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Friday, December 06, 2013

Check it out! I wrote a an article on The Magic Fox website as a guest blogger! http://www.magicfoxgraphics.com/learning-how-to-use-color-in-illustration/#comment-9

Monday, November 25, 2013

Wednesday, November 13, 2013

A quote from LinkedIn Pal, Naseer Pasha "Every time I come to your blog, there's something nice to be found. It's like a Kinder Surprise chocolate egg with the toy inside. You never know what's coming. Great stuff! Really digging those pirate paintings!" Thank you, Naseer! Check out his blog: Naseer is single handedly making his own film(s)! Scroll down and see his character development and his animation tests: http://justfeelingfine.blogspot.com/ Color Exercise: Ok, I'm going to put this away and call it done~this was an exercise to get a feel for digital painting and mixing warms and cools in Photoshop. I like the way the knees came out...This is the first digital painting using the techniques I learned from painting the acrylic screen shots from Elizabeth: The Golden Age. So much fun... A lot of digital artists start the illustration in Black and White values. I did that with this one, but in hindsight; next time, I'm going to start mixing my own darks~in terms of warms and cools, just as I would in a traditional acrylic painting. With traditional, I usually start the darks with Burnt Umber, and for a warmer shadow, ad Naphthol Red or if I want a hotter dark value, mix in my favorite hot color, Cad. Red Light and for cools, I'll ad Manganese Blue with the Umber and if the Manganese is too vibrant, maybe I'll cool with with Light Blue Violet, another favorite. Light Blue Violet is actually a light cool grey~but has just a hint of saturation, enough to give me these wonderful grey tones with Umber...

Monday, November 04, 2013

A blend of Anime and Steam Punk. After I was done, I realized I had subconsciously drawn my daughter Sienna...

Wednesday, October 23, 2013

Art of VANJA TODORIC and DUSKO BJELJAC: Check out the work on FB. Wonderful, solid background story telling art. Marvelous mood, colors, light. I worked on a very similar type of project years ago when I was in the gaming industry~but we did it traditionally. These days, with the aid of all these incredible art programs, like Photoshop and Corel Painter, the scenes come out more vibrant and it's just plain easier to paint digitally. Please give Vanja a shout out if you visit these beautiful peices..Thanks! Kimberly Or See the Link to the top right of my blog! http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=608912705837579&set=a.585283258200524.1073741826.100001565662243&type=3&theater
Or better yet...check out the blog: http://vanjatodoric.blogspot.com/

Monday, October 21, 2013

Monday, October 07, 2013

Ok, the last posts were done from my new iPhone and I was surprised at the crappy quality of the camera~looks so much better on the iPhone then on the blog. So, back to scans which flatten the paint, can't seem to find a happy medium. I'll use the iPhone for an idea for size; I work pretty small but plan to leap into canvas next year~much larger! :) It took me a few starts to paint Robert in as a pirate because this year has been a non stop ride of big life obstacles and for the best results, you have to be calm and relaxed; I have tried to stay calm, but have had no time to relax. At any rate, I try to do as much as I can, daily, to keep the hand loose and the mind strong. These will be cropped and dropped into the cool, vintage brass folding picture frame I found at the Saugus Swap Meet about a year ago. The challenge was to paint small and still keep some detail with my aging eyes..

Saturday, October 05, 2013

Pirate gift

I have a friend who likes pirates.  He works for Disney consumer products and I painted a few characters and him and will crop them into this little funky brass frame I got at the swap meet some time ago.



Saturday, September 07, 2013

BACK at the Disney office; some color sketches during lunchbreaks. Have not painted from the model since about 2011; (the last time I was there for a spell). Again, interested in shadow shapes for an upcoming project. Sketchbook, small, the same less then ten color palette.

Sunday, August 25, 2013

GONE DIGITAL! I have a six - eight full time week work engagement...will continue to work on this (almost finished, actually) but won't get a lot of time to explore these days..Started as I do with the traditional paints, with warms and cools within the shadow shapes. Taking everything I learned about color from my acrylic exercises, from Sean Cheatham's color class, Ron Velasque's support, to digital.

Wednesday, August 21, 2013

What the heck is it? This is the glass lens that belongs to the old lighthouse I drew down below. In fact, I could not get a good shot of that tower, so sometimes it's just best to sketch it. But I loved the design of the enormous lens which looked like an art deco beehive; made from pieces of glass that just are not made that way anymore. I did not take this shot.
On the way back from the coast, yours truly forgot her drawing sketchbook (left on the scanner!) so I had to use my small one that I carry in my backpack. These are thumbnails specifically targeting shadow shapes in landscape. By studying these, it will set me up for really nice plein aire paintings in the future. Got my eye on the shadow shapes, the silohuettes and abstract composition. I have been such a stickler for form, but this year will have my eye on laying down the abstract shapes, colors first, then adding in the form~should have been working this way from the beginning~Doh!

Friday, August 09, 2013

Ok...one for the road...these were made mostly while WAITING AND WAITING on the phone to try to find out where my direct deposit checks went to (which, by the way, despite all the time spent on the phone, WAS NOT RESOLVED). To break a creative block or slump, I do these exercises to keep the mind open and active. Now~ on my way to Berkeley for my Dad's Memorial!

Saturday, August 03, 2013

Hello. This has been the longest time I have not posted..ever. My apologies...There has been a reason...I have filed for a divorce after 12 years of marriage. So I've been packing and moving stuff out, hunting down all the companies I owe payments to, to switch to my name only and let them know where the new bank account is; which has taken hours and hours and hours as I wait on hold for each dept., (I'll post some of the pencil sketches later), and at the same time was blessedly given a deluge of freelance which has ended. So, between handling all the financial changes, the scary workload and fighting late into the night, I took this afternoon off to go back home~to the place that has not been turned upside down~the mighty creativity that I have stayed with, fought for and which gives me some of my super powers back~my paints. Not my best; I had actually started this one before all this happened and lost my footing somewhat; but there are some nice moments here. This may be one of the last in this series, as I've been giving it a lot of thought since this earthquake and have my eye on digital painting and also bringing what I have been studying to canvas. So, thanks for your patience; I will post when I can since the storm is not yet over.

Sunday, May 26, 2013

THUMBS, THUMBS THUMBS: Been so busy, have not had time to paint! So! Late night, in order to get away from the computer, I sketch. What would LePardine look like? She is a tense savage so I was playing with body calligraphy and attitude. Years ago, when I worked at Disney Feature Film as a clean up artist, I would stay late on Fridays to see the pencil tests on the Scene Machine and study the drawings and animation. When I first came into Animation, I was trained as an Illustrator, pushed to give a fine line, a finished illustration; I loved the clean line. After cleaning up rough lines from the animators, I really fell in love with the rough line. So much energy and emotion come from the rough; in a good rough, everything should be there: the attitude, the personality, and of course the action. A bad clean up artist will suck the life out of a drawing, a really good clean up artist will "plus" it out. A black and white animated scene is just gorgeous to look at. With Glen Keane's drawings, he would search for the right line, playing, experimenting and it would be the clean up artist to pick the line that would read the best. Lots of energy in his drawings. With an animator like Sergio Pablos, his lines were so clean, when I would do the clean up on Delbert Doppler, most of the drawings were so perfect, I felt like a 5th wheel~this guy knew exactly what he wanted and left no room for anyone's intepretation. Some of the most amazing figure work I saw was when I studied the animation tests for Tarzan. Incredible exaggeration with anatomy with the figure. And color~color will kill a small percentage of how the character reads as opposed to how the rough black and white drawings reads. I was on the big crew of Milo from the film Atlantis. There was a scene where Milo figures out how to get a floating vehicle to work. In the black and white pencil test, Kita was in the background, having just explained how she had tried everything to get it to work, and the subtle expression on her face when Milo casually got it to work was just amazing. The look of being stunned, just blown away was somewhat covered up with the color. Didn't read as much as the test. Animator Randy Haycock did a superb job of an emotion that was so understated with just the right timed pause, it took my breath away. It all starts with the Thumbnails, do lots of them. It will increase your speed, make you think, give you varieties of drawings for the same concept pose.

Wednesday, May 08, 2013

Working on a project for my daughter. She has to make 15 animals for a "Web Environment". I told her I would help with the 4 legged deer like animals. Here are sketches of a Yak and a Turkmenian Markhor (a hairy looking goat). I've wired wrapped the frame and will apply with sculpey. I suck at wire frames, so I decided this is my grand opportunity to get better at it! These will be tiny; no more than an inch and a half high. Here, I am having great fun with the shapes. These sketches are drawn with reference.
Lots of freelance in the last week and a half...no time to work on my own things, BUT I can doodle inbetween times. Here's a page of quick sketches of the big cats~my goal here is to capture the "calligraphy" of the body design. With the big cats, there is lots of opportunity for squash and stretch~you can squash the hind quarters and stretch the front areas or vice a versa. You can twist the body in mid air. Big cats are animals with a flexible spine, which makes it fun to come up with many varieties of shapes. Make sure you get a flow in these animals, from the tip of the tail to the length of the body. My tool? Hello Kitty makes the best ball point pens! You can't beat the Japanese, these cheap pens have a fluid ink flow that goes and goes. This was all done without reference.

Monday, April 08, 2013

Took a quick trip to the L A Zoo during Spring Break with neighbors and kids. Did not have much time to draw animals, but spent the most time with the Rhinoceros, about 15 mins. If I want to learn how to draw dragons, I come here. But with kids, it's look and dash. I feel sorry for most of the kids; they are accustomed to being entertained every minute on new technology, who have to walk to look at the animals, and who are sorely disappointed when the animals don't have the energy or passion to perform as they do in Madagascar. As I quietly observe and sketch, admiring the forms, shapes and anatomy, kids were banging against the fence, screaming at the animals to do something, parents are ignoring their behavior or just looking away, some kids were shoving me to see the animals while I tried to draw; and to my horror and disgust, I saw one girl chuck an object into the Black Bear's enclosure. As a nation, we are raising scores of kids who have no appreciation for the natural world before us, nor know how to be still and know how to just be. The sense of wonder has been robbed by immediate gratification of being entertained...

Tuesday, April 02, 2013

Rare footage: Dean Cornwell paints! Posted by James Gurney on Facebook. www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cs7VY16nTA0

Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Check out the work of Jose Prats: http://joseprats0.carbonmade.com/ Lovely, charming stories!

Monday, March 25, 2013

Thursday, March 21, 2013

Not a lot of time this week: Ok I'm going on a rant...freelancing is great but it is a fight to protect my time. I work from home and sometimes the phone will ring every 40 minutes. I don't answer my phone anymore..I kinda live the life of a recluse, hiding out from neighbors and solicitors. People don't realize that a deadline job is very different then a more conventional job; I will work weekends, holidays, weeknights if I promised that I will have the job done at a certain time. I have an unshakeable focus, one which must have driven my mother crazy when she raised me. Sometimes I will lie awake and wonder: How could I have done that better? If I could do it again, what would I do differently? More efficiently? I have an 11 year old daughter, who will sometimes continue to talk to me, loudly, in my ear, as I frantically rush to finish a job. Then I have to pause, make dinner, do laundry between "breaks" and juggle, juggle, juggle. But I would rather have all this then face an LA commute! ~Thanks for listening...

Sunday, March 10, 2013

Remember this, Sergio? Ha, ha ~Years ago, when I worked at Stormfront Studios in Marin County, my Art Director was Sergio Lobato. This was at a magical time when there were no mortgages or children and we would work crazy hours to meet deadlines, but the artists there were some of the most talented group of people you could ever wish for, and just really fun to boot. Sergio's wit and sharp thinking always had us on the floor laughing! It was the first time I had ever felt that I had come home. Artists are a wacky group to begin with but we all understood each other and very much liked to hang out...There were times we would work long hours, then go out to dinner and laugh it all off... I must have been on a private rant about someone not pulling their weight and he probably quietly left this drawing on my computer when I got back from a lunch break, ha, ha. Serge is now a full time painter! Here is his website: http://www.sergiolobato.com/index.php

Saturday, March 09, 2013

Some thumb concepts for a series about Rebirth and Renewal. I actually did some of these on the plane while flying home after Dad died. It just happened to be his birthday: Ground Hog's Day. I plan to do these on canvas this year, taking everything I've learned while painting the screen shots to a bigger playground. Fun. Just pure fun.
Rare that I am alone. Even more rare that I am up this late! So quiet and peaceful, what a gift..so I did this little sketch for the fun of it; the next screen shot I am working on...

Friday, March 08, 2013

Been watching a lot of Cesar Milan on Youtube. This is a drawing of his favorite Pitbull, Daddy. Been really busy with work, and sometimes ya just have to sketch for yourself..keep the hand loose...this one was done in less than 5 mins.

Monday, March 04, 2013

WOW! Finally got a few moments to finish this! I've permanently added two new colors to a very small palette: Quinacridone Blue Violet and my new favorite: Light Blue Violet. Light Blue Violet is a very versatile color because what it really is is a cool neutral grey; and can be mixed with flesh tones and does not overwhelm warm fleshtones, just cools it. Manganese Blue can often turn the fleshtones too cool too fast. Also the Blue Violet is excellent for shadows on white (early morning).

Tuesday, February 26, 2013

WIP: People ask me if I use a pencil to sketch in the figure before starting. I do not. I paint in guidelines very quickly first, making sure that those simple few lines carry the composition and emote what there is to emote. Then I block in the shadows, either warm or cool, depending, then put a light wash of sepia over the whole thing. I can tell you this, that this painting will be the best I've done yet.

Thursday, February 14, 2013

A snippet of part of the color pallette; I really liked these color harmonies. I bought a colored rock at the swap meet a few weeks ago and was inspired by the colors and came up with this pallette. This is what I used for the last painting post. Painting sketch is acrylic on bristol vellum bound in a sketchbook. Ron Velasco suggested that I mix my paints on a neutral gray wax paper and it has made all the difference in my color mixing choices and I'll never paint without it again.
A rough start and a weird pallette. Had to go back and saturate the flesh tones a little more to bring the figure out a little more. Happy Valentine's Day!

Thursday, January 31, 2013

Hello Everyone: My father recently died of complications of cancer a few days ago at the hospital. I have not been able to create or blog any work for this period and will be returning Saturday to the Los Angeles area. This is one of the last photos taken of him; we were very close. He is the greatest man I have ever known and it is because of him, that I am the artist I am of today. Kimberly See you all in February.

Monday, January 14, 2013

Amazing, amazing gallery show at the Weisman. It's the first time an illustration show has been featured at Pepperdine. For all you that could not make it, this is one of the best shows you will see for the year 2013, esp if you like art from this period. You won't likely find the quality and amount of the draftsmanship, craftsmanship in one gallery this year. I believe it runs til March so you still have enough time. It's free! What's astonishing is the concentration of talent that flourished in this short period. I can't get over how creative each artist was with composition, gesture, the ability to tell a story in a glance, and the brushwork! Oh the brushwork! Leyendecker, Pyle, Wyeth, James Montgomery Flagg, Mead Schaeffer (next to Leyendecker, one of my favorite work examples, powerful, with huge bold and brave brushstrokes), Cornwell, Parrish, Charles Dana Gibson and even a Frank Leyendecker were represented. This is why I became an Illustrator. And the gallery was packed after 6! I talked to Stuart Ng, Ruben Procopio, http://maskedavengerstudios.blogspot.com, animal sketch teacher, Marshall Vandruff (Gnomon), even ran into my illustration teacher, Bunny Carter, who had flown in from San Jose, California just to see the show and the collector of these extraordinary pieces. Many people were not able to make it this weekend, but I am planning to circle back to visit again with some folks so I will keep you notified of the next gathering. Thank you, everyone, for your interest and support! Kimberly

Saturday, January 12, 2013

FINI! Finally gave birth to this one! I'm actually sick of looking at it, but did have lots of fun with it.

Thursday, January 10, 2013

Doggone tired today..Miss painting; did not get a chance, but drew some horses. The lines which go beyond the figures are guidelines and help to keep the flow in the subject. I learned this method from Mark Westomoe and Paul Wee. Paul pushed me to find the "calligraphy" of the figure, a much more eloquent and descriptive word which made more sense to me than "find the gesture" or "design of the figure", etc.