There’s a scene in an old Frankenstein movie from 1931 where ol’ Frank is sitting beside a little girl at a lake. The little girl makes friends with Frank and they end up picking flowers together and throwing them into the lake. To me it defines the character of the Hulk. Despite all his strength and power he’s really just a child that wants to play. Now, I know in the end of that scene he runs out of flowers and throws the little girl in who drowns but that doesn’t diminish my point.
This is the pencils for an oil painting. It’s a commission for my best commission client. I got the idea after playing hide and go seek with my own 3 year old. I was after that expression of wonder, of discovery through innocent eyes that I think is really a defining characteristic of the Hulk. Did I mention he’s my all time favorite character?
But then again, there is always that part of me that wants to have Hulk smash so I drew this in a way to be both. If you cover up the right side of this face (his left) Hulk want to smash but if you cover up the left side (his right) Hulk just want to play. I purposely tried to be a little coy about his expression.
Below is the clip from the Frankenstein movie I was telling you about. Enjoy.
(In part one I’m going to talk about Reference in general. In part two I’ll get specific on how to use it as a step in the process of creating a painting.)
It seems most artists are ashamed of it. They keep it hidden away afraid the viewer will pull back the curtain and realize that the Wizard is just a homely little guy with a paintbrush. Let me start by saying loudly and without restraint.
REFERENCE IS OUR FRIEND!
Let me tell you a little story about my beginnings with reference. I didn’t begin to draw until I was 18 and was heavily influenced by a really good artist (and personal friend) at my local comic book shop who held the mindset that any type of reference was blatant cheating and a crutch for a lack of drawing skills. That stuck with me for a long time and sadly delayed my progress as an artist for many, many, many, many, many years. Yes, it was at least a five many stretch. You don’t know what you don’t know. Reference fills in what you don’t know.
Even the great and powerful Wizard had a few tools behind the curtain.
Use reference with abandonment. I would strongly advise tracing too.
Whoa! Hold up! Did I just say it was ok to trace. Well, yes but there is a caveat. You are allowed to do it if you learn something from doing it. Trace to understand what you’re drawing and to memorize it. Do it with a goal of being able to draw it if the reference disappeared. I recently listened to an interview with Greg Manchess over at Sidebar.com (fantastic site by the way) and Greg said that while working at a design company in his youth he begrudgingly begin using an overhead projector in his work. He said that he learned more on how to draw from that machine than any teacher he ever had.
You’re also allowed to trace if you already know how to draw and it helps you reach your goal. I’m working on a 20″ x 30″ inch painting right now and I’ve used a lot of reference. I have the ability to draw if freehand but it’s going to take much too long to get the drawing to the level that I want. I’m using a grid transfer method to aid me in getting my drawing done faster and to keep the details that my mind would omit if I tried drawing it out of my head.
But, Bryan, why don’t you just trace it? Because there are some pretty big pitfalls in doing that even when you do know how to draw. From inherent distortion problems with photography to the fact that I’m not trying to just reproduce the photograph. I’m using the reference to hit a degree of realism that my mind is not able to achieve on it’s on. To supplement what I already know. It’s a balance. Reality is filled with so many subtle details that your mind can never remember them all. And that’s a good thing. It’s the mistakes or choices we make that go against reality that make our drawings so unique. It’s what makes up the vision of an artist.
It’s a fine and sometimes confusing line, I know. It’s very easy and common to see an artist just trace a picture with no skill to base it on. To let the tracing substitute for his creation. Reference has to be an aid to your creation not the creation itself. It should be the means to an end not the end itself. People and especially artists get so bent out of shape over this subject because they think reference is a substitute for skill. That if f Joe Blow off the street with no drawing skill what-so-ever traces a picture and people are impressed that it’s like spitting in the face of an artist who has put in long hours of practice and dedication. What they fell to realize is that no matter how well Joe copies it won’t equal or come close to what the trained artist can do. It like comparing a memo from your boss on recycling to a great American novel. Here’s a great clip from the movie “Chasing Amy” that illustrates my point.
Reference is a tool. It’s when it’s your only tool that it’s a problem. So, go out today and trace a picture, than draw if out of your head. While you’re at it draw from life too. That’s better than anything.
A few months ago I finished a cover for a comic called Dragonstorm, put out by Unstoppable Comics. I didn’t know if I had permission to post it or not so I would just check out their website from time to time to see if I saw it. Alas, I’ve yet to see it but I did run across an email from them saying it was OK to post on my website, so here we are. I really loved doing this and it’s my favorite digital piece I’ve done so far as the process was the closest I’ve gotten to my traditional painting. It hard to explain but to me there is a difference between doing something in Photoshop and painting in Photoshop. This piece felt like I was painting.
This is the first in a series of posts concerning the mental process your brain should be taking in making a great painting. Every piece will go through these stages and depending upon how well they are executed will result in the quality of the painting. I’m going to skip over “Concept”, which is actually the first stage. I’m assuming you know what you what to paint. If now, then step one is as follows…decide what you’re going to paint. After you’ve got your initial idea it time to figure out your most basic layout or your compositions.
Composition is simply the arrangement of shapes and values on your picture plane.
You want to aim for a combination of shapes, angles, lights and darks that is pleasing to the eye. Well, what is pleasing to the eye you ask. The eye likes what the brain likes and your brain likes to put things in some type of order. It wants to take the chaos and arrange it into things that it understands. It wants to group like shapes or sizes. It wants to clean up a mess. Don’t go overboard.
Aim for “Unity with Diversity”.
Most student will remember this phrase from art school. The last thing I want you to do you to line up all your shapes from smallest to largest and call it a day. That is the extreme that your brain is trying to do but if we travel all the way down this road will sacrifice all diversity and thus all the visual interest. See, even though your brain is trying to put object in order it will get bored after it’s done and you don’t want boring painting. The objective is to find that balance between unifying your composition but keep the diversity or visual interest.
One of the easiest ways to start this process is experiment or decide based on your subject matter what your dominant value will be. Paintings should always have a dominant value. It should be mostly dark, mostly light, or mostly a middle value. This creates that unity by connecting large portions of your picture with one value. Ohhh, your brain likey! Here are some examples below.
Fig. 1 has a dominant dark value has has a number of shapes arranged or grouped in a pleasing fashion. Fig. 2 on the other hand is weak and needs to make a decision. In this instant as well as all you do in art, be CONFIDENT! MAKE A DECISION! Push your shapes and values to get a pleasing composition and then decide on your dominant value. If you get this stage right you can make a slew of mistakes throughout the rest of the process and still end up with an impressive painting. Nothing makes a great painting like a strong foundation and inversely nothing is worse than a weak one.
I’m just trying to keep it real. I don’t even know if that phrase is still relevant but Shawn Anderson, aka, Substance certainly is. I had the opportunity to do all the artwork for his upcoming CD, “Black Market.” The guy was a pleasure to work with and even if I hadn’t done the album cover I’d still buy the CD. The guy has a lot of talent. I was commissioned to do the front and back CD covers along with artwork to be printed on the CD and two illustrative inserts.
The work was done in pen and ink and colored in photoshop. He wanted it dark and gritty so I didn’t hold back on the ink splatter and stayed far away from my pure intense colors. At the same time I wanted to keep that watercolor painterly look even though I worked digitally. I hope everyone likes the artwork and go out and buy the album coming out in Aug/Sept. Click on the link below for more information about Substance and the upcoming album.
