I made a Joie Brown fan page on Facebook.com. Gee, I know that may sound narcissistic, but it was done for the purpose of spreading the word about my website! So if you’re on Facebook, feel free to add me!

Joie’s Fan Page on Facebook

I snapped some photos of my working space, just for fun. I think an artist’s studio (or corner, in my case) says a lot about them as well as the work that they produce. So in the middle of pencilling Vinny I stepped back and thought it’d be interesting to share.

I’ve got a simple drafting table that has great northern lighting from the window to the left. However that’s usually not enough, so I’ve got two more lights pulling double duty. Three of the Vinny pages are visible on the table, as well as some of my materials: india ink, variety of pencils, Copic pens, circle guide, obligatory stuffed kitty and signed print of a Christian Slade corgi. Some more adroit readers may notice something about my dominant hand based on the layout of the materials and page placement on the table.

Here’s a close-up of some of the Vinny pages, handily out of focus because my pocket-sized camera can somehow manage depth-of-field. Amazing. And here I used to think I needed a digital-SLR for that. Technology these days!

You may have guessed that I tend to go for Prismacolor products. There’s a cartoon that I was commissioned to do for ArguingIdiots.com (the producers of Vinny) hanging out in the middle. I’m in the midst of coloring it in Photoshop around me writing this. Also, if you look really closely, you can see the bluelines under the pencils on the comic pages.

So there you have it; an illustrator right in the thick of it. Not as exciting as I’d imagined it originally, but still offering an insight to my world. I find that I am an exceptionally clean artist (at least compared to my classmates in school). I was always the first to run to the sink after using charcoal in Drawing I. Like, knock-people-over-my-pants-on-fire first. I hated Ceramics because I could just never get the sludge out from under my nails at the end of the day. Oils were the bane of my existence with all of the chemicals and stained clothing, although I have since devised a way of remaining nearly spotless whilst handling them.

That’s why pencils, inks, watercolors, markers and Photoshop are in my top favorite mediums. Clean and simple. Mostly the clean part, though.

I would really like to get into the habit of doing small spotlight blurbs on artists that I enjoy and find inspirational. Mondays are always the worst days when it comes to getting back into the swing of things at work– it’s just a simple fact of life. I thought looking at some inspirational art at the beginning of the week could benefit everyone, so Mondays it is!

It took me some time to really decide who I was going to spotlight in this first post. I decided on a colleague and former classmate of mine, Kelly McKernan. She just had a show open in Little Five Points at the Aurora Coffee Shop located on Moreland Avenue. Being that it’s fresh in my mind, and that not only is her hard work inspirational to others, but so is her art, I thought I’d begin with her.

The Sea Witch – Watercolor, Gouache, Ink on Silver Gelatin Print © 2008 Kelly McKernan

Kelly is an emerging illustrator whose work really delivers some fun eye candy… and she has certainly begun catching the attention of the Atlanta scene because of it. She has had a parade of shows and galleries she’s been featured in, has sold quite a number of her paintings (including the one above to me!) and prints, and even self-published her own book showcasing her monstrous “30 Paintings Project” that she completed last year.

Fidelity – Watercolor, Gouache, and Bleach with Silver Gelatin Print on Stretched and Stained Watercolor Paper © 2009 Kelly McKernan

I happen to particularly love her mixture of photography and painting together to create a bit of an otherworldly feel to her work. Watching her play with and discover new techniques and ways to approach her art has been fascinating; she has really come up with some innovative ideas. Having such a strong narrative quality to her work is another aspect that draws my attention, along with soothing colors, strongly characterized line qualities, and sets of components that are sometimes odd to see placed within the same visual field.

Fidelity – Gouache with Silver Gelatin Print on Stretched and Stained Watercolor Paper © 2009 Kelly McKernan

Kelly’s great art and hard work has been really inspirational to me, so I hope it is for you as well. Please be sure to check out her blog, Rocket Socks and Plastic Locks, and her website, KellyMcKernan.com to see all of her artwork and a listing of her upcoming shows.

Figure Drawing – 15 minute graphite brick on drawing paper.

I attended Gaijin Studio’s figure drawing class again this past Tuesday, finding myself disappointedly short on supplies such as charcoal and newsprint. Luckily I was able to borrow a piece of charcoal again, as well as an interesting new tool called a graphite brick.

Figure Drawing – 2 minute compressed charcoal on drawing paper.

While warming up on the two minute poses, I remembered the instructor from last time challenging me to draw focusing on the form more than the lines, and to therefore pay more attention to the values as part of the object as opposed to just decoration on its surface.

Figure Drawing – 2 minute compressed charcoal on drawing paper.

The model was an absolutely beautiful woman who sported a fascinating figure full of movement and curvatures that made her fun to draw. She had super long braids that she tied up into a nest on her head that ended up giving her the look of a regal queen.

Figure Drawing – 15 minute graphite brick on drawing paper.

Heavy attention to lines appears to make my art very precise and controlled while placing the emphasis on form gives my style a unique bounce and rhythm to it. The instructor wants me to work towards unifying the two to see what interesting chemistry I can come up with.

Figure Drawing – 5 minute compressed charcoal on drawing paper.

On the website side of things, I have tinkered slightly with the widgets on the sidebar of the blog, adding, subtracting, and moving a few things around. I also updated the Contact page with some of my art profiles and added the ability to subscribe to this website via e-mail. Please feel free to sign up!

This is all some older work of mine (circa 2007) that I thought needed to be added to the gallery. The Drunken Lamp is something very out of the ordinary for me, and this is its first appearance on the internet. Enjoy!