Kamis, 17 November 2011

Sunday, October 09, 2011

Life paintings

Wow September came and went so fast- I never posted anything. That doesn't mean I wasn't busy painting and drawing! I'm still going to my weekly life painting/drawing group at Whitespace. I'm now using acrylics to paint the long pose (about 1 hour 45mins). I'm painting on little boards only 9x12inches, to allow me get a degree of finish within the time frame. These boards (MDF from DIY store) provide a good painting surface, they need to be gessoed (3 coats) before use and I then paint neutral gray mixed with acrylic texture paste medium to provide a more interesting paint surface and to get rid of the white gesso- replaced with a midtone. Here's the one I did last week
Rebecca 9x12 inches Acrlyic on board And here is tonight's effort
Justin 9x12inches Acrlyic on board I'm using a new viewfinder that I got, It's really helping me think about the composition before I start and keeps me focussed on scale too. With many of my tutored life classes I'd done previously, there was always pressure to make sure you got the WHOLE figure in to the picture- which really hampers creative composition I feel. The viewfinder let me try out different cropped compositions to pick one that is interesting before I start. Also I'm working with a limited pallette (yellow ochre, raw sienna, burnt sienna, Burnt umber and black and white) I'm finding this works great for me creating believable skin tones and creating a moore harmonious painting. Ryan

Monday, August 15, 2011

Forbidden fruit 2



Forbidden fruit 2
Mixed media on board
15x15 inches

He's the sequel to the 'Eve' painting I did. Has been on the spare easel for a wee bit while I did some oil painting studies. Finally decided to get this one done.

Here's some close-ups so you can see the textures and collage elements







Ryan

Sunday, August 14, 2011

Cast study



Cast study
pencil on paper

At last I can post pictures again thanks to a new digital camera! No life classes at the moment as the Whitespace studio is being used as one of the many venues in the Edinburgh festival. Been working on this to keep my drawing studies up

Ryan

Friday, July 29, 2011

Modern art vs Classical art study

Thought I'd share this article I stumbled accross that I found fascinating. It's about the common argument between modern art and classical style art. A proper study was done looking at the behaviour, attention time of the public looking at artwork in the Tate Britain gallery:

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1365672/Modern-art-How-gallery-visitors-viewed-work-Damien-Hirst-Tracy-Emin-5-seconds.html

As an artist who paints and loves classical styles but also is enjoying the freedom of a new contempory style emerging in my art, this was very interesting.

I definitely think that the findings of the study mirror my behaviour in a gallery. Most of the minimalist conceptual type stuff leaves me a little cold and don't have much interaction with. I find myself skim-reading it and moving on. I'm not saying its not good by the way, just that it doesn't excite me- others of course argue that I'm not giving it the time and thought to GET the concept though my deep thinking about it. As always with art its a very personal response that is unique to each individual.

One of the examples in the article is Damien Hirst's large paintings of coloured dots- to me its decorative and pretty but I get no story or message from it and as such my attention is not held. I find the same with Mark Rothko's work. Both of these artists sell for huge amounts of course! Whereas some Tracy Emin drawings (though often difficult to look at in regards to content and 'crude' technique) are thoroughly modern do have a message and have made me stop and contemplate.

For me I like looking at modern art and classical art- one informs the other. I prefer modern art that has a bit of craft to it and preferrably a message or bit of narrative.

I think one of the key things that cause a painting/drawing to hold the viewers interest is composition. In classical styles, laws of composition are carefully followed and exploited to keep the viewers eye movement controlled and moving around the canvas- clearly from the study it works well. A lot of the 'modern art' they discuss in the article lacks this or deliberately break these composition rules

-maybe the fleeting glances of the majority of the public is the cost they pay?

Ryan

Thursday, July 28, 2011

Colour studies

Well I'm using my scientist brain to improve my artist brain!

Up until now I guess I've been buying paint tubes based on their shiny-ness, because other artists metion they use them, or whether they're on offer(!).

Well no more!!

I'm using my natural scientific brain (at last the day job comes in useful for more than the bills!)

I'm studying Suzanne Brooker's 'Portrait painting atelier' a lovely book I got for Christmas. So far I've been drooling over the masterful painting examples biding my time until I had more time to devote to artistic study (as opposed to the scientific type!). Also I've got a new digital camera (since the last broke I've been limited to what I can post)

Essentially the first exercise involves exploring the pigments on the pallete and learning control over the mixing capability of each colour.

Here's the first two using core earth red pigments and then contempory red pigments. For each I painted the the hue (colour out the tube) then experimented with tines, tints, shades, warm, cool and neutral mixes of each colour.





Doing this not only allows me to improve my colour mixing control and skill, but also allows me to directly compare different paint hues and variations between manufacturers.

I found these difficult as I have a red/green colour blind deficiency so mixing the neutrals caused me a bit of consternation (as I had to mix green into my reds to neutralise the colour)

Next up is the oranges and remaining earth colours!

Ryan

Thursday, July 14, 2011

A virus



Here's my latest one. It's a bit of an exploration in mixed media- trying out a few new things. Some of the lovely new range of Daler Rownet artist acrylics and Caran D'ache Neo pastels. Different paper types used in the collage too include washi, handmade indian paper, cardboard and printed images.

Having real bother with my digital camera- think its on the waay out. Very difficult to get an accurate image. Quite frustrating and I think I'll need a new one after pay day.

Ryan

Thursday, June 16, 2011

Edinburgh College of Art Degree show

Went to see the ECA Degree show tonight- lots to see. It finishes on Sunday so if you're around and about Edinburgh its well worth a visit:

http://www.eca.ac.uk/degreeshow2011/
There were a couple of painters that caught my eye, they were using allegory (one Christian symbolism and the other Greek mythology) and painting large canvases in oil.

one was Aisha Al-Sadie, unfortunately I didn't get the other's name but will post if I find out.

In my more recent work 'Forbidden fruit' and the unpublished work that currently on my easel utilise suggestions of symbolism in the use of the apple.

There was a lot of pure abstract paintings on show that had some nice mark-making and subdued colours. I thought some of it was nice but a little derivative- its not really my bag but can appreciate that many will like this. I prefer art with more skilled craft and narrative. Was a good opportunity to get in ECA and have a look around though. The building is amazing with beautiful light airy studios looking onto Edinburgh castle- woth seeing by itself!

There was a lot of classical sculpture casts around as well, I can see me going to try to draw them. I did some life classes with artist Graham Flack who teaches there who told me the public can go in and draw there whenever they like so I'll try to do that.

Ryan

Search and Research #153

Man, this is only the fifth strip I've posted this year. I can't believe that I still have viewers who are interested in what's happening over here. I'm super grateful to you all though! Thanks so much for sticking with the strip!

This one took a while because we kept changing the script for it. Sometimes the writing for this thing comes easily, and sometimes it requires a lot of rewriting and revising before we're really happy with it. We hope you enjoy!

- eli

*edit*
In retrospect, now that I've posted it up, I should have added some color to Marc's shirt, because I chose to fully color Elsie's dress. He looks like he's wearing a white shirt....oh well. 

Monday, May 23, 2011

Search and Research #154

Welcome back to the strip everybody! I appreciate you all hanging in there with me. This particular idea stems from me being heavily into Star Trek: The Next Generation, and really not being able to get into Star Trek: Voyager all that much. My co-writer, Jason, would appreciate me saying that these opinions are my own, and do not reflect the opinions he personally holds. We'll be happy to host a spirited Star Trek discussion in the comments, if anyone should care to weigh in. Enjoy!

Thursday, April 28, 2011

Search and Research #153

I'm back! Hooray for a new strip! My goodness, it has been a while, but I've been super busy with art commissions, and doing other art related stuff. It has been great! In the meantime, the blog has been getting crazy numbers of views per week, for which I'm grateful but also sort of curious as to why that's happening all of a sudden. I'm all for it!

Hopefully our next strip will be up sooner, since my friend and co-writer Jason seems to be having a little bit more free time to help write scripts. He's really the one who is able to take my ideas and actually turn them into fully fleshed-out scripts, and I'm always very hesitant to just write this strip by myself. It almost always suffers without his input, so I've been waiting until he had time. Until the next one, enjoy!

- Eli

Monday, March 14, 2011

Search and Research #152

Ah...yes. It's nice to get back to the blog. Everything is just as I left it. Well, again, it's been a while since I drew a strip, but this time it's been because I've been busy with commissioned work. That is a good problem for me to have, as doing artwork full time is a goal I'm trying to work towards, but I do miss these characters and I'm glad when I have these breaks where I can get back to the strip. No promises about the next one either...we'll just have to see what happens. In the meantime, if you'd like to see some of the more recent work (and some older work as well), here's a link to a gallery: http://kindgentleman.deviantart.com/gallery/. Enjoy!

Friday, January 21, 2011

Search and Research #151

Well my friends, I'm back with a new strip! Between holiday art commissions (I love actually getting paid to draw!!), the American holidays, and the onset of electronic reserve requests at work (my primary library job) I haven't had the time or energy to draw another strip until now. It felt good to get back to these characters again. I had to reteach myself how to draw them and how I lay out my comic strips and stuff after such a long absence. I mean, I haven't actually drawn them since last September! Anyway, thanks to those of you who have stuck with this comic strip through the long absences between content. Enjoy!

Monday, November 29, 2010

Search and Research #150

Whew! It's nice to finally get this up! My co-writer Jason and I wrote this whole story arc out back in April, but this final part of the story fell during the busiest time of my entire year...beginning of the fall semester at the college at which I work. That lasted about a month an a half, at which point I had penciled about half of this "super-sized" strip. I finally got myself together and finished penciling and inking this strip. Then I started getting other artwork commissions which demanded my free time, which left me sort of scrambling to do what coloring I could during my lunch break at work. There is so much work that goes into coloring that bits and pieces just doesn't really allow you to make much progress on the overall piece. Anyway...I'm finally done with this one, and it's my great pleasure to show it to you, not only because I think that it's one of the better jobs I've ever done drawing and coloring, but because it's the epic conclusion of the "Evil Copier Saga!!" The image above is sort of bigger than usual for the strip because I want you to have to opportunity to see the coloring details. Below, I'm posting a smaller resolution image in case the one above is really too big to comfortably view on your phone or whatever. Enjoy!

Smaller version:

Friday, November 26, 2010

Almost done!!!

I'm almost done coloring Strip #150!!! In celebration of this momentous event, I have a couple of preview images to tease and tantalize you:


I'm also going to repost all the strips that have led up to this strip, in case you want to review the story. I realize that 4 months is kind of a long time to try to keep a story in your memory. I'm planning on posting #150 on Monday. Until then, enjoy! Strips start below with #141 and move down the page in order.










Wednesday, November 24, 2010

Introducing...Wai Fai

At one point 4 years ago or so I doodled a picture in a staff meeting of an asian lady with sort of a funky haircut who was carrying a samurai sword. I should pause and a say that ever since watching the first Highlander movie, samurai swords have been my favorite style of sword (although the super awesome sword Inigo Montoya wields in The Princess Bride is a close second!!) and samurai swords and people holding them have been a staple of my doodling for many years now. When I started drawing this strip, I remembered that doodle and thought that it would be super cool to have an "ITS-chick" who used a samurai sword as one of her tools. Thus Wai Fai (which I pronounce as Wi-Fi...get it?) was born. She first showed up in Strip #83 and had made frequent appearances ever since.

I initially designed her hair to sort of look like samurai swords, but after the first few times i drew her, i decided that hairstyle only really worked when viewed from the front...other angles were too hard to draw, so I've been sort of experimenting with other styles for her subsequent appearances. I think I've sort of settled on the style she has in the image below. Marc has been sort of enamored with Wai Fai since meeting her, and Wai Fai shows concern for Marc when he's in trouble, but neither of them seems to be willing to discuss their feelings.

Monday, November 15, 2010

Introducing...SCOM

SCOM is possibly my favorite character in this comic strip. He started out in strip #10 as a cantankerous Self Check Out Machine (which is where the abreviation SCOM comes from) who was a bit grumpy and had a penchant for destroying books, but he has become, in my opinion, the central character of the strip. Much like Opus in Bloom County, he was initially a background character who has evolved into a lovable, naive, interesting character through which we can explore the library with new eyes.

By the way, if you have never read Bloom County, please make every effort to do so. Sometimes the references to political and world events from the early 80s might be a little obscure these days, but the characters and art are great and the stories are funny and interesting. Berkeley Breathed, the creator of Bloom County, is a cartoonist hero of mine, along with Bill Watterson (Calvin and Hobbes), Gary Larson (The Far Side) and Bill Amend (Foxtrot).

Anyway, back to SCOM, we soon discovered that he could walk, that he'd been specially made by the CIA to work in the Library of Congress, and that he had a theft prevention system which included twin duel machine-guns and a missile. I sort of started thinking of him as a mix between R2-D2 and Mary Popopins' purse, in that he could contain almost any electronic device within him, and it would sort of be believable. Remember how Mary Poppins fit a whole coat rack into her purse? Remember how R2-D2 had, like, 576 different tools in the Star Wars movies? That's what I'm talking about. Here is a list of things we've seen SCOM equipped with:
- Legs
- Guns
- Missile
- Satellite Dish for missile tracking and TV reception
- Spotlight
- Electric Zapper
- A webcam
- A karaoke system including speakers and a microphone
- A toaster

At one point we had SCOM's guns replaced with a salad shooter and a caulking gun, and his missile replaced with a telescope, which really cracked me up. I drew the image of SCOM below during that period of time, so even though he now has his guns back, please enjoy SCOM trying to look cool with his replacement attachments.

Monday, November 08, 2010

Introducing...Randall

Randall was introduced back in strip #12 to essentially set up a gag wherein we reveal that SCOM has legs and can walk around. I gave him my father's middle name, and my propensity toward messiness. At the time I was drawing this, I'm pretty sure I had the messiest office in our library. I'm doing better, but things do tend to pile up on and around my desk. I hadn't really planned on him sticking around, but it turned out that having a sort of messy, grumpy male librarian can be useful for stories. I'm not entirely sure what prompted me to give him a "mustachio" type mustache, or the weird-looking goatee, but they seemed to go together in my mind. I've move away from curling his goatee the way I drew it in strip #12, but have not removed it entirely.

Friday, November 05, 2010

Introducing...Opal

Opal is the second staff character I created for this strip, showing up in strip #3. She was based on a cataloger with whom my wife was working at the time (she has since changed jobs) who was very cranky, refused to use a computer for almost anything and seemed to despise change of any kind. She is certainly not my idea of all catalogers, and I don't personally know any catalogers with that kind of mindset, but I suppose that the cranky old woman is a little bit of a librarian stereotype. Oh well...I think that her personality is an asset to this strip. I made Boük a cataloger to sort of keep the strip from seeming biased against catalogers. Opal has been working at the library since she was a student there, so she has seen a lot of change. If I ever have her show up in a color strip, I will make the center of her broach a large opal. I'm not sure why I named her the way I did other than it just sounds like a name for an older woman. I love the animosity between Opal and SCOM and try to put them together in situations as much as possible. I enjoy thinking about where else we can put her! Enjoy!

Wednesday, November 03, 2010

Introducing...Marc Record

Well, now we come to Marc. The first character I created for the strip. I believe that it was my wife who suggested the name, but I can't completely remember. She deals with marc records more than I do (although if you've ever dealt with one, you're ahead of me) and I thought it was a great name. It started my penchant for naming characters based on what they do (with the exception of Opal and Randall) in an effort to appear clever. He's also the only character who has an established last name. Marc works at the service desk, and I see him sort of as a library assistant. I'm not sure if he has an office or not; we haven't seen it if he does, but I haven't really made up my mind about that. He is basically an outlet for the things I think in my head during interactions in the library. I've given him some of my personal interests, such as being a fan of sci-fi and action movies and tv, and his preference for corduroy pants and collared, short-sleeve shirts. That's my typical winter work wardrobe. In color, I typically color his shirt as maroon, which is the color of my favorite shirt. My co-writer Jason has done a very nice job of expanding his personality, and making his snarky humor funny instead of mean sounding. I have to give him a lot of credit for helping me get a good grasp on what his character should be. I've really enjoyed developing his relationship with SCOM, and at this point I think of them as a team, and their relationship as sort of the heart of the strip, as it should be with any librarian and their technology.

Monday, November 01, 2010

Introducing...The Gnome

The library gnome is the character in one of my favorite extended story arcs. I had been noticing that when I would go to shelve the new periodicals after I'd finished processing them, the issues out on the shelves would sometimes be so mixed around that it felt as if someone were purposefully doing the rearranging, and that is what got me thinking about a library gnome for the strip. He first appeared in strip #71 and although he hasn't had much to do since that story arc, I think of him as a recurring character and hope to use him much more. I drew him without a beard and mustache, and with large glasses, in order to sort of separate him from our usual image of lawn gnomes. I retained his pointy hat to at least make him seem a little gnomish. Initially I had drawn him with pointy, clog-type shoes, but abandoned them as they were not easy to draw at all angles. I think he's a good foil/foe for SCOM, since the gnome uses magic and SCOM can't necessarily overcome him only with technology. I think I'll have to make a point to use the gnome more often.

Monday, October 25, 2010

Introducing...Elsie

Continuing my effort to have some stuff on this blog while I work on strip #150, allow me to present Elsie! Elsie was the third character I created for this strip, and she was introduced in Strip #8. At the time, my friend Bryan was really encouraging me to start drawing a strip as a way to do something with all these funny ideas we had based on our library experiences, and he was the stacks manager, so that seemed like a position we needed filled in our imaginary library. I wanted to add some racial diversity to the strip, and so Elsie was born. I think that most American research libraries catalog their books using the Library of Congress system, abbreviated LC, and when spelled phonetically it becomes Elsie! As stacks manager, it seemed an appropriate name for her. It has taken a while for me to get a handle on drawing her the way I see her in my head. It's also taken a while for me to find a good way to represent her skin tone. At this point I'm pretty settled in on using markers...they are wonderful! I think of Clair Huxtable from The Cosby Show when I draw her hair. I write her as a sassy, no-nonsense character whom I like pairing with both Marc and SCOM because of how ridiculous they can both be. In looking at this sketch, I must have run out of room at the bottom of the paper on which I drew her, so she doesn't have feet. I hope that doesn't prevent you from enjoying this drawing!

Friday, October 22, 2010

Introducing...Boük

What can I say about the character Boük? He was initially created as a counterbalance to Opal; another cataloger who, instead of loathing technology, was the master of technology. I thought it would be funny to have someone who could control technology with his mind, so I designed him with an unusually large head. We haven't explained what exactly Boük can and can't do in regards to controlling technology mentally, or how he does it...we just hope that people will overlook that due to his large brain. I mean, there's room for 3-4 extra lobes up there! As someone who could control technology, he was a good counter for SCOM, who up to that point seemed uncontrollable. Boük first showed up in strip #42, but was first mentioned in strip #41. I always see him as a snappy dresser, and I don't think I've drawn him without his sunglasses yet. He has the same kind of weak eyes that Bono has. Since he's a cataloger, I thought that Book would be an appropriate name, but the name was a little obvious for me, so I decided to make him Northern European. I did some searches on the word "boük" to see if it was a bad word and as far as I could tell it was okay. I'm not totally sure if it means anything though, so if any of our Northern European viewers want to chime in, please feel free.Ok, I guess that's about it for Boük. Enjoy the image!

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Introducing...Ayvee

In an effort to keep this blog from becoming a dry, abandoned husk of a blog while I work on finishing strip #150, I'm going to start posting images of some of the characters who inhabit the Harlansdale College Library. I drew these images of them and colored them with grayscale markers a while ago. I had something else in mind for them, but decided that now is the best time to put them up. First is Ayvee, who first showed up in Strip #96 but has only appeared in a couple of strips since then. We envisioned here a spunky, 20-something librarian who is in charge of Electronic Resources (get it? Ayvee...A/V!) I'm not sure why we haven't used her more...maybe because she's still kind of new. Anyway, here she is having fun. Enjoy!

Friday, October 15, 2010

Teaser #2...

Greeting dear readers of Search and Research. My heartfelt thanks to you for sticking with this strip through the ups and downs of my weird, yearly schedule. Hopefully the rewards are worth the long, dry spells. Here is another teaser image from the upcoming strip #150. Enjoy!

Search and...um...hmmm...

Wow! Three months. I feel like I should blow some virtual dust off of this thing or something. Three months is really too long to not post something, but I've been busy and this big color strip has been pretty complicated to draw and ink and stuff. I've been kind of snatching an hour or two here and there trying to work on it, but it's really slow going that way.

However, I have finished inking this strip! Finally! I still need to color this, and the paper I drew it on won't stand up to physical coloring so I'm going to color it digitally, like the last one. That will take a bit more time, so I'm not sure when it's going to be ready. In the meantime, here is a teaser from strip! Enjoy!

Monday, July 19, 2010

Search and Research #149

Here we go! This is the penultimate chapter in the "Evil Copier Saga" and it feels good to post it, having written it around 3 months ago or more. I'm still in the midst of other art projects and general business, and the next strip, aside from being #150, is also a color strip, and a big one at that, with lots of stuff happening, which is all to say that I'm not sure when it will be finished. But, hopefully it will be worth any wait that you, my dear readers, will have to endure. I'll try to post progress teasers here on the blog, as well as other interesting sketches, in the meantime to keep things interesting. Thanks for stopping by!

Monday, July 12, 2010

Updates...

Ugh...I really did not want to drag this story out, especially considering the enormity of the ending, but I have gotten very busy, and haven't seemed to find the time and creative energy to do the next strip. I have been doing some artwork though for a series of tutorials on Literature Reviews, and thought I would post some of that artwork.A few years ago I helped to create a tutorial about the differences between scholarly and popular periodicals. You can view it here.
I decided to reuse these characters for the new tutorial, and I've been enjoying updating them in little ways and trying to make the drawings look nicer.
So, this is part of what I've been working on, and although it's not a new comic, I hope perhaps it will tide us over until I'm able to finish up this epic story arc we're currently in.
Thanks very much for stopping by!
Enjoy!

- Eli