Bluebeads

Back in 2007, when I did a drawing in a sketchbook which later became "Golden," I didn't think it would turn into a series of paintings. And yet, here we are.

(L:) "Bluebeads" 5x7" Oils on treated paper (detail view | purchase info)

This headdress-series has been an enjoyable exploration with no end in mind. "Golden" and "Silver" were birthed at the same time, with the same format and goals. The next two were paired together and became "The Balance of Power." So these seem to develop in pairs for some reason. I like paintings that have conversations between themselves. I've said before that I also enjoy variations on a theme. This series has also been enjoyable for being fairly spontaneous. Mostly, they've been about simply creating lovely objects, art for art's sake I suppose. With "The Balance of Power" I departed a bit, and decided to put a bit more message into it, but at its heart was the same aesthetic thrust.

"Bluebeads" continues in the original vein, and painted at 5x7", even smaller than the first pair, has a nice gem-like quality about it that pleases me. When I painted the first pair, at 8x10" I was a little sad that I'd painted them so small. I liked them, but we often have a bigger-is-better mentality with art, born in no small part from the physical impact that original paintings have when you view them. The giant ones rock you like a hurricane. That's a different experience altogether from looking at a gem, or a small bird. I think I've embraced this aspect a bit. I thought going in that I might really regret not doing this at 16x20" or so, with the head at 3/4 scale of whatever. Now that I've done it, I don't. Viewed on an iPad in horizontal view, the detail view is nearly actual size!

"Bluebeads" had its genesis months ago. Back in September I blogged about a whirlwind trip I took. There's a photo there of me working at Ben Thompson's studio. Now that story can be told.

Just before leaving NYC I took some reference photos for what would be this painting. I'd done my thumbnails, although to be honest I had not really worked out the costuming very in-depth. I packed my brushes and headed out. I was greatly looking forward to a couple of days painting at Ben's house. This small 5x7" was the perfect size for such travel.

I hadn't done any preliminary drawing or anything, and this piece moved quickly and almost effortlessly. It was probably due to the great time I was having. I arrived in SoCal, and within a couple of hours sat down, borrowed Ben's paints, set out my reference and got to work. Eschewing my usual methods, I just started doing the drawing with straight paint, skipping the pencil stage entirely. Within just a few hours I had a mostly finished underpainting rendered in Mars Violet, and then it was time for dinner with Daren and Tom, as mentioned, who came over to Ben's and had a look-see at what we were doing. Later that night we got back to work and I finished up the underpainting (at left).

Day 2 was a blur of non-stop painting, coffee and music. I painted the head and hands and began working on the bead work. I borrowed every blue and turquoise he had and mixed them up to get more variety than I might've had otherwise. It was probably my single most productive day in recent memory.

(L:) End of day 1 (R:) End of my stay at Ben's

Day 3 was really a half-day as I flew out early that evening. But at the end of it I was most of the way through, though I had more beads to paint. And that was that for this painting, because upon returning home I had to get going on other projects.

A few months later I pulled it out again and worked on it some more. Immediately I was unhappy with the value structure, which was too focused on the filigree in the headdress, too stark. So I repainted the background, and then did a little more work on the skin tones to adjust. Then it went back in the drawer for awhile longer, since I was working on it in and around projects still. The next time I had an opportunity, I pulled it out and just finished up the beads finally.

And so here it is. Oh, and hey, it was also selected for publication in this year's Spectrum 20 book!

You may have noticed what I said above, that these pieces usually come in pairs....Yeah, about that....

"Eschaton" Included in the ARC Salon 2012

I am proud to announce that my painting, "Eschaton" (at left) has been included as a finalist in the 2012-13 Art Renewal Center Salon.

That's the main news. I'm very happy about the recognition. What is this salon, though? It may be new to you.

The Art Renewal Center has long been a favorite destination of mine for inspiration, gathering the finest in classical painting over the past centuries, and continuing their support forward to the present-day, recognizing contemporary artists pushing the boundaries of skill, emotion and vision. They've advanced the value of objective aesthetics with the understanding that subjective appreciation still applies.

A few years ago, they began a juried "salon" which results in an annual catalog, cash prizes, purchase awards, and promotion of contemporary works on their site. It's always been a refreshing reminder that not everything in the modern art world is silliness. Through their own lectures and efforts, they've championed classical aesthetics in a tone I might not go full on-board with, while largely sympathizing with much of the underlying philosophy. Nevertheless, I am happy to have them as co-belligerents, and I do believe organizations like theirs have resulted in a sort of renaissance of classical methods and atelier training, which I wish I had been a beneficiary of 20 years ago.

(L:) "No. 1 (Royal Red & Blue)" by Mark Rothko, 1954, sold at auction in 2012 for $75,000,000.

But what of this genre I work in? In recent years it has acquired the category name of, "Imaginative Realism," a title which does no violence to the genre while sounding respectable enough to the cultured ear. I've often said that my genre is the bottom of the barrel in terms of cultured art, or rather that it is regarded as such. I would argue that there are many works produced from its ranks that can stand shoulder-to-shoulder with the best of any genre. And there is plenty of schlock. But it would be like denigrating our best landscape painters because thrift store landscapes exist and inhabit the same genre. In our minds, we rightfully chop off the worst from consideration, and weigh the best against the best. Except for Imaginative Realism, which is often left out of consideration at all, by many organizations and almost all museums and galleries.

For this reason, I have been extremely excited to see recent trends beginning to show the stirrings of change. A year ago, the Allentown Art Museum hosted an exhibit of Imaginative Realist works, from classic illustration to works produced in the past couple of years. IlluXCon now has among its jury members leadership from not only Allentown but also the Delaware Art Museum. And now, the Art Renewal Center has opened its doors to us as well, creating a category for us to participate in its annual salon.

What was interesting was seeing works from genre artists spread not only within the defined category, but spilling into other categories, as well. Because this genre at times touches upon portraiture, figure painting, landscape, wildlife art...almost anything. I've also said for a long time that the best in this field are in my opinion the best in *any* field, simply because the visual breadth necessary encompasses all fields of representational art. The best fantasy artist (to revert to the vernacular) will be a stellar portraitist, figure painter, landscape painter, architectural painter, and wildlife painter...all in the same painting at times. And then throw in the imaginative aspects which don't actually exist! Compare that to someone who spends their entire life only painting portraits (worthy and appreciated as that is).

Do check out the salon results, and if you are the type who enjoys collecting art books and catalogs, order one from them. It would be a wonderful show of appreciation for their support for us, and you would get a 200 page catalog with incredible art from across the full gamut of representational painting. You can't go wrong if you love art.

Did I mention that Eschaton is included in the catalog? Well, all the more reason to pick one up!

Maw of the Obzedat

For the upcoming Magic set release, after chatting back and forth with overall Good Guy, Mike Linneman, we decided to run the interview as an article, which you can read here, and where you can learn more about this uncharacteristically gross piece.

But it's not just me! Check out other great art in the article, learn some tips on spotting a digital vs. traditionally painted piece, and get some sobering stats on the breakdown of digital vs. traditionally painted work in the latest Magic set. Well, it's exciting news for digital artists, anyway!

Mike was a former art director at a gaming company and is a columnist for GatheringMagic.com covering art in the industry. He spends his art direction time with educational games and building a community of fantasy/sci-fi (imaginative realist) artists in the Minneapolis area.

Goodbye, Quinton

This past weekend, I learned of Quinton Hoover's death.

I don't write about every significant artist's death. When the late Moebius died a year ago, I didn't write about it. I loved his work but I can't say it was very influential to me, nor did I know him personally. With Quinton, however, it was both.

As many of you know and as some of you remember from your own history, Quinton's early work in Magic: the Gathering, from its earliest days, was simply incredible. If I can say so without denigrating the ability of others from those earliest sets (many of whom are friends of mine still in one form or another), he was hands-down the best of that bunch. What was most amazing still was that he was essentially self-taught, and hadn't done much color work professionally prior to his work on Magic. He was a self-professed comics guy who ended up spending most of his professionally active years in gaming, doing color work.

And what color work! His Mucha-esque inks and drawing, coupled with a love of Michael Kaluta and other artists resulted in a drawing ability and style that was his own, easily identifiable, and lovely. His utter ease at drawing (no doubt the result of countless hours beating the difficulty out of himself) always amazed me. He rarely to my knowledge relied on models. From his head to paper via his hand. Amazing. In my earliest days as an illustrator, among that group working in the collectible card industry, he was my favorite.

I met him on a couple of occasions at signing events, and he was a fun and gentle guy, with his big head of frizzy hair and world-weary look. We corresponded often via email or as part of some email groups I've been on most of my career. I had the honor of having him critique my works, and was very grateful for his encouragements to me in my earlier years, often at times when I needed both. He was also willing to receive and appreciative of anything I had to offer him about his own work...which wasn't much.

Just a few years into working, I had the opportunity to collaborate with Quinton on a small Middle-Earth illustration. I don't know why he condescended to working with me, but we certainly divided the labor appropriately: he sent me a page of bristol with a delicately penciled illustration of Snaga coming to oppress Frodo, being held captive in Cirith Ungol. My job was to take it to color. It was intimidating, but proved the old adage that all good painting is good drawing, first. That the piece was of any worth at all was due to his pencils.

"Snaga" 8.5x11 Acrylics on bristol, pencils by Quinton Hoover, 1997

After completing it, we weren't sure what to do with it. We were both happy with it. Quinton wanted it so we traded. I sent him the final painting to keep, and he sent me a smaller painting I quite loved. I surely wasn't going to ask for one of his valuable Magic paintings, but I also greatly enjoyed his work on the first sets of Legend of the Five Rings, which I also worked on. One of my favorites was the character Isawa Tsuke. When the painting arrived, I hung it up for many years next to my work space. I haven't had a living situation where I can hang it for a few years, but I look forward greatly to reframing it when I have a larger space.

That same year I submitted Snaga to the Spectrum annual, and it was accepted. In those days we would have had to send a transparency. I had already traded the piece to Quinton, and didn't have a good enough scan nor transparency. I'm sure I've told this story before. It was during one of those periods where he'd disappear for various reasons, and we couldn't get it together in time for submission, which I'll always kick myself for (I should've had it shot myself).

Shortly thereafter I invited Quinton to participate in my online gallery, Daydream Graphics, where I was happy to support his work for a few years. By the early 2000s, however, life for Quinton became a series of difficulties. Life as a freelance artist is hard for most, but it was harder for him than many. It's much too complex to go into and much of it was private, but I was always saddened, sometimes angry, that his reputation and popularity did not continue to grow over time, for the various reasons that it didn't. I did what I could to support him and was happy to do so, and when the time came to pull apart from Daydream, as happened with many illustrators over the years, we did so amicably and with our friendship intact--which was the case with every artist who came and went through DDG, a fact I was always proud of.

And now he's gone. I must say that the past 6 or so years we lost touch more or less. I don't want to paint myself as being a greater or closer friend than we were. Occasionally he'd pop up on those email lists, but our personal interactions fell off. This was due to just working in increasingly diverging spheres and having no points of contact to refresh our friendship, but as I said, not because of any bad feelings at all. I am very glad to have known him and for all I learned from him. I'm proud of my time supporting his work actively, and am so very happy to own a painting by him. I've often talked about the very intimate and personal aspect of owning original art. At times like this, it is so much more special, and just drives home the belief that physical paintings are so valuable. They really are a tangible extension and record of an active and creative mind; Quinton's will no longer give us wonderful things to see, but what a record he left behind.

Avarice

Let it be known that my titles for paintings done for Legend of the Cryptids are my own, not what they appear in-game as. I don't tend to know what they appear as, and though they are given production titles, I know these often change. So, this was not painted to be a true meditation on the subject of avarice. But it kinds does the job.

(R:) Avarice, 12x16" Acrylic and oil on watercolor paper (detail view | purchase info)

As well, though an increasing number of my recent illustrations have featured some amount of digital in their published forms, I'm tending to show here on my site the paintings only because that's what I'm primarily about here. So if you happened to play the game and saw this illustration, there'd be some differences. I may have made that clear in prior posts, and it's certainly not something I'm going to want to go on about every time it happens. I figure more of you will see my work here than in-game, among those who are interested in my work. I mean, probably more people, overall, will see the in-game version than see my website, but they won't know who I am, and my name isn't credited. So they're essentially two different groups of people.

This piece was fairly straightforward, really, and so when I looked through my project folder for interesting things to show, there kind of weren't any. At some point I recall taking more in-progress photos, but I have no idea where they might have gone. They must've disappeared during a photo purge.

So instead I figured I'd give you a couple of detail shots, because I haven't done those in awhile, and most of you will not see the original painting to get up and personal with it. Which is a shame, because I wish you could. It is, after all, the Original. The best scan, the best reproduction, is already second or third generation. The scanner alters the character of the colors a little and negates surface texture, and color correction and saving the file for web further alters it. I suppose I could use the PNG format and negate that last part, but then the files would take too long to load. The best print is a fourth generation, with printer inks and color compatibility further tweaking things. I might try to compensate using digital tools, but there is really nothing like the real thing.

I quite enjoyed this piece. I like floating things in general, and this piece gave me plenty of floating things to paint. Working with Applibot has enabled me to paint a number of successful pieces, and so I'm quite grateful for the opportunity to be part of their projects. This will be the last piece for them for a bit. It has been an unfortunate but happy by-product of being busy that I've had other things calling my attention. Too many things! Well, it can never be too many, really, when you're a freelance illustrator. Make hay while the sun shines, or whatever.

Again, check out the larger version here!

Gruul Guildgate 2

Gruul Guildgate 2, 16x20" oils on masonite (detail view / purchase info)

The Request

Maybe 9 months or so after finishing the painting for Gruul Guildgate, Magic: the Gathering Art Director Jeremy Jarvis contacted me with an unusual email and commission. The email was to myself and the other artists who had done the first set of Guildgates released in "Return to Ravnica" and "Gatecrash." What Jarvis was proposing was to revisit the Guildgates for the follow-up set, "Dragon's Maze," and he was asking each of the original illustrators if they'd be willing to do that.

The basic concept was to depict the original gate once again, only with the camera pulled waaaay back, so as to see much more of the environment the gate exists in. Ideally the lighting and color would be the same or similar, to help with identifying the old among the new. He was a little apologetic about the request, understanding if we didn't want to rehash old work.

Rehash? That would hardly be the case! First off, I greatly enjoy reinterpreting concepts. Even a little time between the initial version and any follow-up will show development of ideas and such. For instance, Magic regularly replaces the art on old cards when they are reprinted, to freshen up the visuals. I'm all for that. I've always wished that occasionally the original illustrator would get asked to revisit the old art, but that rarely happens. Usually, they seek an entirely new perspective. So, this was an opportunity to do what I've long wanted to.

I agreed, and Jarvis fired over an extremely crude thumbnail saying, "Something like this." For his sanity, I will refrain from posting an image of it. It was the kind of thing you'd doodle on a napkin to make a point. But it was enough to give me the rough idea. In his very quick sketch, he indicated that the ground of the first illustration might be revealed to be a path along the top of a long-since overgrown roof of an older, massive structure. It was a brilliant idea, and I give him full credit for it. I told him I was going to steal that, and went forward with my own sketch.

The Process

I grabbed the scan of my initial image, and created a new digital canvas. Then I shrunk the first gate's art way down and placed it about where I wanted it. From there, I went about digitally sketching the rest of the environment and submitted it to quick approval.

That was the last part that was quick.

The first painting had a very limited palette. When I painted it, I constructed a limited gamut, trying out a little of what James Gurney has popularized in recent years. I think I've done this maybe twice. It's not a natural way for me to work, but it does work once you get the hang of it, which I'm not sure I have. More experiments are required, but it's definitely a useful tool to have around.

Because the initial gate was a pretty complex environment, I also went the second step of pre-mixing the colors (Gurney calls them "color-strings," but I just refer to them as gradations). I snapped this photo of the pre-mixed palette during the production of the first painting:

The first painting, then, was painted from just the colors in those pre-mixed batches, plus white or black as needed, though I don't think I actually used any black.

I admit I'd have been screwed if I had to recreate those colors from scratch. They're mostly muddy and it would've been a headache. Fortunately, I had elsewhere scribbled notes about what made up each of the gamut's primary colors. So I was able, more or less, to reproduce the color batches, which really saved my neck.

I tidied up the sketch after enlarging and transfering it. I didn't do an acrylic Burnt Umber underpainting on this one, as I had with the first. I don't remember why. It might have been time--that underpainting would have taken at least half a day, and this was being painted at the same size as the first, in what was probably going to be a more involved composition. In the end, that may have resulted in a slightly different color cast from the first. But it's close enough.

It was kind of fun repainting the first piece in relative minature as part of the larger whole. My digital colleagues may have just shrunk the initial image down and extended it, perhaps blurring out a little of the detail. But I essentially repainted the entire first painting (16x20") at the size of roughly 4.5x5.5". Below, I've put them side-by-side at comparable size. There are a few differences, but it basically reads as the same piece doesn't it?



The final image, in larger form, can be seen again here.