Whats going on?
Instead of finding some excuse to explain why there has been virtually no activity on this blog, I have a better idea; I am going to post about 6 of my newest pieces for your viewing pleasure. I will be posting biweekly and monthly updates of more new art. Enjoy.
ART:
INSPIRATION
One of my favorite ideas to work with is city skylines, I have made multiple pieces containing them although it was something I usually took from a stencil or image. Lately I have been doing more digital drawing and cartoon-like art pieces for various greeting card designs. This is one of them.
AESTHETICS
For purposes only explainable through art, I wanted to detail each row of the skyline with it's own style with shiny windows as well as bezels to make the buildings stand out and catch the viewer's eye.
MECHANICS
Drawing all of this by hand took almost twice as long as most of my other art pieces usually do although with my knowledge of the pen tool and marquee tool I was able to create a couple shortcuts for constructing the surface on the outsides of the skyscrapers.
INSPIRATION
From the beginnings of my magazine came an inspiration to illustrate surreal and manipulated images tailored to the artists' culture. Only available in the first issue of Culture Aficionado until now.
AESTHETICS
I was going for a cartoony look, more or less fictional rolling papers along with a cigar, sort of a view into the humidor of a hobbyist. The customized papers reflect my take on bohemian and hippie culture today and how I choose to portray it.
MECHANICS
Building each paper from nearly 20-25 layers each, it involves many textures, level changes, color customization and layer styles. Filter from the gallery I rarely use although I did find a use for one in this project.
INSPIRATION
Originally a hand-drawn pencil sketch done by a friend, I was given the opportunity to put my skills to use and collaborate with an fellow artist.Using a scanner and design software I threw this together little by little, finding the darkest and lightest parts of the piece to add color.
AESTHETICS
The sun and ocean in this one are the main components that stand out to me. The rendering I used in another art piece I was able to utilize once more along with the use of various tools.
MECHANICS
A lot of the time I have to break up each drawing I scan into separate parts, just to make it easier to colorize and level out. This is a prime example of having to do that in addition to restricting the colors in this picture to 4, the maximum used in screen printing.
INSPIRATION
I was viewing a picture taken from my friend's iPhone and we decided it would look good in just a couple colors with custom text above it. I took another iPhone photo of the custom text and was able to renderize it, so it eventually ended up on top of the sailboat image.
AESTHETICS
While keeping in mind that on a black T-shirt this project would only be 2 colors (Red and Yellow), I separated each color into its own negative stencil, getting it ready for screen printing.
MECHANICS
Cutting out the sailboat was quick thanks to the pen tool and changing the hues allowed for a better matching of colors. I attempted to make the sunset's reflection on the water stand out more, and the sun in the background is blended in order to add depth.
INSPIRATION
As you might already know, I recently picked up music production and DJing as a hobby and to be honest it has influenced some of the art I create. Listening to music while creating art is a big thing I'm into and from that I have demonstrated my passion for art as well as music. This piece shows a picture me at a recent gig with a friend, getting down on my MIDI controllers.
AESTHETICS
I chose an abstract theme for this one and I wanted to make renders and abstract yet recognizable shapes around the corners of the image to add more flavor to the depiction of music mixing in progress.
MECHANICS
Lucky for me my friend was able to take this excellent shot and put it on my drive for me, this picture has been waiting since the end of summer to be created. I like to draw a lot, especially with software and now that I've become more comfortable I have been trying new techniques involving drawing many textures, objects and designs from scratch.
INSPIRATION
Some of my favorite movies are about futuristic scenes that contain undiscovered technology. I like to recreate that theme with my art and attempt to go in a new more innovative direction. This piece combines a couple different techniques I picked up recently from tutorials and personal research in the area of high resolution graphics.
AESTHETICS
In this project I made an extra level of intricacy by not only having a cold, dark, industrial city looming out of a giant cloud in the sky, but also by adding a tree draw from scratch with each leaf creating layers of realistic looking color.
MECHANICS
A simple way to describe how a city or town is drawn in Photoshop is to start with the landscape, sky and background. After isolating the background, the foreground is constructed from many rectangles, marquee tool and the lasso tool. The windows are shaded to create a sheen effect and the tree was made entirely from pen tool and custom generated wood textures.
