Art Development Discussion

[Naomi]

This is in reply to Talking Fox...

I'm always picturing the twin trees as looking good in silver grumbacher paint like 3x9, the hexagrams in black with red rims slightly and a touch of texturing in the paint itself with some gesso buildup and artifacts underneath.

So developing that would actually be a bitch because the lines are so precise, but it would look cool....it's not my thing though, I was painting a twinstar the other week using a really unique medium and it didn't turn out right, I lose my place in the twinstar halfway through without reference and can't remember how to draw it. It never works without reference. So that's confusing. But oh, I was going to use it as an underpainting for some realism work.

I don't know what to say about my work because I havn't had a show that was really me, I've been working towards finding my own style for years so it's pretty much just random crap in my traditional portfolio right now, everything digital is more experimental so I get more out of that, and I've finally got my groove going on this year so it's cool, of course, now that I understand what I want out of my art I'm going in a whole new direction with it and it's just chaos really.....I've got all kinds of mismatched work I will shove off into a corner because it doesn't fit with my new meme, except, perhaps for two pieces. Some others are going to get overhauled completely once I get a new set of brushes. (maybe in March)

Anyways what's everyone doing and why? Or what have you?

I'm planning on getting into large scale pieces this year...I'm sick of small works and I really enjoy spending a lot of time on works rather than just a few days or a week. I've got tons of sketches and material from my trance work last year so it's great, I'm totally maxed out on concepts and ability...

I told m1thr0s I probably paint ten times faster than I did before I hit the mirrors....

[Talkingfox]

Yay for starting this thread, Naomi!

You know I think that the search for a personal style is something that continues to develop for the life of the artist. I think that themes are explored and then another arises. Picasso ( even though he was a right prick) never let the lack of any one 'style' deter him from exploring everything. Because the artist is in development, the vision will be as well.
At least things never get static that way. ;)

I find it interesting that you're moving large scale this year...I'm doing the inverse. Nothing that I've done of late has been bigger than 22X24. For years that was on the teeny end of things for me. Big is fun! Whole arm brushstrokes are a blast. It's like dancing with your painting.

My work has also taken a turn for the reflective rather than reactive...at least since 2000 or so. I'm also no longer to work in my preferred medium (oils) due to health issues brought on by an airheaded propensity to stick my brushes in my mouth and wipe solvent loaded tools on my pants. *DOH*
I'm currently experimenting with combos of digital and traditional mediums to gets a less toxic solution to the color luminosity acheived with oils. So far it's been pretty sweet.

My current balancing act is to try to create pieces within my commercial series that evoke without having a damned thing to do with the subject matter....if you catch my drift. Hidden in plain sight kind of stuff. I think I've succeeded here. (http://www.imagekind.com/Showartwork.aspx?IMID=ee798a9a-8824-40c8-85a6-f2b150706bfd)

I'm also working on a series based around the body as vehicle to include trance dancers, suspensions, fire workings, yogis etcetcetc. I'm a few pieces into the series and have many to go Kinda like this one (http://www.imagekind.com/Showartwork.aspx?IMID=49c8735e-ac2b-4535-a61d-f5a17aff0f23)
I've been fortunate enough to be involved in a bunch of suspensions and the like for reference material :)

My biggest challenge has been time. Or rather juggling my time between my bread and butter pieces and grafix vs. the stuff I really WANT to work on.

oh well....C'est la guerre.

I'm interested to see how the geometrics play out in your compositions!

And you know, Naomi, I've been producing much much faster as well....and my resting body temp has gone up.

[Naomi]

Did your palette change at all? I noticed my wardrobe switched completely from red and black to mostly brown and white, and then some pink, which is incredibly weird....

I completely ditched red for brown and gold, although I still have absolutely no taste for green except as a highlight. I was wearing black and silver today and I still like that alot, I just don't get into red like I used to. I threw out all of my leather too...which...was....alot of leather...except for my black Lakota moccasins.

I got a lot brighter in my palettes, using orange, pink and neon green as well as cleaner lines and more well developed compositions with focus on glazing techniques.


I'm trying to learn paint as you go style, so I don't have to use glazes at all. I want to mix the right color on the canvas without having to glaze guesstimate. I actually don't get that into my art as a fun thing. It's all about end result for me. If I can get to the right level I want to be at then I'm glad. But I don't enjoy the process a whole lot.

I really wish I had jewelry making equipment. I learned how to facet gems when I was younger and smelting/lost wax casting. I'm kind of skittish around fire though so it would be tough getting over that. They have a jewelry making workshop here in Memphis at the National Ornamental metal museum and I really should look into taking that coursework soon.

Um, m1thr0s, you mentioned getting some jade and gold, do you know how to do that kind of stuff?

Artist have a shorter lifespan due to the toxicity in the materials, according to the U.S. statistics...

[m1thr0s]

Um, m1thr0s, you mentioned getting some jade and gold, do you know how to do that kind of stuff?haven't got a clue...probably just dreaming anyway but I like the idea of doing 3D talismans...I'd have to be the design director on stuff like that though. I also like cloisonnes and inlay stuff a lot. But no...I can see things in my head but have almost no hands on experience building any of it...

Holographics...always wanted to play around with that...no plastics though...just the glass stuff.

m1

[Naomi]

Well I kind of know how to do it but it requires the right equipment, you need a little oven and all kinds of little tools and a faceting wheel.

all of this equipment can fit into a space the size of a walk in closet so it's not as expansive as you might think...

I'm going to look into those ongoing metal classes, I might be able to take one this summer if I get lucky....


I checked out jewelry supplies down at Zuni while I was there, you absolutely need a full size stone cutter to be able to achieve the kind of cuts the Zuni artists do on certain kinds of stone. Jade is very hard to cut. The only thing you can hand carve easily is soapstone or wood. Some of the artists down there currently work with resinous kinds of stone.

We have laboratory created diamonds nowadays which are incredibly cheap, so a good etching of a twinstar inlaid with diamonds would also be incredibly cool wouldn't you say?

Are we going to play art director one of these days? That would be cool...I've got commissions running al lthe time now but I always have a good hour or two a day for personal work...(I do the DSG's over at Concept Art anyways so it's not really lost time)

I could throw out a few jewelry designs for fun, I studied Cartier's work a couple of years ago. Design drawings don't actually cost anything....

[Naomi]

This is a link to a good magazine, I used to read about 200-300 of these when I was a kid because I lived with my great grandfather who was a self taught gemologist...He invented a couple of stone cuts that were cool, like a round star of david cut.

Sometimes the twinstar or like, the diagrams remind me of gem maps...

http://www.lapidaryjournal.com/

For instance here is an article on the esoteric use and properties of Jade in Mesoamerica:

http://www.lapidaryjournal.com/feature/feb01str.cfm

[Catalytic Subterfuge]

Hmmm. Holographics....

MM and I both were involved with a local guy here making holograms back in the 80s. I bet with some forethought and practice, we could at least come up with some cool ones? Let me bounce off of MM and try and contact the guy.

Sound like fun?

[Naomi]

ooohhhhh goody

I want to hear some more of this

[Anibis]

I'm glad you posted this thread. Most of the art I have posted up here is from a period about 4 or 5 years ago and prior. My main medium was pen and ink: Microns of different sizes, Sharpies, and later just ball-point. Anyway, after I moved out to the Island, i did a bit of visual art but found myself sliding towards theatre and pretty soon all I did on the visual art front was digital design and posters for events and such. That being said, the purchase of a stylus has propelled me back into drawing, so we'll see how my style evolves. I am pretty excited, especially to work with color and such... Somthing I only did rarely before...
-Anibis

[Talkingfox]

Did your palette change at all?


I got a lot brighter in my palettes, using orange, pink and neon green as well as cleaner lines and more well developed compositions with focus on glazing techniques.

*SNIP*


I actually don't get that into my art as a fun thing. It's all about end result for me. If I can get to the right level I want to be at then I'm glad. But I don't enjoy the process a whole lot.




My pallet changes all the time anyways, but as of late it's lightened a lot. I think this is coincidental though.


I understand the not really enjoying it thing...oils were like going to war every time I used them. The energy splatting about wasn't very pleasant for others to be around. I'm more relaxed with it these days. Could be due to the medium shift or merely a function of age.

[m1thr0s]

For talismanic art I think a lot of the menial bits can be sub-contracted out. I knew a guy once that had this whole thing wired...he'd put together these art proposals along with estimated costs and submit them to various places...businesses, universities, all kinds of places...but always as an art proposal and none of the work to commence until he had the investment capital he needed...contract signed and cash on the barrel...only then the actual work begins.

I always though this cat was some kind of business-art genius the way he went about it all and he got some killer contracts too...for BIG stuff that would have been way too pricey to manage out-of-pocket with no certainty of being able to sell the piece etc...of course, it helped enormously that he was an art instructor at the University of Washington, so everybody already knew him etc...

Sometimes you just have to learn new ways of approaching the same old problems or nothing ever changes...

m1thr0s

[Naomi]

Yes

http://www.nea.gov/grants/apply/index.html

I know - you've been coming up with the best problem solutions lately too...

[Naomi]

I'm glad you posted this thread. Most of the art I have posted up here is from a period about 4 or 5 years ago and prior. My main medium was pen and ink: Microns of different sizes, Sharpies, and later just ball-point. Anyway, after I moved out to the Island, i did a bit of visual art but found myself sliding towards theatre and pretty soon all I did on the visual art front was digital design and posters for events and such. That being said, the purchase of a stylus has propelled me back into drawing, so we'll see how my style evolves. I am pretty excited, especially to work with color and such... Somthing I only did rarely before...
-Anibis

We should have our own little abrahadabra thunderdome or something for the new year...I'll have to come up with an idea...I think I already have one but I gotta look up the date...

[Anibis]

Thunderdome?
-A-

[Naomi]

Oh....right....local lingo...lol

"Casual art competition with a time limit and voting for the best one from member of the forum"

I was thinking "Chinese New Years Twinstar" seeing as how the Chinese New Year is coming up...The Rat

The general idea is like this:

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=54721

[Anibis]

Okay, cool. So we would have a start time and a finish time and mabye a subject matter and then just throw down?
-Anibis

[Anibis]

Here they have a 24 hour art marathon where lots of artists from different disciplines throw down for 24 hours straight, and there's bands and stuff. I did a magic set at one the other year. It was fun. Of course I'd be competing against you rockstars, but I'd be happy to put something together, for sure. :)
-A-

[Naomi]

Yes....I will set up the thread later tonight...after this commission work and space alotment is satisfied

and then we work for a week...or two weeks...then post our final in a "final voting" thread....etc...

Once the deadline is up the finalists get put in the vote thread and the winner is declared a winner.

good to see you working on a new tablet by the way, those are fun....what did you get, a Wacom Intuos or Graphire?

[Anibis]

Can I 'count' the piece I started about 6 hours ago? I expect it's what I'll be working on for the next few weeks. Or I could start a new piece.... It's a Wacom Bamboo. I'm only really starting to vibe with it, but man do I ever like it. It's helping me re-invent my relationship to visual art. Painter is a lot of fun, too...
-A-

[Naomi]

yes if you want to be a big huge cheater

seriously I don't mind but you may want to wait for the description...it's not going to be some random thing...

like I said just give me a couple hours at the most I seem to be having trouble with my floppy disk drive and I need to put something in there for my art work, it's really driving me crazy

Ok...so hang on...

I saw the Bamboo at Best Buy the other day, I didn't actually know it was for art because they were advertising it as a writing tablet... I have an Intuos III refurbished from Wacom, what I really need is a Cintiq with a triple monitor display 28" apiece...

Tablets are a lot of fun, what program are you using to draw with? The packaged Photoshop Elements? I used that for almost a year and liked it...

[Naomi]

Does anyone know what happens if you immerse a Wacom stylus in water?

[m1thr0s]

It becomes a wacko-stylus?

adds a whole new meaning to wet media though...

m1

[MythMath]

21stcenturykoan?

[MythMath]

watercolor :laugh:

[Naomi]

Well I tested it on a spare I had lying around and it seems to be working just fine...I guess the casing is pretty durable...

[MythMath]

what's your intent...?

[Kuroyagi]

haven't got a clue...probably just dreaming anyway but I like the idea of doing 3D talismans...I'd have to be the design director on stuff like that though. I also like cloisonnes and inlay stuff a lot. But no...I can see things in my head but have almost no hands on experience building any of it...

Holographics...always wanted to play around with that...no plastics though...just the glass stuff.

m1I think one medium that would very well fit the abra designs would be tiles in geometric shapes- a la Alhambra (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alhambra) or other Islamic palaces. I'm no artist myself but would have the vision to have something like that built- only give me a couple of billion € and I could arrange it. J/K- But who knows, maybe one day...or for example even some sort of Turkish bath or a meditation chamber or even a swimming pool whose ground would be outlayed with the Twintrees etc and you could swim over it would be very apt- such tiles or architectural components are and have always been one of the best ways of expression for sacred geometry...
http://farm1.static.flickr.com/6/6707942_016b348816_m.jpg

http://www.moroccan-furniture-decor.com/prod_images_large/moroccan_tile00041.jpg

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/classical/media/alhambra_tile-6.jpg

http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio3/classical/media/alhambra_Tile5.jpg

[m1thr0s]

churches and mosques etc are passé though...the future is in swimming pools...:cool:

hey - maybe I could submit a pool-design proposal to Madonna!!! She's into all this weird stuff and I could definitely put her on a few occulty maps she doesn't even know exist!

In any case...that wouldn't be as difficult as it might seem...tile-art is a reasonably accessible medium...

m1thr0s

[Anibis]

yes if you want to be a big huge cheater

seriously I don't mind but you may want to wait for the description...it's not going to be some random thing...

like I said just give me a couple hours at the most I seem to be having trouble with my floppy disk drive and I need to put something in there for my art work, it's really driving me crazy

Ok...so hang on...

I saw the Bamboo at Best Buy the other day, I didn't actually know it was for art because they were advertising it as a writing tablet... I have an Intuos III refurbished from Wacom, what I really need is a Cintiq with a triple monitor display 28" apiece...

Tablets are a lot of fun, what program are you using to draw with? The packaged Photoshop Elements? I used that for almost a year and liked it...

I've been using Photoshop CS2 and Illustrator CS2 for a few years. My Tarot that I am working on at the moment is in Illustrator. Those 'Elements' programs always drive me a little nutty; they always have some built in shortcoming or other. Painter 'elements' came with the Tablet, but I downloaded a trial version of PainterX. It's very wicked. If I decide I can make some money off of drawing with this thing, I will probably get it...
Okay, I'll hold off on the contest. Being a big huge cheater doesn't bug me that much, but I do need to hold out for the theme... I did start a new piece yesterday though, so I'll have to complete it first, or run them concurrently... Cheers;
-Anibis

[Naomi]

Yeah sorry I didn't post it up last night, SJ IMed me and it's all over from there...we ramble on and on for hours about all kinds of perverted crap...

I will put it up today, after coffee, and after having a conversation with my hard drive...

I should probably try Painter, but I've used Photoshop for like, 10 years now....20 if you count the early versions of Printshop....lulz...I'm just used to it....

Post some of your tarot images...please?

[Anibis]

Post some of your tarot images...please?

They're for the most part the same glyphs you've seen already, except cleaned up and done in vector format. I'll post them as soon as the series is completed.
-Anibis

[Naomi]

oh groovy

[Anibis]

I was wondering something about photoshop. I've used it for a few years, mostly to make posters for our circus and my shows, and one feature that I never really went near is the 'masking layers' I know the idea is you block out an area of the image and then you can paint around it and such, but I've found it just as easy to use the selection tool (and 'invert selected area) for that. I notice though that in both Photoshop and Painter that this feature seems to unlock doors to doing some funky effects. Does anyone use masking layers when creating visual art? What techniques do you recommend? What effects are possible this way that aren't through other means?
-Anibis

[Naomi]

I don't use masking layers but it's not hard to learn how to, but yeah it's just another tool...masking in Photoshop works like real masking solution in traditional medium from what I understand. I have a pretty steady hand and often do one layer painting now.

There's a lot of tutorials on conceptart.org, you can find cool stuff. I want to try the new Nox Iz Mad digital download for one, they're only $10, one of them might explain masking for you, I don't know. Try asking on the DL discussion forum...

I'm painting an elf with a penguin atm....client side work. ..

[Naomi]

Lately it feels like I'm trying to develop a new style, It's like I never quite settle on one mode, I just keep moving forward to the next plateau after I hit a plateau....last year I was really in the groove with Amur Leopards and realism and then BAM my occult life heats up after years of simmering on low in the educational department...

I really wanted to get a lot more sexual, and more fresh without loosing the realism feel, but then I get stuck in a corner doing all of these atrocious client pieces (glad for the work, don't get me wrong - at least someone pays me) but really i just don't think it will pay off in the end. On a timeline of about ten years, I think the best bet may be going for what I love to do naturally. But then, I also need to get in a less stressful living situation to really get going.

thoughts?

ave satanas

^

[Talkingfox]

I would be interested to see what each artist considers their favorite work of their own out of everything that they've produced :yes:

[Naomi]

This, actually

[Talkingfox]

for me I think it has to be this (http://thumbs.imagekind.com/member/373f7fa5-344d-4b22-9dba-905b7e430914/uploadedartwork/650x650/34a8c7fc-93af-4206-9b27-a592e565fa63.jpg)

It marked a real turning point for me in style and content

[Anibis]

This is one of my favorites. It was also a turning point in some respects, since it was the first ball-point pen peice that I did. It's a letter P.
-Anibis

http://Ibisis.zoints.com/image/76536-Petradon

[Anibis]

A little Bosch, some Luigi Serafini in it, I think...
-A-

[Talkingfox]

That's cool as shit A...

I can't do ink stuff to save my ass

[Kuroyagi]

A little Bosch, some Luigi Serafini in it, I think...
-A-
Not to forget Arcimboldo (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Giuseppe_Arcimboldo).