Here’s a smattering of digital paintings that I’ve either completed or been working on. I feel like digital painting isn’t as frustrating as it used to be, but I’m still not great at it. I’ve started attending a digital painting workshop this semester at school to continue refining my skills!

>>Another mastercopy.

>>An unfinished quick study for some chocolate-chip cupcakes.

>>Finished concept piece for class.

>>Another finished concept piece for class.

>>A still life I got about halfway through at the workshop the other day. I worked on it for about three hours.

So my other class this summer is Children’s Book–

*record scratch*

Wait.

Can I take a moment and just say: two studio classes during summer semester? What WAS I thinking?! This is the most stressed and overworked I have been in my entire life, and that is saying a lot. I’m the sort of person who forever overfills her plate and is moving at 100 mph. When *I* say something is too much, it’s gotta REALLY be too much. I’ve literally been physically tapping out with how much I can do in one day, and it still isn’t enough. This isn’t productive stress; it’s just too much!

Anyway, back to what I was saying.

My other class this summer semester is Children’s Book, and I have absolutely fallen in love with this method of storytelling. Our first assignment was called “The Big, Round Red” and was basically a prompt assignment (the prompt being the phrase “big, round red”). I really enjoyed it. I came up with the concept of the “big, round red” being the hot African sun. My two main characters are meerkats, and they are sweltering and need to find shade! Above are the final panels I came up with for the short.

Here is some of the concept art that I did initially while playing around with the idea. It features a few characters that didn’t show up in the final short, but are still part of the big story.

My original set of thumbnails showing the story, but based on feedback I decided it was trying to cram too much story into just five panels. I ended up cutting the five panel story down to just the elephant and the tree.

The old “final” panel 4, which had been decided was too like the others, and thus why it was redone as seen above. I don’t particularly like the new version either, but at least it was different. I need to revisit it again. I do like the story though, so perhaps I’ll eventually develop it into a full blown book featuring a whole host of characters.

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.

Aie! I’ve let things go on far too long without updating. The end of the semester had me so busy that it was easy to let my blog fall by the wayside. Well that’s all over now! Time to catch up. Most of this post is more stuff from my pastel and head drawing class. There are a few more after this, plus other work and things I’ve been up to, so I will hopefully post those soon.

(continue reading…)

And now it’s time for a giant dump of all of the classwork I’ve been up to recently. I haven’t had the time to update in the last few weeks, so I’m playing catchup to the best of my ability. My other news is that I managed to finish a new primitive portfolio, and so I will be updating my website with those items very soon. There will be a few other housecleaning changes going on as well, to make navigation and finding all my art easier.

>> This piece is my best pastel as of yet, and even received a compliment from my program director. I’m pleased. And yes it still looks all orange and fleshy– that’s just the medium. It’s meant to be monochromatic, not real flesh tone. I’m following the professor’s instructions in how I make it.

>>A master copy of a Sargent painting done in charcoal.

Tons more under the jump!

(continue reading…)