Hey all!!

Ok so I messed up, because I started this blog post for 3 paintings I did last week  and *deep creepy voice* I never finished it!!!!! I am so sorry! But luckily I caught it, and now will finish this post. Agin these three are like all the other traditional paintings that proceeded, 6"x 6" acrylic paintings. With a few digital touch ups, since the photos I took of the paintings had some flaws in them.

I think these ones are even in order this time! Yay!

See you all around!

Digital figure studies!

Hey guys!!

Yeah I know, I owe you all a TON of pictures, well, Im happy to inform you that I have another art dump for this week.

This week, I guess I went with a  theme this time, which was not intentional! I'm currently taking a figure drawing class at BYUI and I get TONS of reference photos each time, so this week, I took the photos and used them for some figure studies, and boy did they turn out better than I thought! I did mostly value studies, focusing on getting light and dark right. I did this an illustrator came and did a workshop at our school, and he said that he does paintings only in black and white all the time. I liked this exercise because it simplified painting in color in photoshop (which I personally find to be difficult).

So here they are!

I apologize they are all out of order, I believe the order they are in are as follows: #4 #3 #5 #2 #1. The last two I had some fun with because I didn't think the shadows were dark enough, so I ended up using he burn tool to darken those up. Fun practice with that tool!

Anyways, I owe all of you about 2 paintings from last weekend, but dont quote me on that, since I have yet to actually do a day count.

Cheers!

More 100 day challenge art dump!

Hey all!!

So I'm sorry I haven't posted the last couple of days, I've been playing catch-up like a mad man! But I have gotten close to catching up.

I've done a lot of portraits so far. I tried to get creative with color mixing, trying different recipes for skin tones, rather than my usual burnt sienna and white mixture. I can't remember which one it was I did this on, but I think it worked pretty well! Overall I was happy with how these turned out, except the bamboo forest picture. I have had a LOT more practice painting people and faces than plants and landscapes!

Note: this one was a master copy of either a Sargent portrait, or self portrait, or a portrait of John Singer Sargent. I can't remember.

I'm excited how this is coming along so far! I feel that I'm getting better everyday, and its getting easier to paint!

Talk to you all later!
Calvin

100 day challenge art dump

Ok guys!

So, days 2-5 are now completed!! I logged in some serious hours to get these done!

Overall Im pretty happy with it so far. I've learned that if you work with acrylics, its best to start with really thin, watercolor-like washes, moving to thicker paint. Also, as acrylic paint is worked with, its consistency slowly becomes more and more like oil paint, which I enjoy working with!

here are the images in order from oldest to newest:

100 DAY CHALLENGE!!!!

OK! I am so excited, because I am starting THE 100 DAY CHALLENGE! For the next 100 days I, Calvin Messinger, and two other artists will be doing one painting every day.

The criteria for the challenge is as follows:

• open to any size, (though the size we suggest is 5"x 5") 
• any medium is open so long if it is paint (so digital counts)
•  any subject matter can be covered
• time to do the painting should be 1-3 hours

It seems a daunting task, however the way I see it, if I cut out 1 hour on Facebook, and 1 hour on video games, I have 2 hours in which to complete a painting. That doesn't seem too crazy, right? Besides, I will be putting hours towards mastering the painting and rendering process, and its not a big deal if I miss a day or two. Even if I only finish 35% of the paintings, that's 35 paintings done!  That's 35-70 hours I just spent making paintings. (now that I think of it, I might start keeping track of how many hours I put into this project)

My main goal for this challenge is to practice rendering images in paint, and figuring out how to do so quickly! with only 1-2 hours to finish these sketches, I will be forced to work quickly. I believe this will help me in the concept art world, since rendering a design quickly is an important part of a concept artist's job. I may not always be doing designs, but I will be observing light and shadow, and their effects on forms, color and the theory behind it, and hopefully some good anatomy studies, all of which will help me in my field of choice.

So, to kick this off, I started with a simple still life of a pear sculpture. I focused on getting the color correct, especially the dark areas, and getting edges. I used a little white in the highlights, but for the most part, I avoided using black paint or white paint. to get the darker values, I combined complimentary colors to achieve a neutralized color, which was darker in value, and tinted it with the base color. I feel that I was less successful on getting edges correct, however I will continue to make this a focus for successive paintings.

I'm excited to show you all my art and I hope there is a marked improvement from this painting an the last on e I do.