it's never about the details

i've been painting more recently which always makes me in awe of the mastery of Sargent. drawing, edges, tone...everything. i did a quick block in as i imagine he would (Harold Speed oil painting book) . the details are not what's important. it's the large planes and tones that need to be established first. once this is working and the edges are rich then the details can be added but not till the shapes and tones are w o r k i n g. this is reminder for myself as much as anyone.

iPhone sketches from the weekend

more doodles from Sketchbook Mobile. the first is Devils Gate Reservoir and that's the actually dam. the second, a street near cal tech as the sun was going down. very rough but some of the color notes and values are true.

iPhone paintings

i've been painting some color studies from life on my iPhone. i bought and tried all the apps and liked Autodesks Sketchbook Mobile the best. it's like having a tiny pochade box in your back pocket. i'm using the pogo stylus as well.

3DTotal Excellence Award

the nice folks at 3D Total gave my Steampunk Village painting an Award of excellence. thanks 3D Total !

Invented Landscape

a look into my working method. i usually do several pages of thumbnail ideas, refine one by working on the silhouettes shapes in as few values as possible and then use those layers as my template for the final painting.

Emilio Ruiz del Rio

i first heard of him when i was reading an article on Ray Harryhausen and Ray said he used a Spanish matte painter who worked on cut out aluminum. at first i thought it was a typo. cut out aluminum? much later i found his site and sure enough, he painted in camera mattes on site with aluminum. sadly he passed away this year. here's a few pictures of his work and a documentary has been made on him that i can't wait to come out on DVD.