Wildland Weeds

No doubt I don't have to announce this but you may have noticed when you opened up your Spring 2009 copy of "Wildland Weeds" and then proceeded to the back page, you saw a familiar set of faces. I can tell you that no, you weren't hallucinating, that was indeed our own Everglades Comic that lay nice and pretty. Well it was exciting for me anyway. This comic ended up making the cut for the South East Exotic Pest Plant Council's quarterly publication. ( a mouthful, I know) It was a little funny that the comic chosen wasn't even about plants but they had to avoid my more risque material. I would tell you to go out and get yourself a copy but I have no idea where you would get one of these fine magazines. (I have ten and I am thinking about sneaking them into bookstores in the hopes someone will buy them)

deviantArt page and website update

I have updated the main site with loads more art, take a look! Also I just signed up for deviantArt. It is starting to get a little overwhelming with all of my various web art presences. DeviantArt is especially overwhelming with millions of artworks and just loads and loads of users. Anyway if you are intereested heres the link: http://nateshaw.deviantart.com/ It will also go up with my other links in the right hand corner. Right now it is going to be my least updated section. This blog will continue as the most updated part with my main site being the gallery of my best work.

Forever Forward

As I prepare to leave for Cali tomorrow I am pretty sad that it means packing up the oil paints for another 6 months. I suppose I could take them with me but its not going to happen. There is just too much baggage with oils. It would be overwhelming. I feel pretty good though, I improved with every brush stroke this month and was able to crank out a satisfiable amount of paintings of respectable quality. When I think back to six months prior and the paintings I did just before I left for Florida, I have only improved. I am trying to approach painting the way I do with drawing. As long as I continue to draw I don't feel like I will lose anything, in fact time has shown that I can only improve. Besides that I am bringing my computer and wacom pad so I will definitely continue with my digital work.

As for this particular piece, I started it wanting to do another pirate self portrait but kind of felt there wasn't anything there for me. The portrait was enough. Any more and I would just be beating a dead horse (to use a terrible metaphor). Once I got over the pirate theme I started thinking about myself and how I wanted to portry myself. What came out was an explorer/adventurer confidently setting off for a point unknown. I know its a little melodramatic but maybe thats all part of it too. I approached it as I did the last two portraits, same prepatory steps and the same pallette. Some painters I was looking at while working on this one were NC Wyeth and Justin Sweet. One classic and the other a modern day illustrator.

Pirate Self Portrait 2

As promised, my second pirate self portrait. I used the same method and palette as the previous painting. I never really had a system before but this seems to be working for me for now. I am planning one more pirate self portrait so stay tuned.

Pirate Self Portrait

I wasn't very satisfied with the last self portrait. I didn't like the colors and the pose was pretty boring so I thought I'd give it another shot. This time I put down four or five layers of gesso and sanded them pretty well and used raw umber to tone the ground. I kept my palette a little more limited than I usually do. (usually=every five months or so that I can get a chance to to oil paint) Raw Umber, burnt sienna, alizarin crimson, cadmium red, yellow ochre, titanium white, and ivory black. I also tried out a new color that I have never used before: prussian blue. I am really liking it and I think I will keep it a regular. Notable colors missing from my usual palette are cadmium yellow, viridian, ultramarine, and cobalt blue. the prussian blue seems to be a pretty flexible color, I was able to get several really nice greens when I mixed it with the ochre, umber and black and white. Excuse my blurry work in progress shots.

It didn't turn out very piratey, I know. I did another one yesterday that I really went for the "arrr" in me. I'll post it soon with wips as well.

Penny Arcade

OK. This post will be hard proof that I am a huge nerd. Oh well. I follow a blog/comic called Penny Arcade. They are basically what inspired me to do the Everglades Comic. They are basically geek cartoonists. Their subject matter is everything from MTG, D&D, to console and computer gaming. Half the time I don't even really know what they are talking about but their comics are usually really funny. They are pretty interesting guys. Great example of people making their living from something they love (from all acounts way way more than just "getting by"). Anywho, I wanted to bring this Wednesday's cartoon up because I thought it was particularly good.

Edit: The link above is for the current comic. For the one that inspired the post go here.