A long time ago, the best drawing I did was when I drew animals.  It took several years before my figure drawing caught up with the animal drawing.  Drawing animals really helped me get better at drawing the figure and vice versa.  Then it's taken me a few years before my acrylic painting skills caught up with the figure drawing.  And now we come to digital.  The only thing which really makes this illustration is my drawing and design skills.  I paint digitally like a Neanderthal.  So many things that could have done better; but I am just not there yet..  The next one will be much better; I predict, and I will get onto some concepts and hopefully post them soon.  I've really missed good old fashioned pencil sketching and during the winter break, came up with some fresh idears...

A few years ago, some friends from Disney (Disney Consumer Products and Publishing) gave me some art brushes to use.  I just got around to taking them out for a spin.  Yeah, I paint like a neanderthal.  It's going to take some time getting used to digital painting; (that is, to feel comfortable painting and comfort will turn into confidence); maybe I can sneak in some exercises next year.  There are a lot of things I can do with traditional paints that I can't do in digital (at least not yet), but I am enjoying the effects of some of the most unlikeliest of brushes (digitally).  And you just can't beat the vibrancy of the digital palette or the ease in which you can work.  If I paint traditionally, I know I have to have at least 20 to 30 minutes space of time to work, plus 5-10 mins of setting up, mixing a palette, taping off the edges, etc.  I love being able to jump right into the digital painting and not worrying about all that.  As it is, I've had a good amount of work from Disney and sometimes have managed to sneak in 5-10 mins on this during a lunch break or before going to bed.

Good news is that my internet has been working consistently again; altho I don't know why.  But I'll take it.  Merry Christmas to all of you working hard creatives,  talk to you again in the New Year.

It's been awhile.  Oh so frustrating.  Have not been connected to the internet in quite awhile.  Had a brand new hard drive installed, brought all files back onto this new hard drive, then internet connection died once again, coming back on mysteriously after a week, for a glorious ten minutes.  Been on the phone with Apple Support, now 2 months after installing Mavericks, again, erasing the hard drive, (2nd time), hard ware and hard drive acting totally illogical; getting internet connection in Safety mode, but not in regular mode, then computer would not start up.  Driving Apple support tech nutz; "Truly, my team and I can figure out almost anything...had not had a case this nutty in a long time; a total erase and install should have done the trick, esp. on the second try," he said.  Took it to Apple Store today, where they checked everything out and of course my computer fired right up, took the internet connection like white on rice.  "Hard ware is great; hard drive is superb".  What??  He told me to plug in the computer and keyboard only and start adding all the other stuff while checking internet connection.  Working still.  But I'm afraid to shut it off.  So, I will do some freelance stuff, get it in and then consider turning it off.  Big shout out there for the ever so patient Scott Barnes of Apple; still miffed because internet is working and we don't know why.  Don't know if the problem is fixed; Scott does expect another call from me at some point in the future...Missed you all.  Happy Holidays~KMZ

Hard drive shut down.  Bringing it to a friend to install a new one.  Traumatic..."Good bye.  Take care.  Please come back to me.."

More like it...I started adding some pinks and fuschias, colors that I have never worked with before.  (On my last trip to Europe, I was in Prague and went to the Alphonse Mucha Museum and bought this chocolate bar with his print on it.  The predominate color was reds and tones of reds and that inspired the color choice of this illustration).  This illustration is about the splendor of Spring, in all it's breath taking and long awaited metamorphisis.  I am in the midst of a divorce and this illustration...well...it's a gift to myself.  The Buddhist saying is "There was never a Winter without a Spring" and now, it's my Spring.  Enough of that...
You can see how well the colors are mixing now that all that black is gone.  And that's how it would really be in Nature.  I love the color of the background.  I love grey.  My friends probably think I'm crazy because, yes, I do wear a lot of neutral colors.  But you see, pure saturated colors pop off a neutral gray; when I paint traditionally, I mix my colors against a grey palette.  I'll never paint without that.  It's a tablet of small sheets of grey called Grey Matters Paper Palette (Jack Richeson & Co. Inc) and what works with traditional will work with digital.
Now that I've already worked out a drawing I really like, have a "schematic" for my lights and darks (which I refer to all the time to make sure I capture the original intent of the black and white and I do have that version up all the time to reference when I apply the color), all I have to do is choose my saturated color shadows and continue to render everything in color.  I know better what to expect and the illustration does not "run away from me" because I am wrestling with everything all at once.

It's been a ride in the last two weeks.  I unwittingly downloaded OS X Mavericks onto my big Mac and POOF! it killed my connection to the internet, Photoshop and disabled my Wacom tablet.  And hey!  Was re acquainting myself with this file last night and discovered my favorite brushes are gone as well!  Been on the phone with Apple for days now; each step making it worse.  And the moment I clicked that "install" button, my contact at Disney sent me a text letting me know that a lot of work was on the way!  My only option at this point, Scott the Apple guy said, was to pray we could still back up on an external hard drive, then erase my entire hard drive.  Back up took 3-4 days; I was praying I did not crash.  My regular back up decided to call it quits too so I might have lost those files.  Then my car refuses to start in this hot weather; it's like Russian Roulette; sometimes it starts, and sometimes it leaves my daughter and I stranded.  So, been on the phone with my friends, begging rides to pick her up and drop her off at school, to buy groceries, etc.  Will be on the phone again with Apple this morning because I'm not out of the woods yet.  Got internet, got my Adobe programs re installed~and what a hassle that was.  Adobe sucks with technical support.  You can no longer get a live technician on the phone anymore; if you have a problem, you are screwed.  I had to have Scott walk me thru a series of convoluted steps to get access to a program I bought for a lot of money...

Okay, now for the business at hand here.  I am teaching myself the process of digital painting, which, I am finding out is VERY different from traditional painting.  First stab at digital is to establish tonal values and tell the story and mood with light, seen in an earlier post.  I then took that black and white and added color.  Mmmm....the results are, as you seen at the top, drab, drained, dead.  Ick.  Yuck.  So I decided to do a completely different tonal value start, this time with my beloved sepias, the way I would with my acrylics.  In traditional shadow; I use Burnt Umber and Alizarine Crimson with either Cad Red Light (for warmer shadows) and Manganese Blue (for cooler shadows); but for this illustration I chose a brown in more of a yellow range, not red.  Yeah, I painted it again, but in Photoshop, it did not take very long.  The steps and knowledge were already rehearsed.  And now I know why many of you, when you paint your illustrations, the color is like it was for me; dead.  Start with sepia tones, not black and white.

Deepening the darks, setting up for opportunities of light and shadow shapes, telling the story with mood.  I look for areas of opportunities..how the flowers flatten on the shoulder and caste a shadow over the shoulder which describe that volumne as round...how the light on those flowers creates a curve which repeats the curves around the silohuette.  Repeated fractal curves, shapes moving in and out of the light, sharp shadows and soft caste shadows which give the figure interest and texture with values.  Almost done before moving into color, but want to do a few more things before that leap into hyperspace...I can see where I have been influenced by the way a sculpture is lit at the museums, and all the sketching I've done in museums overseas (Europe:  France, Spain, Eastern Europe).

The latest screen shot.  Working in values and light source, mood.

Been working on this for a few months now... I've busy with freelance for awhile now and get my licks in when I can.  This is a  drawing from the concept sketch from Saturday, May 24th.

Dragon studies

Been busy with work, with life.  Even tho I have not posted in awhile does not mean I am not drawing..  A blend of male figure drawing  and animal anatomy.  These are studies for a drawing I am working on

I finished a gift for a special friend. Robert Farrell loves pirates so I found this great tiny brass frame antique at the Saugus Swap meet a few years ago and painted character images from the movie franchise. Robert's portrait is the third pirate. Thank you, Robert, for teaching me a new skill!

Sprites of the Forest

..now to this gorgeous pencil concept drawn this morning...this is how it looks before committing to pen. It's all there in the rough, as it should be. The silohuette, the attitude, the anatomy, the design. This particular rough will be open to many "opportunities" for glorious color abstraction, a riot of designed shadow shapes, "opportunities" galore to plus out the figure and make the design flow. Color notes say "figure neutral tones, saturated flowers~pinks." I was thinking of muted colors on the figure but everything else will be more saturated in colors, the flowers, the dragons, peacock feathers in her hair, (as you would see a redwood in the forest). Last week I took a trip to the LA Arboretum for the first time and had this peacock following me around thinking that the sketchbook and pencil I held in my hand was food. Took me awhile to shake him off my tail. But I liked the strange long v-shaped feathers that came off his train and thought "that will end up in one of my drawings". I drew them coming off the back of the Sprite's hair. Then someone posted this unbelievable mass migration of giant Rays swarming off the coast of Baja, some "flying" into the air like flying fish. That also stuck into the recesses of my mind and so I took that and drew the dragon swooping off the Sprite's back, flowers flying off the wings. Recent things that fill me with wonder, I think: "How can I use this?" I'm thinking of putting a dragon in her hand but ran out of space. This is how I think when drawing a concept, this is how I fight to keep it fresh

Sprites of the Forest

...came to a drawing that took hold of my imagination..when I get more time I will fill in the dress part with more daisies.."painting" with the pens. Would really like to paint it instead, but just don't have the time...the pens have to substitute for now...not really scratching that itch, but helping me establish a play of light off the figure.

Sprites of the Forest

Then more doodles with my wonderful Blackwing pencils with my Faber Castell and Tombow pens..

Sprites of the Forest

Forest sprites...It started with this one in my new sketchbook. The drawing on the right is based on my 12 year old daughter who dressed up as Midna from the game The Legend of Zelda. When I look at this drawing it's Sienna.

Some sketchbook fun. Been playing around with several brushpens I bought awhile ago. Really interested in shadow shapes and how they describe the form and add mood. Also playing around with the cadillac of pencils~the reissued Blackwings. Heaven to draw with.

I wrote an article about figure drawing for the Magic Fox website: http://www.magicfoxgraphics.com/what-i-have-learned-about-figure-drawing/#comment-1615

Sometimes a girl has just gotta sketch. Forest Lawn sculptures, the Renaissance Faire, and the Getty. Used this fabulous pencil called The Blackwing; soft lead. Goes on like butta.

"Prom"

Have not had much time to work on this beauty...but here's the latest: