Hermione Granger Montage

Hermione Granger Digital Illustration

So I moved on the Hermione Granger for another painting and learned a lot more as I worked on this painting. I really layered the paint strokes more fully on her face and hand. I am striving for a more truly oil painted look. The more I work on these the more my inner John Singer Sargent seems to come out. I started with the graphic flat color portraits from last year and have migrated toward this buttery painted look and I am having a lot of fun with the media.

RUPERT GRINT: Digital Painting

RUPERT GRINT

Another view of Rupert Grint as Ron Weasley. This painting features a rusted door texture and a burlap pattern imbedded into the background paint strokes.

Harry Potter: Severus Snape

Severus Snape: Digital Portrait 

I am hunting for unusual photos of the Harry Potter characters that feature strange lighting or interesting expressions. This painting emerged from a low resolution image with Snape in very low light. The hints of cool toneson his face were translated into a blue, green, lavender, and black palette of paint strokes. It took a while to bring him into focus, but I like the final result. The expression on his face and the colors seem to reflect the conflicted nature of his character.

Harry Potter: Ron Weasley Digital Portrait

RON WEASLEY from Harry Potter

Just finished this week's portrait. I am finishing up a set of paintings of the Harry Potter characters this month. They have made great subjects for practicing painting techniques. I have been studying the work of various portrait and landscape artists like Jeremy Mann and Jeremy Watts who have very energetic approaches to building color on the canvas. These fine artists are teaching me a lot about getting loose with brush strokes and maintaining an impressionistic attitude toward the subject. 

This painting took about 10 hours. 2 years ago if I attempted this it would have taken 20-30 hours and would not have been as strong as a painting. Starting loose and staying loose as long as possible is a big advantage in completing paintings more quickly.

Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne

Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne

This painted montage of portraits of Chrysler CEO Sergio Marchionne was actually assembled as an idea for a portrait study in the summer of 2012 when I was working only in vector. The plan was to do a painting in acrylics. I picked up the rough comp in 2013 and created this finished illustration. The goal was to convey his dynamic personality and the non-stop nature of his daily life as the head of both Fiat and Chrysler.

The painting was an exploration of the range of brushes available in Photoshop. My goal was to create an energetic style of rendering using bold strokes and color. I also took advantage of the ability of Photoshop to simulate color glazes and canvas texture.

Digital Painting: 1968 Pontiac Tempest

1968 PONTIAC TEMPEST

This painting took 8 hours. The original shot on which this painting was based was taken at last year's Dream Cruise in the park at 13 Mile and Woodward. The late afternoon light made this Pontiac glow with greens and blues. The background was the bigger challenge. I added the the burst of light on the right and changed the color and light on the trees. This painting is more impressionist in feeling and has a lot more paint strokes to define the background-beginning to feel more like I am actually working with paint.

Digital Painting: Auburn 8 120 Boat-Tail Speedster

1929 AUBURN 8 120 BOAT-TAIL SPEEDSTER

I photographed a series of images of this 1929 Auburn Roadster. The hood ornament is so fun to render. They are already works of art so making them into paintings is a pleasure.

Digital Painting: 1965 Pontiac Tempest GTO

1965 PONTIAC TEMPEST GTO

Just finished the next painting in my American Muscle Cars series. I am exploring different levels of simplicity in the backgrounds. This painting is the first to include actual textures made by me with gesso and modeling paste.

Digital Painting: 1971 Buick Riviera 1

1971 BUICK RIVIERA

This high view is another angle of the same Buick Riviera rear view already posted. I was experimenting with an overlay of a watercolor wash when this quite meditative looking image emerged. I like to emphasize the lines of the car in my paintings much as the catalogue shots did back in the 1970s.

Digital Painting: 1971 Buick Riviera 2

1971 BUICK RIVIERA

This Classic Riviera with the huge wing shaped rear bumper filled my camera's image area when I snapped a picture at the Woodward Dream Cruise. Detroit loved chrome, and so do I as a an artist. I am working on paintings from several angles for this car. Amazingly, I almost passed it up as a subject but turned around and walked back to take a few pictures.

Digital Painting: 1967 Pontiac GTO

1967 PONTIAC GTO

I am continuing with my car paintings selecting images to work up as possible prints and posters. This shot was a challenge because of the way the car was wedged in between other vehicles. I like to use what is there as my source for a painted composition since it creates a certain uniqueness to each image. This Pontiac design was ahead of its time in 1967.

Digital Painting: 1946 Buick Super Eight

1946 BUICK SUPER EIGHT

I photographed this Buick Eight at the Concours d'Elegance in 2010. The original intent was to paint these in acrylic but I find that Photoshop has evolved to the point where I can get a painterly look without touching a brush.

Digital Painting: Buick Estate Wagon

1946 BUICK ESTATE WAGON

I am working on a series of car paintings based on selected photos I have taken over the last several years. I am thinking of marketing them at shows along with paintings of Detroit area landmarks. My goal is to achieve a fully painted look using Photoshop and Painter. This painting was created as a mixture of painted strokes and filters. I hope the effect will be of a timeless moment where sun and shadow have combined beautifully.

Inking With Fine Tip Pens: Civil War Generals

General Joseph Hooker

"General Joseph Hooker", 8x10 inches, Felt Tip Pens and Permanent Marker on Bristol Vellum Paper, 2010

These two portraits were inked last night with a variety of disposable pens. Fine lines were created using a Permawriter II with an 07 point, and contains permanent ink similar to India ink. I also switched off to a couple of Staedtler Pigment Liners with heavier points. The black areas were filled with a Prismacolor permanent marker.

"General McClellan", 8x10 inches, Felt Tip Pens and Permanent Marker on Bristol Vellum Paper, 2010

Some important stylistic influences in these portraits are the work of illustrators like Barron Storey, Max Altekruse, and Gary Kelly. I owe much to Detroit area artist Max Altekruse, who I had the pleasure of working with at McNamara Associates from 1981 to 1995. Max is one of the great classically trained illustrators still working. He trained at the New York Artist's League more than 45 years ago and is skillful at making every corner of an illustration fascinating to look at.

The details in the faces of these illustrations are formed from abstracted shapes. The nose on General McClellan, for example, is treated like an elongated cube shape and is defined by distinct edges. Finding edges, even in the subtle contours of the cheeks, gives definition to the face and creates opportunities to accentuate the style of the strokes. This is a fundamental lesson I learned from studying the works of great illustrators like those mentioned above.

Almost anyone can render a face and create a likeness, but  top level illustrators can bring out a unique stylistic quality that makes their work easy to identify. A great example of this is the poster illustration of Drew Struzan. Visualize the Indiana Jones poster artwork and you will get an idea of what I am talking about.

Detail of line style 

Inking is the first step in the process. I plan to apply separate watercolor washes to these in Photoshop as part a series for instruction. Using the inked art as a guide I can create washes in any media on board, scan them, and create a complex color background for these renderings. The goal is to develop an antique look that matches the scratched sepia look of the old photographs.

Preparatory Sketch for General Sherman Portrait

"General Sherman", 12x14 inches, Black Prismacolor pencil on Strathmore Bristol Vellum paper

Civil War photography is exceptional for its detail. I am currently drawing a series of portraits based on historic photos from the Civil War era. This first attempt is a preparatory sketch for a potential painting coming up soon. I am thinking in terms of painting in black and white with acrylics with soom color highlights.

I am always trying to indicate the feeling of brush strokes, even in my drawing. For me, drawing should be like writing my signature: fluid, natural, and expressive of a personal style.

Emphasizing the Brush Stroke

"Harrison Ford", 8x12 inches, Acrylic Paint on Canvas Paper

Keeping things fresh is one of my primary goals. I instruct students that the brush stroke can be an expressive tool for adding character to your work. Don't hide the marks you make in creating a painting. With all the CGI imagery out there today, people want to see "real" paint. and nothing says paint better than letting your brush strokes become a prominent aspect of your work. This is true for digital painting in Photoshop and Painter as well as traditional painting.

This portrait of Harrison Ford was an exercise in bringing out the brush work. I make clear choices beforehand about what range of hues I will use in an image. Here, I chose a blue and yellow balance of colors in the background to play off the blue color of the shirt. The blue tones also provide some complimentary contrast with the orange cast of the skin tones. Yellow strokes of paint were added in the background using lemon yellow and titanium white. I added the yellow directly into the blue tones in the background with out pre-mixing the paint on my palette. This approach prevents unwanted green tones from developing. I want the yellow and blue to create sudden shifts in color that show up as distinctive brush strokes. I followed the same approach in adding in lighter blue tones to the right of his face.

Pulling some of the deeper red tones in the shadows of his face into the background to the left, helps to unify the whole painting. These tones were added near the end of the painting process because I felt the background was still too "foreign" in color range when compared to the face, meaning the two areas did not adequately relate to each other. Pulling some warm tones into cool shadows tends to enrich the color and deepen the shadow tones, while bringing a certain balance back to the painting.

Working Loose With Markers: Faster Can be Better

Earlier in 2009 I was given a chance to create a series of loosely rendered drawings for the Signature Theatre, an off broadway theatre company in New York. While these sample drawings were not ultimately used, the resulting illustrations became good demonstration pieces for creating an interpretive drawing style with markers.

"Daryl Lathon", 8x10 inches, Sharpie Marker on Beinfang Graphics 360 Layout Paper, 2009

For me, markers are merely another painting tool. In these portraits, I worked with broad tip markers like they were brushes, using a light touch and a gestural approach. Details were refined slightly using white gouache. The total effect was designed to look spontaneous and to highlight the unique quality of markers as an expressive media.

I left open spaces between the strokes. Much like a good watercolor painting, a good black and white illustration uses the white space between strokes to maintain a certain lightness to the image. Blocks of solid color can become heavy and inactive areas that weigh down the art. 

In the portrait "Daryl Lathon", I left white showing, even in the darkest areas so that the pattern of strokes would never entirely disappear. As a result, shadow areas like the neck under his chin have a directional quality that add dynamism to the illustration. A good rule of thumb is, there should be something interesting happening in every part of the image. 

The portrait "William Inge", is even more aggressive in its use of "active" strokes in the shadow under his chin. This is actually a second attempt at rendering this subject. In the first version, not pictured here, I blocked in the neck with too much black and spent too much time trying to refine the details of the face. The result was a less lively illustration that I ultimately threw in the trash. The second attempt was rendered more rapidly to create a quick sketched quality as though drawn from life. The portrait was actually developed from a photograph.

"William Inge", 7x12 inches, Sharpie Marker on Beinfang Graphics 360 Layout Paper, 2009

To create the final art, I added color to each of the drawings in Photoshop as shown below. The line art was scanned at 300 dpi and imported into Photoshop as a transparent layer. A heavily textured acrylic painted background was also imported into Photoshop, along with fragments of images and a wallpaper pattern.

"Daryl Lathon", 8x10 inches, Markers and Acrylic Paint

"William Inge", 7x12 inches, Markers and Acrylic Paint

Finding Abstract Shapes: 1956 Buick 88

"1956 Buick 88", 8x7 inches, Black Prismacolor pencil on Strathmore Bristol Vellum paper, 2007

"1956 Buick 88", detail

I try to find interesting shapes in every subject. The chrome on this 1956 Buick was hard to resist. Drawing the constantly changing forms in the chrome was fun and allowed me to be more interpretive with my drawing. I picked up on this idea by treating the figures and trees in the background as abstract shapes.

Its all about finding the points of interest and interpreting these elements as aspects of an abstract composition. Contrasts between areas of intense detail are balanced against broad open spaces. The subject is merely a vehicle (I know this is a very bad pun) for creating an interesting image.

Working With Markers: Jimi Hendrix Portrait

"What is Cool?", 11x20 inches, Permanent marker stick and Gouache on Strathmore Medium Drawing Paper, 2009

Permanent markers are great tools for creating expressive black and white images. They can provide deep true blacks as rich as India Ink or fine line details. My goal on this illustration was to use only a broad tip marker to create almost all of the details. Gouache (Titanium White) was used to carve out more delicate details around the face and hands. For this work I used a No. 3. round sable brush.

"What is Cool?", detail

As you can see in this detail of the illustration, I like to be inventive with the strokes I make using markers. The series of straight and swirling strokes along the right collar were designed to create a separation between the white highlight on the shirt and the white background. The fun part was coming up with a way to accomplish this without simply adding an outline. Being inventive leads to creative ways of solving basic problems. The total impact of the illustration will be more vibrant and interesting if you can avoid boring solutions to common issues in your image making.


When is it effective to "block in" an area? 
I found it better to create large totally black areas in parts of this illustration. The reason for this was the high amount of complex textures in the photo. Too much information tires the eye and creates an overall busy appearance. Dropping out some areas like the shadow on the neck was a good idea here. However, the hair still has diagonal shards of white that I left intentionally to break up this shape. 


Why the two different approaches? 
The mass of the hair was too large a shape to simply render in solid black. Plus, the hair needs to appear light and "frizzy" as it is in the photo. My solution was to give the whole image more dynamic thrust by leaving diagonal areas of white in the hair and on darker shadow portions of the body, as well as the background. This becomes a unifying stylistic theme that pulls the whole illustration together. The verticality of these strokes makes the figure look more animated, always a good quality when trying to create a lifelike portrait.

Translating Your Drawing Style Into Paint

"Duke Ellington", 8x8 inches, Acrylic Paint and graphite in Canvas Paper

Trying to maintain the loose quality established in the drawing while moving into paint is not always easy. I have had many efforts turn into exercises in overworking an illustration. More recently, I have found that allowing myself to use only larger brushes to complete the entire painting, forces me to avoid becoming overly involved in rendering out fine details. The result has been a fresher looking and more painterly style. I used nothing smaller than a half inch flat brush on this painting. I was amazed at how much detail could be rendered using the corners of a larger brush.

It also helps to block in the entire painted area with large strokes to establish the basic tones and hues. This painting was created from black and white photo reference. I was able to choose a palette of yellow and green for the sweater and background. These colors provide a bit of complimentary contrast with the magenta in the shirt and the skin tones. The illustration is treated as a vignette at the edges to allow the original drawing to show through.

As you can see in the detail above the pencil sketch still shows through in places. This is the result of a conscious decision to work in a semi-transparent mode throughout the painting. I used very little water in mixing my paints and relied on matte medium instead. I thinned the paint to the consistency of melting butter, working up from a base of raw sienna by adding basic shadows first and finishing with semi opaque tones for highlights.  


Detailed work in the face required switching down to a quarter inch flat brush. This is the smallest size brush I allowed myself to use, and I refused to use any rounds for portrait. Why avoid rounds? I find that these pointed brushes lure me into rendering details too soon and tend to cause me to tighten up as I paint. The whole point is to stay loose from beginning to end, while finding ways to hint at details rather than render them out.