Blue Jayne

Hello friends,

"Blue Jayne"

I love plays on words so I was very excited to whip up this little painting!

This is a  new piece of mine which will be in two upcoming art shows in Vancouver next month. The first will be The Blue Show by Rain City Illustration at the Ayden Gallery. It will be on for two days - March 31st & April 1st, with reception night held on April 1st. (I'll try to be there) What I'll have there is this blue version (above), printed and presented in a 6 x 8" frame. 

Next, the original of this image (below), which is actually sepia coloured, will be in The Postcard Show: Volume 4 on April 5th.

I'm killing two birds with one stone. Get it? I'm such a cheese-ball today, I know.

Anyhow, come down if you can. Both pieces/versions will be up for sale. :)

original size: 4 x 6

Now, here are the process steps that led to the finished piece(s):

Pencil concept sketch

Inks

Finished colour with ink washes + gouache + white pencil

Quick colourization in Photoshop

Some tonal adjustments and gradient application

Selected the background and re-colourized it

Process gif! I've been planning to do one for ages!

(*P.S - not sure if the colours are a little off on Blogger. Lately they've been differing from what they should be)

Original size: 4 x 6"

Materials: Pastel Paper + Microns + Ink + Gouache + White pencil

More lighthearted "play-on-word" mini paintings will be posted shortly.

Cheers!

Losing Altitude - Northern Spotted Owls

 

Hi there,

Today I'm going to do a quick process post about my latest painting - "Northern Spotted Owls (Strix occidentalis caurina)" It was a piece I did for Losing Altitude - an upcoming book about threatened/endangered birds. This collaborative art book will feature over 50 artists and well over 100 pages of beautiful, full-color art of endangered birds from the world over.

Check it out here: https://www.facebook.com/LosingAltitude

And now for the process.

1. As usual, I sketched out some thumbnails. to see what layout I wanted to work with.

As you can see from the finished product, the image ended being a combination of all 4 of these.

2. After getting my references together I went on to penciling. I like use the double penciling approach - where I first get the shapes and elements down more loosely with my blue pencil and then go over ad add more details with a graphite pencil.

Close up of the adult owl.

3. Then came my favourite part- the inking, using my black microns.

Adding even more detail during this stage.

After inking the whole image, I erase the pencil marks.

4. For this piece I decided to do a grey-scale values under-layer. It seemed like a logical idea since the owlets were mostly grey.

Almost fully rendered under-layer. I ended up darkening the adult owl some more later.

5. Then I got my coloured, waterproof inks out and finished up the painting, sprinkling some table salt on the background for hazy effect. Oh, and of course - for the final touch I used white gouache to add some shine and detail to the birds' feathers.

Here are some close ups:

 

-Original size: 11 x 17.7"
-Materials: Waterproof coloured inks, microns, white gouache, and salt on 300 series Strathmore Vellum Bristol paper

Prints available at my Society6 shop =)

Cheers for now!