Selfie Collage

I'm not much of a blogger, I think this has been established, but I'll try to post randomly like I do from time to time.  Here's a crop of a self portrait collage I've made using multiple photos, paint, and doodles.

Latest in the Redhead Series

I'm finding that it helps to start out in greyscale and then paint over in color.  I have 22 saved iterations of this face, here are step 1, 3, and 22.

Evolution of a face

While making my digital paintings, I will either start painting over a rough scanned sketch, or start from scratch.  If I can't get the face right, I'll turn it upside down, or put it in a monochromatic scale to reduce the distractions that my brain wants to see (which are not there).  It doesn't always work, but when it does, I'm happy.  You can see one such evolution here.  There were, of course, many steps in between each thumbnail I've shown.

Once I get the face finalized, I play with adding background detail/texture, and/or color.

Green and Gold

Certainly not colors I'm seeing outside today with the blizzard (ahem, if you can call it that.  We got far less than the 27" called for) yesterday.  These are two variations which ended up looking similar in color palette after playing around with the color versions I am working on right now; additions to the Royals Series.

More Details!!

Another from the same 'Royals' series.  The hustle and bustle of the season is slowing down personal art time, but here's some of the latest ....

Recent Works in Sepia

 From my Stepchildren Series

 From a new series, The Royals (WIP)

Recent Polaroid scan from this past summer.

Redhead in Blue

Continuing with my 'Stepchildren' series....

Sticker Sightings

It's a secret thrill to come upon something I made on the streets of NYC.  I don't always have a camera with me, but when I do....

Thursday's Screenshot

Work on my 'Stepchildren' series continues.  I start with a scanned sketch, paint in Adobe Photoshop, all on separate layers.  When a file gets to be a certain number of layers, say, 15 or so, I save a flattened version, rename it with a numerical suffix, and continue to the next 15 layers, and so on.  The face and features change a lot during this process.   And as you can see, I often have a few windows open at the same time.  The redhead on the left is the preview in Adobe Bridge of another painting I've done.

'The Stepchildren' Series

I'm currently working on a series of redheads, all painted digitally with my Wacom tablet.  In the end, I'll compile them into a small book or maybe even a 'zine' called "The Stepchildren".  

Variations

Test prints of some illustrations.  It's snowing outside, and warm inside.  Hope all who are dealing with the blizzard are safe and sound.  I'm going out in it in a while, and from the looks of it out my window, I'd benefit from some goggles.  There's a little bit of a windy sidewards snow thing going on.  But that won't deter me.  Tonight, I'll go out as well, late.  For adventures.

Two Devils (with sons)

Two Kitty Cats

Two Puppies

Boop-Boopee-Doo!

Some time back I doodled a bunch of cutesie 'flapper' looking girls.  If you've seen my Facebook Page, you may have seen this particular pencil sketch.  I'm working on digitally painting a large scan of this sketch with variations in the oval frame and background.  The hair is still rough, as are a lot of the features.   Thought I'd share my progress so far.

Three Little Kittens

Calico kittens in color, sepia, and black.  Hand drawn pen illustration, scanned and digitally painted.