning illustrations, and one of them was his illustration of Stevie Ray Vaughn. I stared at it a long time over many days.

I've pulled these neat little videos straight off of Jeffrey Brian Fisher's blog (who is no slouch of an illustrator himself). I hope he won't mind. I couldn't resist sharing.




You can order a full length version of the first one from Massive Black, a place I'd never heard of, but they have a lot of cool art videos.

I have a couple of picture books by him - The Legend of Sleepy Hollow, and Bloshblobberbosh, which seem to be hard to find now.
You can see more of his work here.


Saturday, August 28, 2010

Habanero done



This is finished. I'm happy with how the color finally turned out. Like I said in the last post, I had taken it as far as it could go with the Lyras, and they just weren't doing it. So I got out the Polychromos and voila, instant success.


(** ha ha, I misspelled Polychromos in the pic above -
they are not Polycr - homos. Gay pencils? Well why not.)

They're both oil based pencils, and worked well together. I now know that the Lyras are good for a very soft look, whereas the Polys can do it all. If anyone has any thoughts on the Lyras they'd like to share, I'd love to hear them.

This is for sale, sold if anyone's interested. And I will be doing prints.
I need to have a good sampling of small food still lifes done for a little show coming up in October. I also have to go back to being a children's book illustrator for a while. This should an interesting couple of months!

Thursday, August 26, 2010

Habanero wip, pricing art

This is a little habanero pepper, compliments of my neighbors who have an amazing garden. I will not be eating this, not being a hot pepper person, and will give it back when I'm done drawing it so it can be enjoyed by some crazy person who does like these things.

Anyway. This is a simple piece, done like the caramels from before, with one object and a long shadow. This is about 2 inches (life size) on a 4 x 6 piece of Stonehenge.
I'm using the Lyras, and although I like them, the colors aren't popping for me. The range of oranges is rather limited (although I've also used some reddish pinks and a lavender and yellow). So I think I'll get out the Polychromos and see if I can bump it up some.

*Self-promotion alert*
I redid my shop page on my website, and turned it into a blog. I've put links to my shops on Imagekind and Zazzle, as well as my other new blog just for these little pieces - Small Drawings and Paintings. (Some of you may remember I used to have another 'pencil blog', but I put that one away in favor of this new one.) It needs a tweak, and I'll be adding things, but for now its 'there'.

**I've edited this part - see end of post
I will just put originals on the Small Paintings and Drawings blog. I'm trying to figure out how to price things. Right now, I have the caramels listed for $50 each, which I know is fair - but whether people are willing or able to cough up that much these days for a small piece remains to be seen. After all, I'm not Duane Keiser. Most likely those of you reading this blog (I'm assuming most of you are fellow artists) know exactly how much work goes into even a small colored pencil piece - but does the general public? Do they not value art so much if it isn't a) an oil painting, or b) really BIG? I'm torn between giving them away (not literally - I mean just undervaluing them) just to sell them, and holding my ground and asking what they're worth, at the risk of not selling them at all.

How do you all price your work? I like the 'so much per square inch' method - it makes sense, and makes it easy to explain to people why a piece costs what it does. It also takes the emotion out of it.
Let's try a '$3 an inch' formula: for a 5 x 7 piece (35 square inches) that works out to $105, which is in keeping with what a lot of artists charge for that size work.
So a 4 x 4 inch piece would be 16 square inches, or $48. Which I've rounded up to $50. I guess one could argue "well, you left a lot of white space" (implying the price should be less) to which I would give a pithy artist's reply like "the white space is part of the composition, and necessary". I don't know. Thoughts?

The other thing is that these are not framed. If they were, the price of framing would be added on. Then, if they were going into a gallery, the price would have to double for the artist to make the necessary profit - which then gets us into being consistent with pricing, no matter where the piece is being offered for sale.
For example, if one of my little caramels was being sold in a gallery, and framed, and the gallery had doubled my price (for their commission), it might be up to $150 (allowing $50 for framing). So really, I should be charging $100 for an unframed piece that size, so that the buyer knows how much to expect to pay for one of my pieces, wherever he finds it. It would just mean that I would obviously make more of a profit if I sold it myself is all.

Hmmm.

Then there are the pieces you enter in shows. Show fees are typically $50 or so per entry. Then if you also have to ship it, that's another however much for crating plus shipping back and forth. And also insurance if you spring for that. It adds up! (and yes, I've mentioned this before, you're not imagining things).

Here I was just going to show my little work in progress, and I got off on quite the tangent, didn't I?

I would love to do 'ready to hang' colored pencil pieces, but am not a fan of how to make them that way - it involves a lot of fixative and adhering to a ready-to-hang board and a lot of varnishing. I can't inhale all those fumes anymore (having lived in a cloud of Crystal Clear in my studio for most of art school - now I can hardly stand a whiff of a Pantone marker or Sharpie).

So back to my little pepper and my pencils. At least until Project Runway comes on. Who will go home tonight? The suspense ...

**edit~
After pushing the "publish post" button and having a bit of a think, I decided to change my pricing to $2.50 a square inch (because, after all, like I said, I'm not DK.)
I am also not a super award-winning artist (yet). And I do tend to leave a lot of white space.
So I've changed the price of the caramel drawings to $40 each. And subsequent pieces will be priced accordingly.

Monday, August 23, 2010

Restaurant rendering


Just finished this building rendering for a new client. Another restaurant - surprise!
I used Lyra Polycolors on Stonehenge paper. The size is about 10 x 14.
This one was a little tricky - photos from slightly different angles had to be knit together, and the color and shadows in all of them were different too, so I had to keep those simple and just concentrate on the 'bones' of the building itself. Often the shadow pattern really helps establish form and can give a piece some drama. This one at least had interesting foliage and the palm trees, so that spiced it up a bit.
And the client is happy, so I am too.

Its the first time I've used the Lyras, and I love them. They're similar to Polychromos, being oil-based, but not quite as hard. But they're harder than Prismacolors. And the colors are lovely. And they smell nice too (wood casings).

Its turned hot again, and I can't think. So that's all for today ~

Friday, August 20, 2010

Illustration Friday - Atmosphere


I think this is the most 'atmospheric' illustration I have. It was an experiment with my colored pencils, trying to render what I thought the sky might look like on 'the other side', where all things are possible.

Finishing up a couple of illustration assignments, started some knitting (cowls), and thinking up ideas for new art. I've committed to showing some of my art at a little 'do' here in October, so have to work on some small pieces to show and make prints of. Things are starting to feel in full swing for Fall and Christmas already - is it just me? When you do art to sell for the holidays, its never too early to get started. Time to start thinking about my Christmas card. !!! I know. Can you tell I got up too early and have had way too much coffee already today?

Back to rendering. Hope you all have a lovely weekend ~

(and of course I bumbled this when I uploaded the thumbnail to Illustration Friday, leaving an extra 'http' at the beginning, so it wouldn't link, so I had to do it twice, and I look like an idiot - sorry IF people)

Sunday, August 15, 2010

Illustration Friday - Star Gazing

I've been sorting through some work that's been tucked away - and found this! It just happened to fit perfectly with this week's Illustration Friday theme - Star Gazing - so thought I'd might as well post it.

Working on some assignments, mulling over a picture book idea, thinking about how to frame (or whether to frame at all) my candy drawings, gathering more reference material (aka 'buying more candy'), and feeling sort of amazed that its almost SEPTEMBER. But that means Fall, my favorite season, so that's exciting.

I'm also turning over knitting ideas in my brain - now that I've decided to start in again with the needles, I'm not sure what to make (to sell). Are we sick of scarves? Coffee cozies? Shawls? Do we want knitted wall art? Not sure where the muse will take me.

That's all for now - I have to hunker down for a few days and get some work done. Cheerio ~


Thursday, August 12, 2010

Two caramels done

4 x 4 inches, Polychromos on Stonehenge

This is an espresso caramel. The one in the last post is a ginger caramel - I had it wrong before. Hence the difference in colors. They're by the same company, and come in the same little package, but are different. (and they're both really yummy!)

I'm having as much fun with the shadows on these as I am with the candy itself. My original plan was to do some unwrapped, then just the wrappers - now I'm not sure. I may just keep going with the candies like this. I have some that are plain ordinary caramels in a different sort of wrapper - may do one of those next.

I will put these up for sale at some point. I would love to do one a day, and would, if I didn't have anything else to do!

Right now I'm going to go look at my yarn - the knitting bug has hit me again after a long hiatus. Have to keep my hands busy while I watch Project Runway so I don't feel quite so couch-potato-like.

Monday, August 09, 2010

One caramel done


This one is done, I think. Mostly. Maybe a tweak left, we'll see.
4 x 4 (weensy tiny, yes) - Polychromos on Stonehenge.
To review, its an espresso* caramel (*edit- no, its a ginger caramel) in a waxed paper sort of wrapper.

It was fun to build up the colors. They're really very dull, but of course I see a rainbow in there. The more you look, the more you see. I'm finding that I have an architectural, or kind of deconstructivist (is that a word?) approach to my work, breaking things down into shapes and analyzing each one, then building the whole from those littler parts. Maybe that's true for all colored pencil artists, or most, anyway.
Also, with the color, it depends on the time of day, and whether I'm using natural light or studio lights. I see it one way in natural light, then turn on my lamps and WHOA! will you look at that, there's a whole lot more color in there. So I do both.
I also always print out a grayscale version of my photo reference for values, and refer to that as well as my color photos. I tend to work 'light' and have to push to build things up to be dark enough.



Don't have much to blog about, really. Doing a couple of illustration assignments, so my days are full. The weather is unseasonably cool for August - in the 80's, when its usually 110. So I'm extremely grateful for that, and am not as cranky as I usually am this time of year!

American Artist has another cover competition coming up - the deadline is August 31st. I was hoping to enter, but not sure I'll make it. You can look at some of the recent entries online. Go look.


This is my newest studio-mate. My neighbor kitty, who comes and stays longer and longer, just a bit, every day. At least she still goes home at night, but she's here first thing in the morning for breakfast. And comes back later for supper. How can I resist?

Thursday, August 05, 2010

Espresso Caramel


Back to my colored pencils. I'm doing a small piece - an espresso caramel in a wrapper.




Its getting there. Even though its small, its still work. Doing a small piece isn't any easier - it just doesn't take as long. But I'm finding that after doing painterly digital for a while now, my eyes are having to retrain themselves to see details again. Colored pencils also take me into a 'zone', which digital does not.

I'd like to do this one as a series of four - one from the other side (which looks very different); one that's just the caramel, unwrapped; and one of just the empty wrapper.

The wrapper is a sort of waxed paper, and the caramel itself is very dark (since it has espresso in it), so the colors here are a challenge - not what you would normally think of when you think "a caramel in a wrapper".

And oh, its 4 x 4 inches, and Polychromos on Stonehenge (surprise!). I have some new pencils that I do want to try, but my default setting is Polys.