October 2010 – Kieryn Darkwater

Depth Tricks

Was drawing earlier and trying to play with depth. Depth isn’t an illusion I’m particularly good at creating or conveying, but I try. At first I drew the whole picture with one pen and made shapes further off smaller ish. Then I grabbed my brush tip pen, and went over all the things in the foreground with that, followed by my sharpie pen tracing over the things in the near-distance, and I left the rest in the original ink. The result:

What I learned? Thick lines up front, medium lines in the middle, thin lines in the back, creates a great effect.

My Week (again)

Creations Evolution Mental Health

Since I last posted, last weekish, I had awesome friends over and we had a fun time doing random touristy things we’d never done before, and watching movies and hanging out. Then I got sick…and I’ve been in bed all week this week – mostly sleeping and eating vitamin C and cough drops. It’s slowly beginning to help. Honestly, taking a break has been sort of a good thing for me. I’ve gotten a chance to think about some things – like christmas, and some art related projects, groggy ideas of plans that I still need to write down. I’ve realized some really good stuff comes to me when I’m unable to do anything….which usually only happens when I’m sick.
I decided that I want to stick with painting dark/night scenes. I want to use different sizes. I’d like to play with themes and sets. Next year (spring/summer ideally) I’d like to have enough *good* paintings to show at a gallery or an art show, and eventually bring my store back from the dead. I’d also like to keep working on illustration – nice because it sort of goes hand in hand with my painting…since I sketch everything out first.
I’d also like to level my lowest WoW character(18) to 20 and my highest(64) to 80…so I can get lich king and cataclysm. I need to seriously start thinking about how I’m going to use facebook, twitter, and blogging for art and become way more diligent. It’d help if I stopped getting sick.
I also decided that as soon as I’m better and can move for long periods of time without getting dizzy or nauseated I’m going to try and disinfect everything with my new Green (97% naturally derived) Clorox spray stuff I got yesterday. I would get bleach, but the smell makes Alex gag and I think the green products are better. Less chemicals are good, right? 😉

Color and Canvas

Creations Evolution Mental Health

I’ve been stuck in bed with a cold all week which landed me in bed all week. Honestly, I’m still *in* bed, just finally coherent enough to write. Last night I managed to muster up enough energy to go to Walmart and grocery shop (because we were out of food) and while I was there I looked at canvasses. I’ve been wanting to try some different sizes, I was hoping to find some 5x7s but the smallest they carried were 8x10s so I grabbed a pack of those and then a pack of my “regular” 11×14. I’m excited. I’ve been planning a sort of christmas gift with one of the smaller canvasses, so it will be nice to actually start that. I think though, that I’m going to paint it in acrylics as opposed to oils, since it’ll be my first time shipping a painting (wish me luck) when it’s completed.
Being sick this week has been really sucky. It was so cold last week, and this week it was in the 60’s and the leaves are starting to peak in town. This morning when I got up to grab some cranberry juice and vitamin c gummies (they taste good, and we couldn’t find any Ester C) I opened the blinds in the kitchen window and one of the trees on our driveway had just turned a bright yellow. It’s beautiful. On overcast days like today I think the colors stand out even more, I wished I could go outside and take a picture, but I wasn’t up for that (and it got cold again).

Artist Trading Cards #3

Creations

All black and white, with lots of tiny details. The last few times I did some more extravagant pieces, this time I just stuck to simple (or maybe not so simple) illustrations, and I think I like it better. Some of them are more deep than others…I think that’s what happens when you sit down and make art while semi depressed. I like how the candle is the opposite of what you’d expect – a black flame and a light body, and how the dancer’s reflection is a marionette. On lighter notes, I’m also pleased with my fancy avocado and banana-smiley-face car.

Trading Cards - Detail Edition — Details

Oil Painting: night scene part 2

Creations

Last night (even though some pulled muscles impeded my ability to go to class) I finished my first oil painting. I’ll post more pictures next week when it’s all dry (or at least, way more dry than it is right now). But here is the current finished product:

I’m really proud of how the lighting turned out – the stars need a little work but I think they fit well and add a little bit of a whimsical feel. By the next painting though, I’m hoping to acquire some glitter and toothpicks so the stars look a little nicer. I tried to get the same effect using sparkly nail polish, it’s a little too early to tell how well that worked.

I also made my own palette (as seen on the right…with all the paint on it) using a piece of cardboard covered in wax paper (liberally taping it together) to make putting foil on and taking it off easier and hopefully will help keep the cardboard protected. I opted for this over just using foil because the oil paints are already harder to mix and I needed something thick that I could hold and put pressure on while mixing.

More Cardboard Furniture

Creations Evolution Mental Health

After moving the night-stand that we had by our couch into the bedroom to lift the tv a few weeks ago, I decided to make another little stand out of my arsenal of cardboard boxes so I could put my pretty lamp on it.
I used a long rectangular box (the shipping box from a starbucks tea sampler and organizer ) and a thin open square box (the kind that department stores put clothes in at christmas when you have them gift wrap it). I wrapped the rectangle one in our pretty brown wrapping paper and left the top box as it was. Some squares of packing tape and an uneven mount later, I ended up with this.

My life this week

Creations Evolution Mental Health

I had this interesting idea the other day – mostly because Alex keeps telling me that my art is awesome and sell-able – to revamp my storefront. I’m aiming to have everything done and ready by March (or May?) since most of the ideas are still formulating themselves and I have a lot of work to do, but I’m really excited (and enjoying using my Fireworks CS5 trial before it expires).
Tonight I have my art class, and I’ll leave early because it gets dark – but I’ll probably finish my night scene and start another. I’ll also need to buy more canvasses. O:)
Earlier today, I made a little light-stand because we moved the other end table into the bedroom two weeks ago and put the tv on it so we could stay in bed while we were sick. I think it turned out nicely. I wrapped the bottom box in wrapping paper and left the top box the way it was. Naturally, I put it on uneven but…..it looks nice. 😛
I did this *after* I swept the floors that have been collecting dust since we were sick a few weeks ago. I know, that’s lame – but now I feel super accomplished.
Later this week, it’s going to get really fun, because I have friends coming up and we’re going to try and get makeovers sometime on the weekend. Which will be awesome because…I’ve never had one before.
In the meantime, I’m going to go paint my nails black so all of the paint that gets stuck in them tonight (that takes about a week to get out) won’t be too obvious.

New Painting: Preview

Creations Evolution Mental Health

My husband and I have been working through Battlestar Galactica, we’re currently on Season 4 and we love it. Last week we realized that instead of working on one oil painting in art class, we’ll probably end up working on two, so I was trying to figure out what to use my second canvass on, and it hit me. We’ve been wanting to do something BSG related in the office, so I came up with this.
I call it, Starbuck’s Destiny.

It’s great because it keeps with my night/dark scene concepts that I’ve been wanting to work on (apparently, people rarely do that, go figure) and is also something derived from something current…and honestly, I’m really proud of my adaptation of the Cylon Raider.

Night Oil Painting Part 1

Creations

I’ve been wanting to try to paint in darker colors, so I decided that I’d take the opportunity in my Oil Painting class. The Oil is hard to work with, but I like how it looks, and I like how the sky came out (this picture was taken at night, so it looks darker than it is) Next week I’ll finish it and the lighting will make sense and there will be a tree.

Resource: Empty Easel

Creations Evolution Mental Health

I ran across this on my iphone the other day, and honestly, I can’t believe I haven’t found it sooner. Empty Easel is a great artist resource/tip site that has articles on everything from mixing colors to marketing. I couldn’t keep it to myself, I’ve learned so much already and the tutorials are really easy to understand. Check them out – EmptyEasel.com!