Foolhardy Quest

"Foolhardy Quest" Watercolor, gouache, acrylic, and ink on Fabriano 140 lb hot press watercolor paper, 14 x 20" (35.56 x 50.8 cm) 

Finally, after nearly a month of straight painting in my free time, I have completed this piece, which I had showed a color sketch of earlier this year. Things changed quite a bit in terms of color, but I think for the better. 95% was painted using watercolors, with final adjustments in acrylic, gouache, and white ink. 

Bretonnian knights may not be the wisest, but they don't lack courage! The serpent was based on traditional sea serpent imagery, combined with the bioluminescence, jaws, and teeth of deep sea species while the orange fins were inspired by oarfish. (Which was said to have inspired the sea serpent legend in the first place!)

I'm planning on submitting this for this year's Spectrum, so wish me luck!

California Condor: Finished

"Fate of the Condor" 9x12" on cold pressed 140 lb watercolor paper. Watercolor, powdered graphite, charcoal, india ink, acrylic, and white acrylic ink.

I went with a less controlled approach for this piece, and relied on the wide variety of materials to bring their own character into the process. Of course, I wanted to bring a clearer detail to the condor's face, and further accentuated that with the sky halo about its head.

As a bonus, I will share some pictures I took as the painting progressed. A thousand apologies for the rather subpar lighting and inevitable blur that resulted! 

It's come a long way from the original sketch (thank goodness!) and turned out quite decently.

Happy Holidays!

"Winter Whitetail" 8x10 inch (20 x 25 cm) acrylic, ink, and pyrography on basswood panel.

Something fitting for the holiday season. Here's to a bright 2013!

Red Stag: Revisited

A couple of years ago I painted "Red Stag" to be sold. I decided to follow some good advice and add more color, thus making the piece a bit more dynamic. Here's the end result:

I feel the green tones help the piece read better at a distance, something that was nigh impossible with the first version. Finally something that isn't more or less monochromatic!

Dia-BEE-tus

It's actually been a good chunk of time since I worked with my acrylics. To save more important projects from being butchered by a rusty hand, I made a little painting of a bumblebee... With diabetes? Perhaps I'm not so good with puns.

On the other hand, it turned out alright. Golden OPEN acrylics are fairly forgiving, though they do get quite sticky if you take a bit of a break. Also, I feel that I need to push the boundary between stylization and semi-realism in my work. That's what experimentation is for, I suppose.

"Almost" cover for UK edition of "The Doomspell"

This blog is falling quite rapidly into a state of neglect, isn't it? *groan* That needs to be fixed. 

Anyway, here is something I finished months ago and forgot to upload. The illustration that was almost the cover art for the UK edition of "The Doomspell" by Cliff McNish. Unfortunately, it was turned down as the author ended up wanting a different look for the series. Oh well. You win some, you lose some, right? At any rate, this piece held a host of new challenges for me, and it would be an understatement to say I lost just a little sleep over this project.

Autumnal

Some fairly recent work I intend on continuing with, as there are still bits and pieces I'm not completely satisfied with.  With luck, I can get it polished for Spectrum.  Here's to hoping!


22x30" mixed media.  (Watercolor, acrylic, gouache, ink, and colored pencil)


Art © April Schumacher