Buahhh!

This is a Memo for myself: if you have a very important work, DO SAVE it, always, often, with several names, in different places, in your computer (it may crash), in a external hard disk (file will get corrupted), in a USB memory key (you can loose it): because there are infinite ways to loose your very important painting, and it will happen exactly when you're going to complete it.

This time the file went damaged in the external hard disk, don't know why, just that file, of course. Fortunately (or unfortunately?), I had a copy somewhere else saved in the computer since a couple of weeks ago, so I don't need to repaint from zero. But, I have to repaint all I did in the last twelve days.

Shit.

Scheisse.

Merda.

Transgender

I've not updated for a while, since time for painting has been scarce, and I'm actually working at a very detailed and probably too ambitious painting which takes me an eternity.

In the meanwhile, I had a very quick project, it means helping my boyfriend with a deadline. He had to produce some characters for a boardgame, and wanted to have some female ones. So, he drew this archer:

Which I chose for a very quick (maybe 1 h work) transgender-surgery:

The final drawing should be quite small so I wasn't requested to paint a well-detailed image. Anyway, it was funny; not least to see how a guy is more specialized in painting males, and myself drawing females, instead. In the future there will be some more female contributions from my side, I suppose, ahah.

The Sorceress of the Hound

Among vacations, a no-sleeping child and many things to do, I didn't update here for a while. Anyway, in April I got a commission from a colleague and friend of mine, who owns a caravan and some competition dogs together with another girl. They asked me to draw a decal, which should be 100 x 30 cm, and be put on their caravan.

There must be written "LC witch on the way", in Swedish since this is their nickname in the world of dogs competitions. It should also represent a self-confident witch mastering two dogs of defined breed (afghan and whippet), which must be also easily recognisable from the picture. The dogs would like to run after a hare, but the sorceress would not let them go as they want.

She provided me with own photo references of the dogs, while the witch is not intended to look like the girls.

My idea was to use a cartoon style, since it's ironic and requires strong colours and shapes, which could be seen on the way by other cars. This was a very interesting and funny challenge for me, since I'm not really a cartoonist.

The first idea was to use a Disney-like approach, so this was the first sketch of the witch, plus the whippet:

I wasn't really satisfied with the characters, since they weren't coherent with each other, anatomy was annoyingly bad and the whole concept non that funny.

After some weeks I got a completely different approach, so this is the final result:

The sorceress haircut recalls the afghan ears and tail, as well hers slim arms should resemble the thin complexion of the whippet hound. She doesn't need to make such an effort to held the running dogs, since a couple of magic hands is working for her. On the other way, the hare is very aware of the situation and takes its time to drink a cocktail. The background contains very few and simple elements inspired by the swedish landscape (mushrooms, blueberries and fir forest), and is dark to highlight the magic thunderbolt and the dogs.
My friend said she was satisfied with the work and concept (for them, dogs anatomy was an important issue), hope they like it... for me, I had a lot of fun doing it.

Below, some details:

 The Witch

The Afghan

Whippet

Hare

Flemish Flowers

One dream of my childhood, was to paint flemish flowers. Since it looked quite difficult, i never dared to do it, until I realize that Photoshop is easier than traditional oil. So, I spent almost all my free time in the last weeks to reproduce a Flower Garland from Jan Davidsz de Heem. The reference is one file found in Google, but resolution was not always sufficient, so sometimes I tried to guess some details.

This is the original of de Heem:

And here comes my repainted (no photomanipulated, if one wonders):

Painted using only the standard Photoshop chalk brush, with some jitter, to get a feeling of organic material, and sometimes a little texture.

A couple of flowers in the original seems to have been painted with pigments which have decomposed during  a couple of centuries, to judge from the almost absence of values: the red tulip and a jellow flower. The latter has been completely repainted using as reference a Rosa Foetida, which I guessed it was the flower represented in the original, adding some orange details, just for fun:

I added also a blue Morpho butterfly, just because I'd like to have a little more blue in the picture:

Then another couple of closeups:

Have a nice spring!

Another sea beast

This week I continue to sketch hands and people from magazines and live. It was a kind of funny try to sketch a someone's hand in 30 seconds during a long meeting (to the ones who will object that's not a professional behavior, I can reply that it has been demonstrated that drawing during meetings and presentations helps to keep alert). 

But, for my evening paintings, I did something in the same way and with the same style of the previous post. This time just a little bit prettier than the last one, a kind of mix between a fish, a blackfish and some other species which name I don't remember. I had fun also creating some custom brushes in Photoshop, which I used here.

A couple of closeups follow:

Another marine creature

I've realized that it's very funny starting with some casual lines on a dark background, and try to create something out of it. And, since my favourite subject are, definetively, horrific and a bit disgusting creatures, that's what was coming out from the experiment. (well, I love also elfs and similar beautiful things, but painting the beautiful is very difficult, painting the ugly makes much more fun, and maybe is even less stereotyped)

Here follows a couple of close-ups. I'm very well aware that one cannot expect wet surfaces under water, as the mouth of this kind of blackfisk-lamprey is depicted, anyway I find it enhancing the disturbing feeling about this monster. The delicate flowers are used by the monster to attract and bring food to his mouth.

Strange Creature

Since I seriously need a lot of exercise about human anatomy, I wanted to copy a reference photo from an old fashion magazine I had at home, and try to modify something in the composition. It was first intended as a quick exercise, but then I became more and more addicted to details. The anatomy is not satifying, but it looks like I'm on the right way if I compare with my previous works about humans.

Below there are a couple of closer views. I must say that Linda Bergkvist's tutorials are very helpful, even if I'm quite far away from hers wonderful pictures.

Limacina helicina

Today my boyfriend went out with our little child, so I could have some quiet hours to spend for copying a quite cool picture from my sea animals book. This is a snail called Limacina helicina which lives among the Plancton.
With this work, I realized that painting a copy is not the biggest issue. A photo has already a defined shape, correct proportions, perspective, palette and values. The big deal is to paint something completely invented. This one is my big problem, right now.

Jellyfishes

I need to speed up my way to paint. I love odd creatures, from every kingdom. Today I bought a wonderful book about sea life. Today I had a couple of hours just for myself. 

So, here comes three speed paintings: a Melicertum octocostatum, a Cyanea capillata and a Haliclystus auricula, about 20-30 minutes each. I enyojed it very much.

 

  

 

Genetically modified #1

This time I wanted to do something almost finished with Photoshop. The strange and odd shapes and colours of plants and mushrooms are always been among my favourites, so I did a quick sketch during a lunch break:

And here is the final version after several hours under the Wacom pen. I wish I could be a little faster.

The original psd. file has a much better resolution, but I had to resize the picture quite a lot to make Blogger accept it.