Calling Artists and Art Lovers

[Green Monstah]

On my mission, I was transferred to a new area just as an elderly woman was being baptized. I did the last two discussions. She had a large mural of the silhouette of a mountain range in front of a red-orange sky. I liked it as it reminded me of the sunsets in Arizona.

I complimented her on the painting and she thanked me and said it was new. When we came back, I realized something was a little strange about one of the peaks. It had a unique outcropping at the very top that didn't seem normal for a mountain. "That looks like a breast and nipple," I thought. I looked to the left and right of the nippled peak in horror as I realized I'd heaped praise upon a nude woman's silhouette, realizing in a moment of shocking clarity that she said it was a "nude" and not new.

[Sleeping in EQ]

This guy is great. I think I'll buy something.

[tooblue]

Any of you guys ever hear of "The Gnarled Branch" dude? He goes to thrift stores and buys cheap paintings/prints and then "redirects" them by putting some additions on the paintings. He has an FB page, Instagram, Etsy, etc.

https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/TheGnarledBranch/items
https://www.instagram.com/thegnarledbranch/
https://www.redbubble.com/shop/the+g...ordion=product

It is kitsch and cheesy as hell, but I love it. Seriously considering buying a copy of the Matt Foley print.

A few examples:

Kitsch yes, but then what art isn't? Strangely fun stuff—in a way kinda reminds me of SIMON STÅLENHAG's sci-fi retro paintings:





https://wowxwow.com/artist-profile/simon-stalenhag-ap

[Jeff Lebowski]

Any of you guys ever hear of "The Gnarled Branch" dude? He goes to thrift stores and buys cheap paintings/prints and then "redirects" them by putting some additions on the paintings. He has an FB page, Instagram, Etsy, etc.

https://www.etsy.com/ca/shop/TheGnarledBranch/items
https://www.instagram.com/thegnarledbranch/
https://www.redbubble.com/shop/the+g...ordion=product

It is kitsch and cheesy as hell, but I love it. Seriously considering buying a copy of the Matt Foley print.

A few examples:

[Northwestcoug]

I came across the work of Eyvind Earle on Twitter a while back, and I love his work. I think he used to be a Disney artist. His work certainly has that stylized look:
IMG_8592.jpg
IMG_8591.jpg
IMG_8593.JPG

I'd love to buy some prints, but all I can find are official prints from select galleries. So now I'm not so sure how much I love his stuff.

[tooblue]

This is what happens when I try to draw from memory. The other day, my son's horse jumped and took a few hops. He looked like he was a goner, lost a stirrup and was leaning toward the outside when he found his determination and reached down to hold on and make the ride. I can see it clearly in my mind but can't make it to paper. The look on his face when he stayed on was priceless: a combination of amazement and pride.

Edit: I didn't mean for the first shot to be so large. It's only sketched on a 5x8 notepad in a portrait view with a regular #2 pencil. Aside from being hard to see, the first attachment was way too magnified.

[ATTACH]8169[/ATTACH]

Lovely gesture.

[tooblue]

Wuap, thanks for introducing us to Clifton.

TooBlue: I would love to learn more digital art, even though it feels like cheating because I often scan in and oversketch photos on my ipad pro. Unlike talents like Cowboy who dont even do plein air. Your work is amazing. Thanks for the references.

What digital apps would you recommend? I use Procreate for almost everything, and Adobe for lettering.

I use Alias Sketch and Procreate, also Apple Notes is fantastic—it almost feels like drawing with a real pencil on board. The Adobe iPad apps are not great; I have them but never use them. It's not cheating. Norman Rockwell painted from reference photos extensively for his Saturday Evening Post cover illustrations. He would post notices on the bulletin board at church in his small town indicating what kind of models he was looking for, from among his neighbours and friends. He also hired models, when he needed a particular look:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/arti...strations.html

Great Artists, ancient and modern have all relied on models, and eventually on cameras (camera obscura):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3aA6xi_jmc

Donato Giancola does amazing sci-fi work, drawing from great reference photos:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i2sgl1N6hE8

Now I realize that Rockwell and Giancolo are drawing by looking at the image or even "plein air" but is that really that different than tracing—especially if its a photograph, for which you own the copyright?

I mostly draw by looking at my subject matter I have posed and then photographed. But sometimes I do trace, especially if the photo was so carefully constructed by me to be traced. Here's an illustration created from a photo I use as an in-class demo (drawing free-hand by looking at the photo; no tracing):

pistacios_illustration.jpg
Water colour, Acrylic, coloured pencil on water colour paper 8x10"

pistacios.jpg

[Katy Lied]

Wuap, thanks for introducing us to Clifton.

TooBlue: I would love to learn more digital art, even though it feels like cheating because I often scan in and oversketch photos on my ipad pro. Unlike talents like Cowboy who dont even do plein air. Your work is amazing. Thanks for the references.

What digital apps would you recommend? I use Procreate for almost everything, and Adobe for lettering.

[cowboy]

This is what happens when I try to draw from memory. The other day, my son's horse jumped and took a few hops. He looked like he was a goner, lost a stirrup and was leaning toward the outside when he found his determination and reached down to hold on and make the ride. I can see it clearly in my mind but can't make it to paper. The look on his face when he stayed on was priceless: a combination of amazement and pride.

Edit: I didn't mean for the first shot to be so large. It's only sketched on a 5x8 notepad in a portrait view with a regular #2 pencil. Aside from being hard to see, the first attachment was way too magnified.

Russ.jpg

[Pelado]

Didn't realize tooblue was an artist. I've always wanted to draw/paint/sculpt, but I've got no skills.

I also have no draw/paint/sculpt skills, which has probably contributed to my lack of interest in producing drawings/paintings/sculptures.

[SteelBlue]

For a client. Original ballpoint pen drawing, digitally colourized [iPad Pro/pencil & Photoshop on a laptop] ... I prefer to paint by hand, but my students mostly only do digital these days, so I have to remain au courant:


I should note it is an editorial illustration: the "yin and yang of following philosophical rabbits down rabbit holes."

Impressive, TB!

[Green Monstah]

Didn't realize tooblue was an artist. I've always wanted to draw/paint/sculpt, but I've got no skills.

[Jeff Lebowski]

That link goes to a glowing obituary of the man and there are zero comments. Look at the way he uses WOOD BLOCKS to actually make it look like it's snowing, or the camo pattern on the tree trunk to simulate light and shadow coming through a canopy. Check the scale of things against what a photograph would show, and you can almost see yourself there, like you jumped into a Mary Poppins borderline-fauvist landscape.

He looks like a fantastic artist. I was just commenting on the one bit of calligraphy!

[tooblue]

That's really cool. Is it really painting if it is done digitally?

Yes, it's a painting. The tools are making it harder and harder to tell the difference between real and digital. Here is one of the rabbit ballpoint pen drawings scanned:

rabbit_ballpointpen.jpg

Here it is after it was painted on an iPad Pro and exported to Photoshop on my laptop:

rabbit_ballpointpen_digpaintediPad.jpg

[cowboy]

For a client. Original ballpoint pen drawing, digitally colourized [iPad Pro/pencil & Photoshop on a laptop] ... I prefer to paint by hand, but my students mostly only do digital these days, so I have to remain au courant:

[ATTACH]8129[/ATTACH]

That's really cool. Is it really painting if it is done digitally?