Always Take Pictures of Your Work!

I just want to say, to all those artists out there... Take pictures of EVERYTHING YOU DO! And then keep them in a safe, well organized, place. And I mean DIGITALLY. Like if you put them on a CD, put that CD in a SAFE place and don't lose it! Then back up all the photos on an external hard drive. Then back it up AGAIN on one of those online storage places. That way you will ALWAYS have an archive of everything you have done.

I say this because... About a year ago I had spent MONTHS AND MONTHS of my life painting larger than life size paintings of Tyra Banks. They were for my BFA painting program Final Critique. That critique was the straw that broke the camels back and made me leave Indiana University and come to FIDM (BEST DECISION OF MY LIFE BTW). But I was so upset and in a weird place that I didn't care about the paintings. I left them at Indiana and never took pictures of them. There are probably rotting in some dump right now *cries*.

I did take some pictures of my favorite Tyra painting. But my hard drive crashed and I lost it. So now I only have one SHITTY picture of it in the middle stages. So I have ONE picture of ONE of my paintings UNFINISHED... an a bad quality one at that...

I'm so upset...

Why Does The Grass ALWAYS Have to be Greener?!

I don't know what my current obsession with mastering the "comic book" style drawings is all about. I'm OBSESSED and it's eating me ALIVE. I honestly can't think about anything else! I keep looking at artists on Deviant Art and making myself extremely depressed.

Here are some examples of work I am EXTREMELY jealous of:

http://kingmong.deviantart.com/art/Wing-of-Doom-86648304
http://adamhughes.deviantart.com/art/Storm-129666864
http://jujika.deviantart.com/art/The-Workstation-2-19440784
http://jujika.deviantart.com/art/Mage-77325398

And then I look at my crappy work and I feel like THE worst artist EVER. I would TOTALLY trade talents. Who the hell cares if I can copy a picture. Whoopdee FRIGGIN doo... My art bores me so much. I wish I could take some of the images in my head and spit them out onto a piece of paper and have them look like some of the work I posted above.

I've bought several books recently to try and help me achieve this goal. Like "Anatomy for Fantasy Artists" by Gleen Fabry. "Imaginative Realism" by James Gurney. "Superheroes and Beyond: How to Draw the Leading & Supporting Characters of Today's Comics" by Christopher Hart. And "Drawing Cutting Edge Anatomy: The Ultimate Reference Guide for Comic Book Artists." also by Christopher Hart.

These books are INCREDIBLE, but because I suck, I just end up copying characters out of the book. I can EASILY draw any "comic book" character IF I'M LOOKING AT IT. But drawing something out of my head ends up looking nothing like I want and I end up trashing it.

I think my MAIN problem is coloring, to be honest. I have several pencil drawings that I LOVE. But then when I attempt to color it in Photoshop... LAWD... it's a hot mess.

I WISH one of these artists would take me under their wing and TEACH ME IN PERSON... or even just let me sit there and WATCH THEM. But I don't know ANY Comic Book artists and I highly doubt anyone would ever want to teach me or show me their secret.

Why does the grass ALWAYS have to be so much greener when it's on the other side?! WHY?! *cries*

I Need A Filter For My Brain

Do you ever find that you have so many thoughts and ideas that it actually hinders you from creating anything at all?

I have SO many ideas and things I want to do, I don't even know where to start. I need to learn how to filter my thoughts. Maybe I should just start writing down everything and organizing my ideas. Cause I'm not only a "Fashion Designer"... I'm an "Artist" as well. So I'm CONSTANTLY having visions of garments I want to make. Or I'm thinking of poses or faces I could draw. Which I could apply to my drawings or my fashion sketches. I also think of music videos I could make. Is that weird? I literally will hear a song and picture the music video in my head and get super excited. The "music video" will then lead me to think of designs for "costumes".

I also feel like there is ALWAYS so much I want to do and/ or NEED to do. I NEED to produce more pencil drawings, but I'm already starting to get bored with copying pictures again. I don't see what I'm doing as creative at all. It is more of a relaxation for me. I do not have to think what-so-ever when I'm doing portraits in pencil. But I need to do more to include on my Etsy page (which isn't selling by the way... maybe because I only have 2 pieces up). My main goal for my art is to create things like I drew in my last post. But it's SO hard for me to start. I feel like it takes forever for me to FILTER my ideas for a drawing. Again with the TO MANY THOUGHTS. I will want to start a drawing. I will have a specific pose I will want to do and thats it. I usually don't know what the context of the drawing is at all. Maybe because I'm so used to doing Fashion Sketches with no background?

See I'm already kind of getting off track. My mind wanders SO easily it's ridiculous.

I'm ALWAYS excited when I don't have school because that means I have time to create art and work on other stuff. But then when I sit down to draw, I get discouraged because I have so many thoughts in my head that I get overwhelmed and just end up going to Facebook or Twitter or YouTube and wasting time. Hours have passed, and I have done nothing except waste my time "surfing the web."

Wow, I think what it boils down to is that I need to WRITE DOWN MY THOUGHTS IMMEDIATELY. Then also keep a Planner to further organize what I need to do. Because right now I write down nothing and everything is just in my head.

I just answered my own question. SEE HOW IMPORTANT IT IS TO WRITE STUFF DOWN?! Wow...

EXTREME Frustration!

(Inspired by Lady Gaga's New Video for "Bad Romance")

So I'm REALLY trying to draw in a different style... and mostly from my imagination. I'm not seeming to have trouble when it comes to the basic outline and composition. My problem begins when I have to add color, value, and details. I'm attempting to do this in Photoshop, but there are SO many methods of coloring and drawing in Photoshop I'm kind of getting overwhelmed. Well not "kind of," I AM EXTREMELY overwhelmed. I do not know what is wrong with me. I have gotten this far (see the image above) and I'm just stuck. You can see the fire I zoomed in on just to give myself a confidence boost... yeah no luck.

I've been looking at several people's Deviant Art pages and tutorials, but I still get overwhelmed and I just kind of stop.

So I decided to take it slow and try to color someone else's line art. JUST so I could get comfortable with coloring. But now for some reason Photoshop is crashing when I start to attempt to color these line images.

SERIOUSLY?! Is this a sign I should not be drawing in this style?! I DO NOT UNDERSTAND. I have NO PROBLEM when it comes to drawing from observation. But when it comes to drawing images out of my head, I become overwhelmed and lost and extremely discouraged. Well not so much drawing out of my head... I think my problem is just with the medium (aka Photoshop). I think I'm just not comfortable creating compositions with Photoshop yet? BUT NOW PHOTOSHOP IS FREEZING AND CRASHING?! That's just what I need.

I SERIOUSLY wish I could watch one of these artists work in real life and see their methods. Cause I'm still stuck with traditional painting methods which doesn't seem to translate as well in Photoshop. Here are some of the artists I've been looking at:

http://moonlightspectre.deviantart.com/
http://quasimanga.deviantart.com/
http://jiuge.deviantart.com/

I mean I do not want to draw anime style at all. But the graphic/ digital coloring style. I really love the way Moonlightspectre colors her work. I can do my own line work... but I just wish I could color like her.

I'm not going to give up, but this is EXTREMELY frustrating. Maybe I will just go back to oil paints... lawl.

Art Getting In the Way of... MY ART!

Okay... so it is 1:11AM and I'm all hyped up on caffeine because I have a lot of homework to do. It is more of the homework from my "Creative Design Theory and Elements" class that was mentioned in my last post. But I am REALLY in the mood to start and completely finish an entire speed painting! LIKE RIGHT NOW! I seriously feel like whipping out my laptop and sitting there for 12 hours straight working on a Speed Painting. BUT of course I have to do all my homework and then actually go to class tomorrow and turn it in. So basically I have to make ART which is getting in the way of... MY ART! How ironic! Ugh, maybe if I didn't procrastinate so much I could have already had my homework done and would be able to do a speed painting now.

*sigh* Oh well... no point in crying over spilled milk right?

Inspiration Sketches!

FIDM answered my question... and I didn't even realize it!

My homework for my "Creative Design Theory and Elements" class was to find 22 images that "inspire" me. 11 of the images had to be on things found in nature and 11 had to be of man made things. Then after we had found those 22 images we were to pick our favorite Nature image and our favorite man made image. Here are the images I ended up with:




Then we were to trace over these images with pencil and ink. There were no rules to this specific assignment. Tracing the images was just a suggestion, but we had to come out with sketches inspired by our two images.

From My Nature Image:




From My Man Made Image:




The next step was to use color with our Pencil/ Ink sketches:

Nature:



Man Made:




This Exercise REALLY got my imagination working. It was amazing! At first I was like, "This is stupid... I hate this. Why am I tracing a photo?!" But then it just started flowing and I realized why we had this assignment. I was asking how to get out of my rut? The answer was right under my nose the entire time! I'm going to use this idea of brainstorming creativity for the rest of my life. It's such a simple idea, but it really works...

I mean, I think this assignment is supposed to eventually turn into a garment since I am in Fashion Design. But still, this idea can be applied to all aspects of art or anything that requires creativity. Just find images that REALLY inspire you. Images that EXCITE YOU! Then really look at the photo. Ask yourself, "Why do I like this image? What attracts me to this?" Then do as I was instructed to do. Trace over the image and let your imagination go wild. Don't be afraid to make stupid things. You can see that some of those sketches were completely random and I ended up not liking them. But it lead me to one idea that lead me to another. Of course, these were just 2 steps in a... 8 step process I think? We're going to be expanding on these images for the rest of the quarter so I will take the color pictures and make something from them, then something from that etc etc. And when I do, I will be sure to post them all here!

Chip

Losing Motivation...

I spent so much time on that "Ice Queen" drawing. It was exciting and fun, but recently I just have had NO motivation to continue working on it. I know I will finish it sometime, I just do not know when. I hate when I get in these kinds of moods. Where I just have no desire to do any drawing what-so-ever. I even tried working on my Wolverine Pencil Drawing... I just couldn't do it. I don't know what gets me into these ruts. How does one get out of this? Drawing portraits with pencil is like the easiest thing in the world to me. There really is no thought involved since I just copy a picture. I couldn't do ANYTHING on that drawing. I just ABSOLUTELY did NOT want to do it at all. I usually try and force myself to work through it, but I just could not do it. I need to learn how to re-motivate myself and get inspired again. I just don't know how.

Anyone have similar problems? What do you do to "re-motivate" yourself?

Chip :-(

Maybe Ice Queen

So I spent all those hours of drawing that woman... And now I'm like... what do I do to her now? LOL! There were so many places I wanted to put her. So many things I wanted her to be doing. But now I think I know what I'm going to do to her. I think I'm going to go in the "Ice Queen" direction. I just miss snow SO much (stupid California) and winter is coming, so it just seems appropriate. I have a ton of homework to do tonight, but this weekend I'm going to try and finish my first digital illustration completely taken from my imagination, using no references! Wish me luck!

Does anyone even read this?

LAWL! Oh well. Who cares right?

Off to do homework... *cries*

-Chip

Anatomy Girl! WIP

I spent FOREVER today working on this. It went from a VERY simple pencil sketch then scanned into the computer and turned into this.

This is COMPLETELY from my imagination. I am using no references. I really just want to push myself and see what I am capable of. I spent the longest time trying to orient the head and face to make it look as realistic as possible (proportion wise). It really was just a process of trying to picture what the human skull looks like in this position. So I just spent hours altering everything until I got to this point.

My process was probably not the fastest way, but I am learning SO much! By the way I had drawn layers on top of layers deleting layers and more layers and LAYERS! So what your seeing is the layer I finally was satisfied with. It doesn't look like much... but it took awhile to get to this point. LEARNING PROCESS!

My next step is to clean it up and begin to add color.

This is just a SMALL sample. I cropped the image. In the completed image you will see her entire body plus more. You will just have to come back and see!

I'm having so much fun with this!

Check Me Out On ETSY!

My friend from FIDM told me about this website ETSY. I have NO idea why I had never heard of it. But I am now going to sell my artwork through Etsy.com

Check out my Etsy page!

http://chipwhitehouse.etsy.com

By the way. I am currently working on an INTENSE drawing of Hugh Jackman as Wolverine. It's taking me weeks. I'm working on it for hours a day, everyday. It will definitely be the most realistic drawing I have ever done. There are tons of details! Keep checking back to see when I post the final image (I will include close ups). This piece will be for sale.

Chip

Check Out My Speed Paintings!

If you haven't already, please check out my YouTube Page where I have several videos of me "Speed Painting" various celebrities. http://www.youtube.com/cuptow555

Please leave me comments, subscribe, and rate my videos! I included my favorite Speed Painting I've done on this blog. It's a time lapsed recording of me digitally painting Aubrey O'Day from the girl group "Danity Kane." Enjoy!

-Chip

Pencil Drawings

This is my latest Pencil Drawing I've done of Britney Spears. I am trying to sell my artwork and am now doing commissioned work. You can hire me to draw a picture of you, your favorite celebrity, your favorite pet, whatever! I will draw anything you throw at me! Please email me for more information: chipwhiteh@gmail.com