Category: Illustration

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Another iPad Finger Painting


This finger painting was done on a new app that I bought for the iPad, called ArtStudio. I had been using Sketchbook Pro, and even though I still consider it a great painting app, I now prefer ArtStudio by a wide margin. Without going into great detail, I’ll just say that this is as close to Photoshop as I’ve seen in an iPad painting app, and I found it very easy and enjoyable to use.

There are third party stylus pens available for the iPad, but they all seem to have mixed reviews, and one I tried put a few little scratches on the screen, so I’ve opted out of trying another one just yet. For now, I’m content to just keep on finger painting, as I don’t think I’m really losing anything.

I don’t know how much time I spent on this painting, as it was just ten minutes here and there over the past couple of weeks. It is doubtful that I’ll ever produce any finished work on the iPad, but I’m enjoying using it as a sketch pad.

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Final Painting Demo of the Year


Last Saturday, I was painting in Banff, but this Saturday, I’ll be in Canmore again for the final painting demo of the year. Still working on the Owl and the Bighorn Sheep, and they’re really starting to come alive. I’m working on the fine details of both paintings and while they won’t be done ’til January, they’re awfully close. Probably another five or six hours left on each.

If you happen to be in the area on Saturday the 18th, and would like to see some digital painting, ask some questions, or just stop by to say Hello, I’ll be at Two Wolves Trading Company from 11-3.

Hope to see you there!

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Painting Demo Prep


A couple of half finished paintings I’ll be working on today at Editions Gallery in Banff. This morning, I’m taking an hour to do my prep.

The prep work for one of these sessions is fairly easy, just making sure I have all of the pieces I need. For hardware, it’s my laptop, Cintiq, spare Intuos4 tablet, iPad, secondary display monitor, connection cords, power cords, and extension cords. For software, it’s having the working files for the paintings, the reference photos to paint from, the Photoshop brush set for live painting and making sure that it’s all working well. Finally, I need to bring any surplus canvas and paper prints to have on hand if the event generates any extra sales.

I’ve done 6 or 7 of these now, and each one gets easier. What’s the difference between the first one and the one I’m doing today? Well first of all, I was incredibly nervous the first time, and today, no nerves at all. As in all things, the hardest part is usually taking the first step. At this point, it honestly just feels like going to a part-time job.

In the beginning, I was disappointed if these live sessions didn’t result in sales, but that’s no longer the case. The paintings are selling well now without the demos, so the goal from these appearances is just to generate interest and provide a little education. While somebody may not buy a painting today, they may see one a month from now and remember that they saw me working on something similar. Sometimes having a connection to a painting, having a story to tell about it, makes the image more desirable.

There’s a lot more I need to learn about the publicity and sales aspects of these paintings, and I imagine that will always be the case. So I’ve chosen to keep doing these painting demos on a regular basis, and just consider it ‘on-the-job’ training.

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Another Painting Demo in Banff


The Bow Valley is usually quite busy this time of year. Whether it’s folks visiting for skiing or other winter activities, shopping for the holidays, or just taking a break from the city and coming out to see the fresh snow on the mountains, there are plenty of people milling about Banff and Canmore on the weekends.

With that in mind, I’m going to be doing a couple more painting demos before the year closes out. This Saturday, December 11th, I’ll be at Editions Gallery in The Cascade Plaza in Banff from 12-2, 3-5, and 6-8, working on the Bighorn Sheep and Great Horned Owl paintings that I currently have on the go.

If you’re in the area, stop by and watch a little digital painting, ask a few questions, or just say Hello.

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Bighorn Sheep – Work In Progress


This is a sneak peek progress shot of the Bighorn Sheep painting I’m working on. After the success I’ve had with the Moose and Wolf paintings, I feel a certain amount of pressure that my next paintings have to be better than anything I’ve done before. While that’s always the goal anyway, it’s different right now in that I’m very aware of it, so I’ll likely obsess about the details on the current paintings quite a bit more. I’m also enjoying working on two pieces at the same time. Hoping to spend a few hours next week on the Great Horned Owl piece.

Lately I’ve been feeling the itch to get back into doing some paintings of people. Aside from some editorial cartoon caricatures, I haven’t painted a likeness of a person since the Bert Monroy caricature I did five months ago. The next one will likely be an actor or musician, but not anybody on the A-list. There are a number of character actors I’ve wanted to paint over the years and I think it’ll be time to finally tackle one of those in the new year.

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No photos were harmed…


Had a painting demo this weekend at Two Wolves Trading Co. here in Canmore. Many people have never seen digital painting before and it’s fun to show them how it’s done. A few brave souls even gave it a try when offered the chance, although most were nervous that they were going to break the tablet. I assured them that Wacom makes a sturdy product.

Something I’m hearing more and more of, is questions asking what I’m doing to photos to get them to look like paintings. I’ve almost drawn blood from biting my tongue when this comes up. I know that I’m not alone in my frustration when faced with this, as I’ve talked to other digital painters who deal with the same false assumption.

I will admit that it’s unfair for me to judge anyone too harshly, because as I said, many people don’t know how digital painting is done. Unfortunately, I’ve realized that whenever somebody sees a computer, they automatically think that anything produced on it has been done by some sort of trick, as in a filter or a piece of software doing all the work.

While I do use photos for reference, just as any portrait, wildlife, or landscape artist might, no photo has ever been part of the image that results in one of my animal paintings. I don’t even use photos for textures in these paintings. It’s all brush work, and it starts from a blank white ‘canvas.’ Each one of these takes around 20 hours of work to complete, sometimes more.

The animal paintings are caricatures of real animals, so I need to know what the anatomy of a real animal looks like, just as you would when doing a caricature of a person. Even though the finished paintings are different from the photos I use for reference, all of the photos are used either with permission (I have some very generous friends) or are paid for, either in trade of a print or cash.

Photoshop is a wonderful piece of software, but despite the name, it’s not just about editing or manipulating photos. Much of the illustration work you see in magazines, on the net, or in ads has been drawn or painted in Photoshop. It’s an incredible illustration tool and I love working with it, but there are many days that I wish Adobe had called it something else.

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Painting Demo


Today and tomorrow, I’ll be doing another painting demo at Two Wolves Trading Co., as mentioned in a post earlier this week.

The images you see here are what I’ll be starting with. At this point both of them are still at 72 ppi, which is only web quality. I still consider these both quite rough. I usually don’t blow an image up to 300 ppi until I’ve got ‘the bones’ of the image done, which I’m pretty sure I’ve got for the bighorn sheep, but not quite for the great horned owl. There are still some structural issues I’m not quite happy with, but that will come with a little more time.

The reason I start at 72ppi is that I even though I have a fast computer, Photoshop doesn’t always do well with really quick sweeping brush strokes when it comes to a large size image with a high resolution. With painting at a lower resolution, I can move the pen/brush as fast as I want without any lag. Lately I’ve found a lot of good results with painting very fast in the beginning at low resolution. It gets to a point where I’m not thinking too much while I’m doing it, and if you ask anybody that knows me well, they’ll tell you I almost always think too much. At this size, I’m just throwing colour and brush strokes around, figuring out what’s going to work and what’s not.

The other reason I start with images at this stage when I do painting demos is that people don’t want to see the first blobs of paint and then be told that eventually it will look like a bighorn sheep or an owl. They want to be able to see the animal I’m working on.

A little different method this time around. I’ll be using my new Cintiq tablet, which means I’ll be painting right on the screen. Another great use I’ve found for my iPad is using it to store my photo reference. Great screen quality, and I can flip through the different images I’m using quite easily.

If you’re around Two Wolves Trading Co. in Canmore today (across the parking lot from Safeway beside Starbucks) between 2-4 or tomorrow between 12-2, stop in, ask questions or just watch. I’m able to talk and paint at the same time.

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Photoshop User Magazine


Got a nice smile this month when I opened the December issue of Photoshop User magazine. While NAPP had asked me last month for permission to use my images, I didn’t realize it was going to be such a big spread, so it was a very nice surprise. While this image of the Wolf Totem is the first page of the article, all of the Guru Award winners from Photoshop World in Las Vegas AND Orlando earlier in the year are featured on the subsequent pages, so my Moose Totem is in the article as well. A great spread of images. They even quoted my Photoshop World blog entry.

The above photo doesn’t do the image quality justice. I switched to the Zinio reader and the digital version of Photoshop User when I bought my iPad, so this is a photo of the screen, which never quite works out. The magazine was already great quality, but I prefer being able to zoom in on the images to check out the detail. And it takes up a lot less space on my bookshelf. The actual iPad image of this page looks incredible.

Photoshop User is available on newsstands, but it’s included if you’re a NAPP member, just one of the many perks. Usually it’s 8 issues a year, but just recently NAPP announced that they’re increasing it to 10 issues. For regular readers, that’s a big bonus, as it’s one of the few magazines I read religiously.

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Another Painting Demo


Another painting demo is scheduled for this weekend in Canmore!

Two Wolves Trading Co.
Saturday, November 13th, 2:00PM – 4:00PM.
Sunday, November 14th, 12:00PM-2:00PM.

Of course, if there is enough interest on either day, I’m happy to stick around longer than the times listed above. In addition to the giclee canvas prints, Two Wolves now has two sizes of matted paper prints available for the Grizzly, Ground Squirrel, Moose and Wolf paintings.

For this painting demo, I’ll be working on the next two paintings in my Totem series, a Bighorn Sheep and a Great Horned Owl. If you’re in the area, and are curious about digital painting, come on by and I’ll be happy to answer any questions you might have.

Here’s a sneak peek at the Bighorn Sheep in progress. This is still pretty rough. I begin these paintings at a resolution of 72ppi, so that I can move as fast as I want with any brush, and there won’t be any lag whatsoever. After I get the basic image worked out, I’ll increase the resolution to print quality before painting in the detail.

I anticipate that the horns are going to be the big challenge on this one. There are many ridges, with lots of texture, and to get the detail that I want, I would imagine this one may be the toughest one to date. Then again, wait ’til you see the feathers on the Great Horned Owl.

If you’re in the Bow Valley, hope to see you at Two Wolves on the weekend!

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iPad Halloween Diversion


Even though my schedule has been full for quite awhile (and for the next few months), I find that it’s necessary to make time away from the deadlines. I’ve mentioned before that I try to go for at least an hour long walk most days, even though I only manage it about 3-4 times a week. I may just be going to the bank downtown, but it takes 40 minutes each way to walk there, and half of that is in forested area or green space, so it’s a nice break from the office and good exercise.

I’ll often feel guilty about taking time off when I have a full to-do list, but I’ve learned that breaks are necessary to preserve my sanity. Time with my wife or friends, playing the guitar for an hour, going for coffee some mornings with the boys at Beamer’s, getting some fresh air, or even just watching a movie will often be all the battery recharge I need to keep me motivated for the next item on the list.

While it may seem funny to classify it as a break, sometimes just drawing something for fun is a welcome diversion as well. Regular readers will know that I’ve been experimenting with iPad sketching and painting lately with the Sketchbook Pro app. I find that I’m really enjoying finger painting on the device. I’ve been working on this one for a couple of evenings while watching TV. No deadline, no plan, just switching brushes, trying different opacity, textures, and colours, and really just having some fun with it.

I will admit to being a little frustrated that I can’t get the detail I want sometimes because of the resolution the app is capable of, and I have to keep reminding myself that it’s just a sketch app, not Photoshop and a Wacom tablet. Had fun with it, though, and that was the whole intent in the first place.

Happy Halloween!