Mother Nature's Art and Effects

One of my passions in life besides art and the cinema, is nature. Just love when nature puts on a show, even more so when it is a light show! So when ever I get the opportunity I try and catch different events, such as lightning strikes. Just call me a fool in the rain!

And I will further add it takes a great deal of patience and perseverence! I wish I had more than one video camera. This way I could set up a bunch and leave them running! Get more coverage of the sky. But in a way , it is fun to try and catch a strike, sort of like hunting for fire flies! But a little more intense!

Digging into the Past

Since joining the challenge group (DSFDF) I have been forced to rediscover, quite willingly skills I had let fall by the wayside. I was never fond of doing landscapes, not because as others might say, it was out of my comfort level. But because I have honestly , always found them boring.

I tend to draw in a very illustrative style because I like telling stories of capturing little moments with my art. I also just enjoy presenting static images in interesting ways, either through aesthetic design, use of color or extreme lighting, or simply because of it's content alone.

The style I use relies heavily on tight delineated lines and shading, or modeling. Heavy light accents mixed with heavy contrasting shadows. Which is why I love illustration, you can take the rules of nature and chuck them right out the window. Also explains why I love doing digital work now in Photoshop and Illustrator. Explorations of the imagination.

And regrettably, I have lost the other side of art which is the personal expression and interpretation of the soul through art. Abstract art is probably the best vehicle for this exploration into the nuts and bolts of feelings. Shapes, colors, and shadows, randomly joined to invoke an emotional response.

This picture "Faded Fields" is a drawing I did some twenty years ago, because I loved the photo, I based it from. It was an early morning shot of a field. The lighting and the color is what attracted me to this image, of what is ordinarily in my mind a boring landscape. But there is a abstract beauty to what I call the perfect moment. Where you can't describe why something is beautiful, it just is.

I haven't done many landscapes, this is probably a one of a kind I just happen to find buried in an old portfolio. And I still like the image even today, and I am starting to feel a yearning again to rediscover the feelings behind the art.

" What Happens in the Fields...."

This weeks challenge was to explore the realm of color.  The image provided was a pastoral landscape of rolling farm land.  The object was to use a variety of color.  Not unlike the lesson learned in the Harry Chapin's song  " Flowers Are Red".

Instead of just using the standard green fields and blue skies, the challenge was to integrate a vast range of color.

I love working in technicolor, whenever possible, and of course interjecting my own brand of irreverent humor.    I decided to go for the obvious laugh.  Since we are dealing with crops and farm land, why not have a lost alien couple.  They have landed in the wheat and are now engaged in ritualistic activity of arguing over where they are.

Of course in any species, the man refuses to pull over and ask for directions.

Well I waited way too late to get under way with this latest challenge!   I pretty much took this down to the wire.  Got it in the mail to Karin  just around supper time of the last day.   Wanted to do so much more with this one, started to get a little punchy with the background and just wanted to  finish it on time.    But that is what happens when you wait until the last minute to start a very involved project.  That will learn me.  Hope you guys like it anyway? 

Another Dimension to Diana

Just wanted to throw in a quick post.  As much as I like working the old school skills, I like to take a lot of my art to the next plateau.   I am a fan of mixed mediums,  and I like giving my fine art a wash through the Photoshop bathtub.

I have been exploring the unlimited realms of the digital palette, for many years now...  and as excited as I was to have finished the original pencil drawing,  I am equally thrilled to play around and make a whole new piece of art from it.   I have been trying to pioneer my own unique style towards doing this.    And in doing so, hopefully leaving my own unique mark on the world.

The background for this is inspired by my love of symbolism and mythology.  I decided to go with a subtle but symbolic shape.   And in homage to the goddess, the phases of the moon became my backdrop for this piece.

DSFDF Challenge - "Companion of Diana "

    This weeks challenge was very cool.     It gave me a chance to dust off some of my drawing skills.

It also got me back into the concept of planning out your design through the use of geometry, mathematics  and proportion.   It was easy, .......... thank God for erasers! 

But I had alot of fun diving into this project.  The intricacies of the shading, versus the opposing light sources was interesting.

I debated about doing a background with this, but didn't want to clutter up the space as I wanted to keep the focus on the statue, rather than my ability to fill up a background.

And I spent so much time on her in a Zen meditative state, I kinda want you to be looking at her!

Anyway, it was good to get back in the drawing saddle.  And it was cool to do an interpretive piece on a bit of artwork, that was in itself an interpretation of a live model.  A clear case of art imitating art, that is imitating life!  

 Kudos to Karin at  DifferentStrokesFromDifferentFolks.blogspot.com     for doing this challenge.

A Pause for the Cause of Painted Pet Paws!

This is a recent bit of artwork a friend asked me to design for her charitable work with animals.

The basic concept was to effectively bring to mind the idea of artwork being used to help raise awareness and or money to save shelter animals and find good homes for them.

I decided to go with a simple design of a paint palette with five paint dabs to make it resemble in a very clever fashion,... an animals paw.  And I was happy to help.

After all animals are loving creatures that give back to us in so many ways!