This is a illo I did for a Fantasy art show in August of 09. I had the dwarves from Tolkien’s Middle-earth in mind as I painted. This guy has sort of a”Scottish” look. I think of the dwarves as sort of a celtic, viking, fantasy what ever fits, kind of character. Tonight, I was reading The Hobbit to the kids and I was reminded of this painting. We’ll get back to Samson in a little bit. Or, as soon as I work on it some more. I’m also working on some other fantasy pieces. I switch up on paintings and generally have two or three going at once. This accomplishes a couple of things: The first being that oil paint needs time to dry and with out breaks of time can get muddy and overworked easily. Then secondly and possibly most importantly it helps me maintain a fresh perspective and therefore I see things in the process that might otherwise get overlooked. This was a problem with the Giant Killer. (see the post in July 09). Because I worked on it continuously for a week, I couldn’t see how the value pattern had gotten lost. I had spent so much time working on the details that I lost all sense of value contrast and therfore lost the dramatic impact of the composition. I ended up repainting most of it after not looking at it for a few days. The sky, background scenery, foreground, and figures all got beefed up and redressed. For awhile I posted both side by side to show the difference. But, I hated the first so much that, I finally took it down. This is a pit fall for illustrators working on a tight deadline. That is namely; no time for revision and rework.

Sometimes, I will just plain start over, as with this painting (untitled at this point) of a fairy holding a bird’s egg.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 Because her legs ( not shown here) looked disjointed, I abandoned this painting and called it a color study. 

  Another unfinished painting (started back in the summer of 09) is this moonscape with Jupiter in the background. I’ll probably add some alien figures at some point.

 This started as a painting of the Jovan Sky from orbit. Then, after a couple of dry runs at adding something in the forground, I painted the moonscape. This is what happens when you start with no clear idea of where you are going with a project. But sometimes it goes well as you develope the piece and it sort of evolves and morphs into something interesting.

Some people may think this is a prime example of being scatter brained. They may be right. But, whatever the cause, I tend to have a lot of ideas I like to get onto a canvas as soon as I can.