Digital Live Figure Drawings

I was so excited to go to a figure drawing session with my tablet! The buses were all sorta crazy so I missed the fast gesture drawings, but I got to draw/paint 3 poses. The model was really awesome too.





5 minute pose



10 minute pose



Long pose, I think it was anywhere from 45-60 minutes

I toyed with the idea of doing this in color, but decided to stick with black and white.
It took me a bit to adjust all the variables; brush size, opacity, flow, canvas size... and so on
At first I started blocking out the pose with white, then I erased with a lower opacity to expose the background color.

For the last drawing I stopped using the eraser and just used the paintbrush at a lower opacity and flow. Next week I am going to go back and start with a darker background and a better strategy and see how I improve. I am going to watch some time lapse digital paintings on you tube to get some pointers on my digital painting technique.

Digital Painting #2 WIP

I am back from a week away from home. I started my second digital painting today. The last digital painting was done using Painter 11 and this one was done using Photoshop. I'm really having a good time with this new digital painting. Its so forgiving and the tablet is very natural to use. I still love my tangible mediums though.

I'm headed back to a more narrative way of painting while exploring lighting.
I am going to be editing this post as I work on this image to add the most recent version.


So I am addicted and can't stop working on this, but alas I have to get up early tomorrow so here is where I leave it for the night! Aug. 21st 2009





DAY 2

Under the waterfall I am starting to work in some stained glass architecture.
I think taking out the grass gave me a lot more room to get creative so the image didn't have to be stuck on the ground.
I wish I could work on it more tonight, but I have to work tomorrow. I am really addicted....

First Digital Painting

Early morning train ride to Michigan. A four hour train ride turned into 8 hours. We had to go 15 mph for 2 1/2 hours because of flash flood warnings. So I took out my newly acquired Intuos 4 tablet and gave it a whirl. I decided to draw from life and there was a guy sitting one seat across and one seat down from me that looked like Alfred Hitchcock. So I started my first digital drawing.... he ended up moving after about 10 minutes to the seat next to the window and put his blindfold on and fell asleep.

WIP's for Sept. show

I have a show coming up Sept. 11-13 at the Flat Iron Building. For details go here: http://www.smartshow.org/


Here are a few of the paintings I have been working on for the show.



This one is only a few days in the making and has tons more transformations to go through. I am figuring this one out as I go...



Ink, watercolor and a bit of acrylic and micron. Also needs a lot more work... but I like it a lot so far...

Downtown Chicago Condo Murals

So I have a big mural/faux finishing job coming up in September. She is quite a lovely lady. She didn't think she was being very clear with what she wanted but luckily vines, roots and organic imagery is right up my alley!

Here are some small little watercolor sketches I have been doing to prepare.



My idea for the closet doors in her bedroom. There are two sets of bi-fold doors on either side of a mirror. Her carpet it cheetah print! I painted this as one solid image and split it up in photoshop. Now I think I need to take the mirror in the middle into account when making the half circle. It seems awkward to me now. I'm working on an updated design now.
p.s. I also hid some feline shapes in this image.



***edit* 8/24/09***



Digital Sketch for the closet mural. Colors may vary depending on screen.
The bottom won't be quite so digital I am going to fade the look of the cheetah print carpet into the bottom. Also the gray divider in the middle is the mirror.






I'm going to take elements of this image and appropriate it into the final bedroom closet doors mural. The rope looking design on the top just happens to match her crown molding.


This one is for the kitchen. I am also going to split this image into 1'x1' squares and make it look like ceramic tiles.



I made this one as an alternate possibility for the kitchen. She loves the way I did the grass so I incorporated it into the closet mural.


I am also going to be doing some faux finishing on a 128 sq. ft. wall in her living room, a wall in her bedroom, and the crown molding in her bedroom, living, and dining room.
I'll post WIP's of the job.

Figure Drawing class

My first drawing 'session' in ages. This was a 20 min pose.

The Journey into 3-D

This is a sampling of some of the work I have done in the last year or two.*edit* (scroll down to see images, this post is longer then I expected it to be) :)
Stepping back I start to see how the work connects. Last year I was introduced to Maya and I really took to it, but once I got out of the class I went back to my comfort zone of making work in a physical tangible space. Maya can be really overwhelming. Months went by and I continued working with photography, painting, attempts at sculpture and collaborating with nature (she was not into collaborating this winter). Graduate school applications were coming closer and I did not feel I had a big enough portfolio of paintings. Then I realized that I don't want to just paint in grad school and that I need images that somehow fall in line with what I want to be doing rather then what I did in the past.

So I tried a few experiments with nature. I did a project last winter that capitalized on the cold weather also: http://jessicajoyart.blogspot.com/2008_02_01_archive.html
This time I wanted to make colored icicles in perfect cone shapes and install them around the neighborhood and document how they melted and became more natural looking as nature took over what 'man'(or me in this case) had done. That didn't go too well, but I am willing to try it again next winter...

Eventually I decided to try out Maya again. I was initially very nervous about picking it up again, and I didn't think I would remember how to use it. What still baffles me is that I was actually able to use it BETTER then I had before.
The new work I made with Maya ended up becoming a very natural progression of what I was doing with my traditional media. I posted the images in a sequence below that would illustrate this progression.

Most of what is posted below is what I sent along for my Grad portfolio as well. I'm not sure if I should say where I applied, but wish me luck!

I also just signed up for twitter. You can see it on the top right of this blog. Come follow me on my journey... :)