On Gnomes

FANTASY CHARACTERS used to be my forte in high school. I moved away from them in college since the art classes I took encouraged practice by drawing life studies. I hope that I can apply what I learned in coursework to fantasy characters- a friend of mine asked me to sketch out some characters for a high-level D&D game he wanted to run in December.

So I took a shot at the Gnome character. Having no real idea what 'Gnome' meant in D&D terms, my first attempt was a look very similar to David from the children's tv show David the Gnome, which in turn is very similar to a garden gnome. (Blame the crap quality of the picture on my camera phone since my scanner isn't hooked up yet.)

Tee hee! Cute lil guy, but not what a D&D Gnome looks like. After a little more guidance from my friend, I came out with the second attempt, which is something I'll work on and color:

Albatross finished

AT LONG LAST the Albatross is finished. It was picked up, paid for and framed. And from what I hear, it looks really good above a mantle. I'll have to go and take a photo of it to show how it looks with the frame. I had nothing to do with picking out the frame- which is great, because I can't match things like that.

I'm happy to have finished it- now I can move on to other artistic projects. I'm glad for the experience, though- I've definitely learned that I can just pick up some paints and make something satisfactory... something good, even. I learned that people do actually appreciate/ like my art... and the possibility of following this road as a focus is becoming more and more a reality.

Roadblock

This painting has really put an artistic roadblock in front of me. The entire lower half of the painting has yet to be "resolved". I'm incredibly happy with the sky- considering my formal painting training included NO sky or outdoor tutorials. There are things I would change if I could start again- more and different shades of purple in the background, for example. But I think the sky has a lot of depth- and I'm moderately pleased with it. The foreground, however, just needs to be done. Especially the indoors area. This is new ground that I'm exploring... and I'm very hesitant to screw up something that I'm happy with thus far.

Onward!

Painting

Been busy of late... believe it or not, though, I've been busy with an art-related thing! Here we've got an update of a painting I've been commissioned to make. It's an evening-scape of Lighthouse Point in New Haven, CT. Underpainting just about done, except for part of the water and the inside of the house. The sky is actually almost done- 2 more layers of color to go. Lighthouse is almost there as well- 1 more layer of color to go. There will be trees in the background and lights on the inside of the house. The painting is 24"x 36". Started about a week and a half ago. Should be completely done very soon.