The Concept Art section of my portfolio has been completely revamped. I’ve added my complete portfolio as it stands at the moment– more to come very soon! It currently includes some character designs, environmental designs, digital paintings, and animation layouts. Please click on the image below to view the gallery!

I’ve finally bit the bullet: I’m learning how to digitally paint! I have both Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop, and am learning as much as I can through an online course this summer semester at school. How’s it going? Well, learning a new medium is always tough. But that’s a physical medium. Learning with paints that aren’t real is a whole ‘nother world, and makes Joie rather cranky.

>>Egg Still Life — This school sure loves their eggs. Done in Corel Painter.

Turns out trying to digitally paint makes me forget everything I’ve learned about traditional painting, and it’s like I’m fresh out of undergraduate school again. It’s something about those pixels on the screen. They reach out of the monitor and suck all my practice and talent right out of my eyeballs in a screaming inferno of evil.

>>Copy of a Still from a Movie — I don’t know what movie. Anyone that identifies it gets a virtual cookie. Done in Adobe Photoshop.

I won’t even bother posting the ones that I turned in before critique. They were rather ghastly. But look at how much better I’m getting as we continue on! I like to think a quick study. Well, it’d be faster if parts of my soul weren’t be removed by those evil pixels.

A Color Comp — Planning for my first “big” painting! Done in Adobe Photoshop.

Tonight I bring you some of my activities of late. Last Saturday a colleague of mine and I had a long studio day complete with a sketch brainstorm. During these sessions, we randomly choose subjects and then do timed sketches of them. This activity been very successful in the past– Redneck Pigs was actually born from one of these sessions. If I can find the original sketch, I’ll post it here at a later date. Needless to say I was very eager to get started because I was hoping for some great inspiration for personal art.

Mermaid Song Sketch – Graphite on bond

Our first subject was “mermaid” and I was surprised with how much I liked the sketch. I feel like the lines are very graceful and lyrical which lends itself perfectly to the subject matter. I do believe I have a basis for a new painting! Expect to see this drawing again in the near future.

Nerd with Corgi – Graphite on bond

Another subject later on in the evening was a “nerdy kid.” I took the liberty of making an extremely bookish nerd girl complete with sidekick corgi. I enjoyed this a lot too, and it may hopefully turn into something as well.

And of course, this past Tuesday I finally got back to the Gaijin Studios figure drawing class for the first time in about a month. I had newsprint this time instead of drawing paper, and was wildly unhappy with the outcome of my drawings. The newsprint I purchased was really waxy and just wasn’t taking the graphite well. Unfortunately I ended up hating almost all of my drawings with a passion. I’ve only got one worth showing this go-round.

Figure Drawing – Graphite on newsprint

Come back tomorrow for more on what I’ve been up to outside of Vinny. I’ll have lots to show!

I am still alive, amazingly. I’m not sure if it’s the constantly changing weather, allergies, or the fact that I work in an office, but I just keep staying sick. It’s awful. I’m getting lots of art done though, and generally keeping it together to make my Vinny deadlines. I just completed another page earlier this evening. Unfortunately, I have not yet scanned and/or photographed any of the new stuff I’m working on, so my blog post for tonight is going to be a week-and-a-half late Artist Spotlight.

Tale of a Butterfly – Markers and colored pencils. © Natalia Pierandrei.

Natalia Pierandrei, more commonly known as “Nati” has been an illustrator that I’ve admired for quite some time. I discovered her originally several years ago on DeviantArt while surfing and collecting artists that I liked to add to my Watch List. I was immediately attracted to her artwork because, like me, she does marker work. And believe me, after an entire semester of intense self-study in markers, I know that there aren’t very many marker artists out there. I’m not surprised either, with the sheer lack of instruction in and use for marker art. Everything is computerized these days! There’s not as much respect for us traditional artists anymore, I say!

Garden of Delights – Markers, watercolors and colored pencils on Fabriano Murillo paper. © Natalia Pierandrei.

I digress. Nati’s work is fabulously limited in its color palette– and boy does it work for her. Simple, graceful lines, dimmed colors suddenly superheated with one or two bright ones, and an interesting anime-influenced fusion style really gives her work a punch. There are so many of her pieces that I like that it’s difficult to choose just a few to showcase here!

Winter Commission – Markers, watercolors and colored pencils. © Natalia Pierandrei.

Her work is intricate and detailed. She says herself on her website that she takes some inspiration from art nouveau-styled artworks and artists. And the best part? She lives in Italia. Easily one of my favorite countries, and the one I’ve spent the most time in besides my own.

She just released an artbook named Precious Things which is, unfortunately, sold out at this time. But you should totally get interested and check out her website “A Forgotten Night Tale”, and her blog, “Precipitevolissimevolmente”. Her stuff is great– I hope you get hooked on it as I have.

This week’s artist spotlight post is about another big influence of mine– although this artist is from a long time ago. Alphonse Mucha the Czech illustrator, alive and active mostly during the 19th Century, is very influential and inspirational to me. I wrote a long research paper in college examining the ideas behind his work (and how it fit into the Art Nouveau movement)… one on which I made an “A,” I might add.

Zodiac – © Alphonse Mucha

I think that art history is a very important piece of education that every successful artist should have. Even if you did not go to college for art, in my opinion it is endlessly important to study and learn about what art is, where it was been, and who has been doing it. Everything in art influences everything else, and studying how it was evolved is not only critical, but fascinating. Because I took extra history classes in college, I had the pleasure of learning about Alphonse Mucha, the Art Nouveau movement, and how it has influenced artists and illustrators alike since.

Champagne Label – © Alphonse Mucha*

Mucha’s work ranged from simple decorative panels to posters (most notably being those for Sarah Bernhardt’s plays), from beautiful fine art paintings and drawings to the breath-taking Slav Epic. He also did sculptures and a variety of jewelry designs, all of which are inspirational, beautiful, and delicious to look at.

Apotheosis from the Slav Epic – © Alphonse Mucha

I’ve many an art book about him, and have studied about him at length– which is why you can easily see elements of his style pop up in my work from time to time. I am very into decorative art, and it shows. Go take a look at my Gallery and see if you can determine how each of my pieces was influenced by Alphonse Mucha. If you can’t, you should totally do some reading about Art Nouveau, and check out the official Mucha Foundation website to learn more about this fantastic artist. I would write more in depth here, but after writing a fifteen page paper about him, I feel like I’ve written all I can write. Perhaps I should post it here sometime for others to peruse. Interested? Comment and tell me!

*… for those of you very attentive readers who were inspired to visit James Jean’s blog last week may have noticed that Jean has just done some alcoholic beverage bottle designs of his own. I love seeing parallels like this!