Exotique 7! (and other features)

Still cannot believe that an obscure, unknown hobbyist with no Art Education like me could do it, but at the end Flora and the DragonFly was accepted in Exotique 7, which is probably one of the most flattering and self-confidence boosting events in the life of a wannabe digital illustrator. 

So, thank to the jury of Ballistic Publishing, I'm gonna see my picture printed in a real book, together with the illustrations of many really famous Artists.

Then, in some ways and with great surprise, gratitude and happiness, I also discovered that the are some sites and blog featuring some of my illustrations:

The Madonna Lois Griffin was appreciated by the french blog Ma Planche á Dessin

Appearance (selfportrait) was featured at Tutorart, in their Daily Inspiration#490

The Butterflower is at hangaroundtheweb.com in one of their Inspiration for the day.

Sorry for this not-very-humble-post, but I've been going around painting under many months, with joy and willing to improve, but thinking I'll never do something decent. So, seeing that there are people I never met and anyway appreciate my efforts, is so flattering and good for a self-confidence which is normally quite low.

Butterflower

I sketched the concept of this imagine in the gone century, at least 17 years ago, since the original pencil drawing I found at home is dated 1994:

I felt like I wanted to paint a colored version of it, soon or later. In a lack of ideas I've picked up the subject and done a Photoshop version, using mainly round and chalk brushes. Maybe I'll try later other versions, with different kind of petals, or pistils, or insects, will see.

If pictures with human subjects are challenging and often leave me with a sense of frustration and low self-esteem, these flower-insects-creatures subjects give me a feeling of freedom and creativity which I enjoy very much, even if the results may not be that good.

Blue, or Violet

I really do not know which title give this one. I began it as portrait practice, then repainted, then I got pregnant and was so tired that I did not could do anything in my free time than sleep. 

Now that the second trimester arrived, tiredness getting better and at the same time holiday, i looked again into the GCTalk homepage and discovered that the call for entries for Exotique 7 has opened. 

So I felt motivated to pick up the tablet and Photoshop, and pick up this image, among the many I began and did not finish because not convincing.

Another subject maybe not very original, but that's it:

closeups:

This, and 'Flora and the Dragonfly' will be submitted to Exotique, will see how it will work, even if there are much better things out there. However, if i do not try, it will not work for sure.

Flora and the Dragonfly

Perhaps this is not the most original subject: a kind of nice girl surroundend by flowers, in a faerie/fantasy environment. Well, a typical maistream stuff. 

Anyway, I wanted to do more portrait practice, so I started to sketch some quick doodles, maybe four or five, just to practice about values and shapes. My boyfriend picked up one and I worked further with it, trying to render skin textures and so on, keeping in mind the beauty of the works of Melanie Delon, Bente Schlick or Linda Bergkvist (well, not at THAT level, I know!). Who has been so kind to look at my previous paintings can notice some similarities with Alexander the Little and the Flemish Flowers. This time I wanted to work fast and effective, and not indulge in a long and exausting detail search (I've learned that, on the web, the most details are lost anyway)

Some close-ups as usual.

have a nice spring!

Lady Water

I don't know if I like this work or not. I thought that the concept could be interesting (water in all her three forms, solid, liquid, and "vapor", let's say, also inspired by the snow melting during these sunny days up here), but during the painting process I realized that the result just sucks, despite the efforts I wanted to put in rendering details, composition and so on. It feels like I'm not able to produce a decent work despite the amount of my free time I'm consuming on painting and practice.

So, I don't feel to go on with this work any longer, and I edit it just like that.

Below I put a couple of details, as usual:

Canadagoose

This is a quick sketch (1-1.5 hours), made in between other bigger stuff I'm painting right now. It's, in fact, intended to my other blog, to tell that the gorgeous Canadageese are back to our bay and announce spring time. They fly quick and unexpected, and I never succeeded take a photo. So, I just sketch them.

Their moving through the sky is so elegant and filled with joy.

Appearance (selfportrait)

This picture is, apparently, filled with a lot of clichés one can find in several CG works: the mask, feathers, flying birds, a melancholic and soft environment.

Despite that, this is in fact the most personal painting I've done since I've started with digital art. 

The mask with peacock feathers is heavily referenced from the one I designed and made self several years ago, when I used to go to the carnival in Venice. In this picture I wanted to depict the feeling of being seen only for the own mask and appearance one shows to the world, without being able to really reveal himself, and the sense of loneliness coming from this. 

Who knows me personally could see some details which tell that it is, in fact, a selfportrait.

I put a couple of close-ups, as usual. Painting the peacock feathers has been a little tedious, but relaxing at the same time. For obvious reasons, all references used are from own photos and peacock feathers I've at home.
The details in the mask can be appreciated in full view.

Queen Radiolaria

I've not really much to say about this painting, except that I felt almost compelled to draw it after having seen the wonderful scientific images of Radiolarians drawn by Ernst Haeckel in 1904 (look here to appreciate his tremendous works).

For the anatomy reference, I credit the photographer Marcus Ranum (Mjranum-stock at DeviantArt) for using his pic.

I tried, after finishing the picture, to set Vibrance at high values, I think that it gives very nice colors, seen in a normal computer screen, without getting strange saturations effects.

And some close-ups:



Billy Goat Gruff /Bockarna Bruse

This one comes from a specific wish of my two-and-a-half years young child: he loves the Norvegian fairytale Three Billy Goats Gruff, also called Bockarna Bruse in Swedish (you can find the plot here), which is a quite popular folktale here in Sweden.

He loves very much the point where the biggest goat throws out the troll off the bridge, and so asked me to paint that scene for his room. I really had a lot of fun painting this. Probably the trolls anatomy could be much better, but since I've got approval from my child, I considered it done so.

So, here it comes:

and a couple of close-ups, as usual:

Do I know you?

One of my main problems regards anatomy and figure painting. 

Last month I decided to improve myself by sketching some portraits found in a old hair fashion magazine. The first sketch was so bad, and did not correspond at all to the photo, so I began, very frustrated, to change a lot of things in the face, until I got a completely weird creature. Back to my usual love for marine stuff, I start to add more and more elements resembling a sea monster. At home, we start to speculate that this creature could pretty much look like a hypothetic concept for the coming movie Avatar and the Deep Sea (or whatever the title will be): a humanoid sea alien depicted in hers first contact with a new species from the deep oceans.

My boyfriend suggested that she(he?) could very much do something, so I elongated the canvas and added shoulders, arms and hands. She is holding some kind of unknown and luminescent animal, for which I loosely got inspiration from googling radiolarian pictures.

Now I had to deal even harder with anatomy issues (well, I punished myself..) so we took some pictures of myself and my hands and paint them into the first concept, until I felt somehow satisfied or, better said, fed up. (I can anyway tell that I don't usually look like this, at least not in public). I'm still not very convinced about the result, but at a certain point I wanted to go further.

I need to find a way to get a more saturated image, normally I work at home and the colours look bright, but then, when I look at the pictures from another screen, the image becomes dark, desaturated and muddy.

And a couple of close-ups: