A rare occasion that I worked for charity. All of the pieces
shown below were sent off for free, I think to hospitals and I hope some of
them made their way into the hands of folks who enjoyed them.
Working under the tuition of the wonderful Marty Kuklinski
whose name I will likely always pronounce incorrectly I made eight ACEOs and
two larger 5 x 7 postcards.
I tried to work towards fantasy and maybe make something a
little different for this project. The far right image in the above four was my
idea of a floating island, I got hooked on perspective, successful or not I am
glad I made some very unique pieces.
For the above four I went back somewhat to create animal
themed cards but I still wasn't done with fantasy. Even though I used a
reference picture for that eye I must say it was the most challenging piece to
try and finish for this project.
For the two larger postcards (5 x 7") I decided I
wanted to really step out and make something fresh.
I got a reference picture to get the depth of the valley in
this one above, the dragon was straight out of my head but I liked the idea of
‘from where I sit,’ as in what a grand creature might see from such a
perspective. I was really happy with this until I added fixative to seal it.
The fixative was old and came out brown >.< After so many hours working
to deadline I literally cried. Fountains of tears that the fix would ruin all
my efforts. A short sleep later and I realised that hey maybe it was a happy
accident – the brown fix actually gave the work an old timey postcard look I
could have never predicted and it wasn’t bad at all.
I still cry when artwork goes wrong and yes that fixative
went straight into the bin.
‘Wish You Weren’t Here,’ was created primarily because the
theme of island dreams was lending itself to a lot of scantily clad big busted
women in almost-not-there bikinis. I guess I thought that I should break that
stereotype by drawing a skinny naked guy – of course the character I have that
best fitted that was my guy Kale. This character I designed with very little
clothing to begin with save a pair of torn jeans and sometimes a close fitting
T-Shirt. He’s a favourite of mine to draw so it wasn’t too much of a stretch to
make him naked. I usually draw figures before clothes when I work so naked was
easier.
One big problem I had with this image was the water and sky
and not the character. I had to ask some online friends what I was doing wrong
with the water and got some great tips on how to render reflections. I think I
made the colours too bold to begin with to accurately correct it but hey it’s a
fantasy image and I think it turned out well.
The title of the piece reflects the character of Kale Arius,
he’s a touch left of the traffic lights, with sociopath tendencies at best and
is a murderer at worst so I imagine the context of ‘wish you weren’t here’ in a
way that suggests he might have just murdered the ship’s crew and thrown them
overboard xD
I had a lot of fun doing this and it helped me stretch my
wings in ways I didn't know they could be stretched! Always a good thing to
step out of the comfort zone as an artist even in little ways.
Hope you all enjoyed this entry and see you next time!
Marty runs the same event for charity every year which you
can find here: https://www.facebook.com/groups/220658387956154/ It is a public
group packed full of talented artists willing to contribute and the theme
changes every year. This was the only year I took part though I have been
watching the event and all the wonderful things folks are making for it. ^_^
