SmashArt.net

People Are Strange

2010-04-08T14:25:00.005-04:00

We made a handful of music videos using flash in my digital art classes. This is one of the later ones I did alongside with my cuz, Kate.

~ I'm going to be posting more of the old flash stuff, but I need to go back and edit some of the original files and add a 'play' button. Otherwise when you load this page you'll just have 15 flash animations screaming at you :D

Post 100! FLASH!

2010-04-03T15:37:00.007-04:00

It's been about 2 years.... gah! Time to get back into the swing of being creative. I put out an ad to maybe get involved with some other artists or something. And I'm really going to try to push myself just to start drawing or painting or doing something again. But until I get something worth posting up here, I've got something else to entertain...

I made a bunch of little flash projects while I was in school that I was never able to get posted up on the web very well. But now I have a friend that's allowing me some hosting space on his website so I can start putting them up here.

Starting off with a simple example of a flash menu system that I made up to fit the style of this site and work as a gallery of my art.

~ Looks like I'll have to put some time into rearranging the layout of the site a bit to accommodate to some of my flash files. Check back later to get a better view of this.

Senior Exhibit

2008-04-23T18:02:00.002-04:00

The Senior Exhibit is opening this Thursday at my school. This is what I submitted.

I've done a bunch like this over the past few months. I'm not sure how much I really like them.

It's Been Forever

2008-02-27T09:14:00.003-05:00

My addiction has taken hold again.

For some reason I have an urge to post something here today. This is still a work in progress.

Non-Denominational Winter Holiday Card

2007-09-25T14:44:00.000-04:00

Just like the title says, here it is:

"Warm Holiday"
4" x 6"
Digital

Dream Factory

2007-09-03T23:20:00.000-04:00

I just arrived at a stopping point on my first assignment for Digital Art II this semester. The goal was to create and interesting cross-section of a real or imagined person, place, or thing.

I was going for somewhat of a Dr. Seuss style, though I think I may have ended up with a little Simpsons in there also. It took about 8 hours to get to this point between creating and sketching the idea, drawing it and then coloring it in Photoshop. It is print ready for 11x17.

Dream Factory
Digital
11"x17"

Illustration II : Farming

2007-07-26T17:37:00.000-04:00

I'll get around to photographing my paintings eventually. For now here is the final project I did for Illustration II. Two digital illustrations of farming. The second one is probably the best thing I've done so far, but it took forever.

Tractor Field
Digital
11"x17"

Plowing
Digital
11"x17"

~Adam

Illustration II : Projects 2 & 4

2007-07-20T18:49:00.000-04:00

Order? Who needs it. Here's some digital work I did for my summer Illustration class.

This was inspired by the offbeat news topic "Baltimore Police Run Out of Pants." It speaks for itself.

11"x17"
Digital

And this is an illustration of "Greed," an attempt at a personification of the sin. You can see an earlier draft here.

11"x17"
Digital

Hope you like.
~Adam

Illustration II : Project 1

2007-07-10T17:45:00.001-04:00

I'm taking Illustration II over the summer. It's with the same teacher I had for Illustration I and some of the projects seem a little similar, he likes things a certain way, I guess.

Here's the first thing I did. I worked on coming up with the idea while I was on my recent trip to Las Vegas with my friends, hence the subject. The assignment was to illustrate a metaphor.

Cat and Mouse Game
18" x 24"
Acrylic on Canvas

~Adam

Dancing Duck

2007-07-09T19:38:00.000-04:00

This is funny. I found this site where you can draw a character and they put them in this scene to dance.

~Adam

Painting II Recap : Part 5

2007-06-28T18:16:00.000-04:00

Here's a few self portrait Alla Primas I did while in this class.

13.5" x 9.5"
oil on paper

13.5" x 9.5"
oil on paper

~Adam

Painting II Recap : Part 4

2007-06-25T11:39:00.001-04:00

Ah, abstract painting. That good ol' excuse for not knowing what the hell you're doing. Well, this time I had to plan exactly how I was going to do whatever the hell I didn't know what I was going to do... right. And here she is :

36" x 36"
oil on canvas

Well, I had a lot of fun doing this actually. I just a bunch of different techniques and the exploration was kind of neat. This painting got the best grade out of the 4 I did for the class, so I guess that means it's pretty good? Who am I to judge?

And here we have the not-so-abstract. If you hadn't guessed already, I'm an old-school nerd. This is one of my favorite paintings so far.

13.5" x 9.5"
oil on paper

~Adam

Snow Trooper Sketch

2007-06-09T14:10:00.000-04:00

A digital sketch I did of a snow trooper based off a photo I took at a con.

Painting II Recap : Part 3

2007-06-05T12:24:00.000-04:00

I've found that figures are the subject I have the most trouble with. These are a couple paintings I did that I struggled with. The first was done in painting class with model. It looked really bad after the first two sessions but I made some drastic changes near the end and sort of recovered it. I was happy with the direction it was moving, but overall it was probably one of the worst in the class.

30" x 26"
oil on canvas

This is a painting of the Death of Iphitus done for my Digital Art class. I did the painting originally in oil, then photographed and digitally enhanced it, you can see before and after shots here.

18" x 24"
oil on canvas

Digital

~Adam

Painting II Recap : Part 2

2007-05-30T18:53:00.000-04:00

Here are a couple more of the alla prima practice paintings I did early in the semester. The one's with shoes and pastries did not end up all that great, especially the pastries. Everything was too similar in color and I had a hard time defining where they each object began and ended. But it's all just practice and I learned a bit from doing it. I did however make a conscious attempt to apply the paint more heavily and succeeded on that front.

Vegetables
13.5" x 9.5"
oil on paper

Baked Goods
13.5"x9.5"
oil on paper

Women's Shoes
13.5"x9.5"
oil on paper

~Adam

Illustration Friday - Cars

2007-05-27T15:40:00.000-04:00

My car hit 200000 miles over the weekend and it just so happens that this week's IF topic is 'cars'. So here's what I came up with as a little tribute to my car.

~Adam

Painting II Recap : Part 1

2007-05-27T13:13:00.000-04:00

Well, I've done a ton of work over the past semester and have been mostly too busy to post any of it here, as you may have noticed by the lack of posts. So over the next few weeks I'm going to try to post more frequently with current work as well as the work I did while in school.

Here's the first painting I did. A still life of an apple and banana sitting in a bucket, and that's an egg over on the left edge. I thought it turned out fairly well, but my teacher only gave me a 'B'. He said I needed to apply the paint thicker.

18"x24"
oil on canvas

While we're on the topic of fruit I figured I'd post this fruit bowl alla prima again. (this photo is a little better) We did these paintings once a week as practice during the first half of the semester.

13.5"x9.5
oil on paper

~Adam

Self Portrait

2007-05-21T17:06:00.000-04:00

I was feeling weird.

~Adam

Illustration Friday - Citrus

2007-05-13T20:23:00.000-04:00

I broke out the old inks for this Illustration Friday topic.

~Adam

Fantasy Landscape

2007-05-06T22:50:00.000-04:00

My latest assignment for my digital art class. I began sketching a few ideas and finally went with the mountain one.

Digital Art Exercises

2007-04-24T00:53:00.000-04:00

These are a few exercises I did in class tonight.

~Adam

Towson Wallpapers

2007-04-23T16:04:00.000-04:00

My assignment this week for my digital art class was to create a Desktop Wallpaper for Towson. Here's what I ended up with :

Which do you think is best? And feel free to use them :)

~Adam

Also, a few different versions of the nighttime one here.

Earthwork

2007-04-17T22:33:00.000-04:00

On Monday I completed an earthwork outside of the Center for the Arts at Towson for my sculpture class. I was initially inspired by some of the works of Andy Goldsworthy but after working on the piece for a short while ideas just started flying through my head and it took on it's own flavor.

Here are some photos and a little map showing the location.

Some of the ideas behind the piece : Relationship between man and nature. Intrusion vs Contribution. Beauty. New Life.

~Adam

Virginia Tech

2007-04-17T01:23:00.000-04:00

Myself and a few of my Digital Art classmates created a blog tonight dedicated to the Tragedy at Virgina Tech. Feel free to stop by and share your thoughts.

www.VirginiaTechVictim.org

~Adam

Art Nouveau Poster Show Poster

2007-04-05T17:07:00.000-04:00

For those who haven't already seen it, this is the poster I've been working on for the past few weeks that I will be turning in tonight. I'm pretty satisfied with the way it turned out here, though, the prints ended up much much darker. (Thanks inept STAPLES employees.) Hopefully my grade doesn't suffer too much from that.

Girl U Want Flash Video

2007-03-27T03:56:00.000-04:00

I recently had to make a music video for my Digital Art class. I used flash to make this. It took about 18 hours to do, animation is a slow process. I'm going to be working on improving it over the next couple of weeks.

Note : The timing got really screwed up when youtube compressed the video so it doesn't come out being nearly as cool as I had made it, timing the visuals up with the music was the whole point. I'm working on finding some better way to post these...

~Smash

P.S. Youtube sucks.

Origami Installation

2007-03-20T19:26:00.000-04:00

Last week I installed my latest sculpture piece with a partner in one of the stairwells at school. There were somewhere around 100 paper cranes hanging from cables on black thread. It took about 15 hours between the two of us to fold them all (we made about twice as many as we needed) and about 2 hours to install.

Urban Decay

2007-03-11T20:39:00.000-04:00

I just got a Wacom tablet this is the first thing ive done after a few hours of playing around. I still need to work on the colors a bit, but I wanted to post since it's been so long.

Here's a few final versions. I can't decide which I like best. The first one is all just my drawing and colors. The second has a little bit of photo showing through to add details, and the last has all the photo references showing through.

~Adam

Ink Monster T-Shirts

2007-02-19T16:38:00.000-05:00

My most recent assignment for my Digital Art class was to create a series of T-Shirt Illustrations with some sort of common theme. I had several ideas, but with time running short and some opportunites for my initial ideas already passed I decided to revisit one of my past favorite projects, ink monsters. I sat down for a few hours and drew up a bunch more and had some friends help me pick out the best ones to use for the T-Shirts. Here's what I ended up with.

The originals are all black and white, most on 9x6" bristol, in ink.

~Adam

A Staple Portfolio Piece

2007-02-07T11:38:00.000-05:00

This is the first of many practice paintings I'll be doing this semester for my Painting II course. It's a very different style than I usually do, I'll be working on using this style even better, it's fun, and best of all, quick.

Fruit Bowl
11x15
Oil on Paper

~Adam

All the Cool Kids are Doing it

2007-02-07T11:32:00.000-05:00

Yep... school is back. Sorry I've been busy and haven't gotten a post up here in over a week. So I'll post a double today.

This is the final piece I did for my Illustration class over the winter mini-mester. The assignment was to compare an inside and outside view. I know I'm not exactly the most talented artist, but I hope I'm proficient enough that you can figure out what is show in the right side of this painting without me telling. (hint: it's not a "cars race")

Church and Factory
16x20
Acrylic on Canvas

~Adam

And Now For Something Completely Different...

2007-01-28T14:50:00.000-05:00

Surrealism

2007-01-21T21:58:00.000-05:00

I've liked surrealism for longer than I've "formally liked art", and it is a style that has probably played a major part in getting to me where I am currently as an artist. (whether that's good or not is up for debate)

Anyhow, It was kind of a big deal for me to do my first piece of surrealism. It may bring to mind a particular painting by Rene Magritte, but I swear I came up with the idea before seeing that piece. I feel like my lack of skill with the medium had some slight negative effect on the outcome, but I put a lot of time into it and I'm pretty satisfied with it.

16 x 20"
Acrylic on Canvas

~Adam

Townscape Painting

2007-01-14T17:22:00.000-05:00

Here's my latest painting done for my Illustration I class. The notable points are the limited colors, only orange, black, and white, and the use of the Golden Ratio.

16" x 20"
acrylic on canvas

Here's a detail of the cathedral half way through.

~Adam

More Black and White Illustrations

2007-01-09T20:19:00.000-05:00

Here's the next two that I said I would do.

~Adam

Illustration I (Week 1)

2007-01-04T17:46:00.000-05:00

I started my 3 week mini-mester course, Illustration I, this week. So far it's not too bad. I was a little because I saw the class was scheduled from 10-4, and 6 hours in class sounded like a little hard to handle. As it turns out I only need to be there from 10-12:30 so it's actually shorter than most other studio courses. Though, I end up needing a few hours after each class just to finish up the work for each day.

These are what I've done so far :

A cross-hatch drawing of Clarence Long, the original Marlboro Man. It was my first time I've really done a full drawing in this style, so I don't think it turned out great, but the method doesn't really interest me much to begin with so I don't care.

And second, a black and white side-lit portrait of William Macy, you may have seen him in Fargo or a dozen other movies. This one went much faster than the cross-hatching, but I still think it's a somewhat lame project because Adobe Illustrator can do this very same thing in about 10 seconds. I don't see what the benefit of doing it by hand is. (This is one of the reasons I'm focusing on digital Illustration.)

Anyhow, I have to do one more in each of these styles by the end of the weekend, so expect to see more like these soon.

~Adam

A Peaceful Scene

2006-12-22T20:07:00.000-05:00

I did a painting of a temple on a mountain much like the drawings I posted here and here. I felt it was appropriate for this week's Illustration Friday topic, "peace".

Temple on the Mountain
11"x14"
oil on canvas board

~Adam

Ink Monsters

2006-12-19T17:39:00.000-05:00

Inspired by Stefan G. Bucher's DAILY MONSTER (which is really cool and I recommend everyone check out) I did a few quick little monster drawings with ink. The initial form is created by putting a drop of ink on the paper and blowing through a straw to create organic shapes. Then it's just a matter of what your imagination sees. Fun and easy.

~Adam

Finished Triptych

2006-12-14T13:13:00.000-05:00

Well it's been several weeks, but I've finally finished up the triptych that I posted sketches for a while ago.

I started off as I do with most paintings, drawing right onto the canvas. For this project I used canvas boards, mostly because they're cheaper.

I began painting right over my drawings here. I tried to go back and forth between each piece so they would all develop at about the same rate and keep some of the same colors.

Here they are with all the major elements.

And finally after I added details, this is what I ended up with.

The piece has a theme of confusion and being lost in life, which is a very serious idea and thought it would be interesting to put that against a cartoony, light-hearted style, adding more to the confusing feeling of the work. Obviously the crossroads piece holds it all together and most clearly relates that theme. The city piece is meant to give a busy and overcrowded kind of feeling. The buildings can't even fit into thier own area. And finally the home is supposed to be the most peaceful of the scenes, yet nothing is perfect, hence it has the darkest sky, a more subtle discomfort.

I also had the idea of making a larger series of paintings with this structure (you may notice the edges of each are nearly identical) that could be placed and rearanged in any order, giving it the ability to take on varying stories and themes dependant on the configuration. We'll see...

~Adam

Captain Hal's Followup

2006-12-11T01:08:00.000-05:00

We're at the end of the semester so I've been pretty busy with stuff, sorry about the lack of posts. Here's my suite of items I created for Captain Hal's.

First, a flyer that you might find in a newspaper. I took the photo myself with a McDonald's fish sandwich and fries. I wanted one of those red basket things they use at some restaurants but the bowl was all I could get a hold of. Did a tiny bit of photo editing in photoshop then slapped it into the InDesign page I made and voila.

Here's some coasters. No explanation needed.

And finally a kids menu / placemat. The final version had a bunch of bubbles placed randomly on it to make it look more festive, but I forgot to email myself that file, so, whatever.

That's all for now.
~Adam
(oh, and just in case you were wondering about the "Captain's Shake" click here.)

Clay People - Figure 4

2006-12-05T12:48:00.000-05:00

Looking back, I seem to have forgotten to snap shots of my third figure, oops. Well, you didn't miss anything. I felt like that was my weakest one so far... and my teacher seemed to agree. Awesome.

Anyhow, here's my recently completed 4th figure. I think it's my best yet, but for some reason the teacher doesn't think it's as good as the "B" I got for figure 2. Well, whatever, sculpture is not really my thing.

As for the triptych painting I'm working on, well, I'm still working on it. The final version of it is due next Tuesday by the latest, so I'll have something up here by then. Good news, my friend saw my progress on it over the weekend and he said he really liked it, and he has before said that he doesn't like art. So it got a response from someone that usually doesn't respond, I thought that was pretty cool.

~Adam

Triptych Sketches

2006-11-22T17:01:00.000-05:00

My next painting is going to be a triptych on canvas board. I got the idea as I was driving home from a friend's last night and had to put down some sketches at around 3am. Here's what I have so far. The fish in the sky for the second panel were ideas for my Captain Hal's logo, obviously they won't be in the painting :)

I started working today, hopefully I'll have something I'm happy with in a few weeks.

~Adam

Liberty

2006-11-20T17:04:00.000-05:00

I recently went on a daytrip with my family to see the Statue of Liberty and Ellis Island. It was a good time, and educational. The buildings on Ellis Island looked awsome, but we were moving around to much for me to be able to take the time to sketch them. Anyway, I decided to use one of the photos I had take as a background for my next painting. It was taken from the top of the Statye of Liberty's pedestal. We could only get so many tickets to go up there, and Anne, unfortunately, was not one of the few that could go up. But this is basically what I thought would be a cool tourist-y photo.

You can see my references taped to the mirror in the first shot, the pose is from a photo of the two of us on a cruise we took a couple years ago. Though I'm only using that for the layout, I am painting the faces from life, hence the mirror, and I had Anne pose while I worked on hers. Obviously I've again shown some of the progression as I've worked on it. I like seeing it, so I'm going to continue doing it.

I've been working on this on and off for the past week but I really need to get started on my final project so I'm going to put this aside for now, hopefully I'll get back to it and finish it soon.

~Adam

Captain Hal's

2006-11-16T17:15:00.000-05:00

I designed a new logo for an imaginary seafood restaurant. Captain Hal's. I'm ultimately going to make a menu, and an ad for it as well.

What do you think?
~Adam

Addiction Problem

2006-11-10T20:28:00.000-05:00

It's been too long. I'm sorry. I've been.... distracted. Thanks Lorey for trying to kick me into gear. I'll do my best to keep the posting up.

My most recent painting is my first self portrait with the medium. It was fun and interesting. I'm growing to like painting more and more. I took several pictures throughout the process so you can see how it came along. Maybe nobody else cares, but I always enjoy seeing other artist's work that way. I'm not going to describe each one, just check them out yourself. (Color differences are due to poor lighting, sorry).

~Adam

On a side note, I just finished reading David Mack's Kabuki Volume 2. It has some great visiuals and recomend checking out his website.)

Peter Paul Rubens - The Straw Hat

2006-11-10T19:44:00.000-05:00

Well, It wasn't fun the first time, and it wasn't fun the second time. But at least I think it turned out a little better looking. My adaptation of Ruben's The Straw Hat.

Here's what I did in the first night. I didn't get much detail in the face yet.

And here's how it looked after the next day, pretty much finished.

A week later I painted a black border around it to cover up my guidelines. I need to redo that better I think.

Hopefully I'll be done with the old masters for a while now.
~Adam

A Renaissance Master, I am Not

2006-10-18T18:13:00.000-04:00

No, I can't really compare to Tiziano Vecelli, (aka. Titian) but I was asked to try anyway. My assignment this week for my painting class was to choose a renaissance painting and copy it. I chose The Penitent Magdalene, for some reason I thought it might be one of the easier options. "Easy" being relative, the Italian Renaissance is when just about every one of the well known masters of painting was active, including all the Ninja Turtles :)

I spent about 5 hours working on it between two days. Titian of course probably spent months working on it. But anyway here's what I ended up with.

Trying to redo someone else's work is not my idea of fun. I think the best part of my version is the "happy little tree" at top right. Hopefully this is the last time I need to do this.

~Adam

Clay People - Figure 2

2006-10-18T18:03:00.000-04:00

I just finished my second clay modeled figure. This one looks a lot better than the first, unfortunately the pictures don't really do it justice.

~Adam

I've Been Lazy

2006-10-18T17:54:00.000-04:00

I painted this a week ago, but I've been lazy... and distracted. I think this is probably my best painting so far. I had a lot of fun just finding a good spot to paint, and the painting itself was, of course, fun as well.

And here's a shot of the location, with my blank canvas.

There was some huge bird that came by at one point, I was thinking about adding him into the painting, maybe I'll still do that... sometime.

~Adam

Some Simple Photoshop

2006-10-13T11:42:00.000-04:00

I'm learning a little about photoshop in my computer media class. Hopefully I'll be able to do some really cool stuff one day. But for now, here's my latest little project.

I cleaned up a few of the little dust and scratches and then added some color. Looks pretty neat I thought. Many of you should recognize the location, thought the photo is probably over 20 years old.

~Adam

Five OH!

2006-10-04T11:49:00.000-04:00

Yes, that's right, welcome to my fiftieth post in this blog! Woohoo! To celebrate I updated the gallery to include a lot of the stuff I've done in the past few months. (It's a tedious process and I don't like to do it often) So if you haven't seen everything, please check it out.

I finished my first full color painting today. It took me somewhere between 5 and 6 hours to complete over 2 days. Here's a shot from the end of day 1:

And here's the final product :

(A photo of the real thing if you want to compare)

Looking back at some of the older things in the gallery it's clear that I've gotten at least a little bit better, hopefully I can keep it up. Thanks for sticking with me.

~Adam

Drawing and Splash for Painting : Week 5

2006-10-02T18:01:00.000-04:00

I decided to start working a little early on my painting for this week, the last few I had done the day before they were due. I looked around for a good spot to work from with an interesting view. I went with the porch of the master bedroom, as seen in my recent diptych. I did a couple sketches of different view to see what looked good.

I decided the view of the clematis and the side of the house looked better so I did some further study by doing a couple quick splash paintings. Here's one :

I'll get started on the final painting tomorrow. It's going to be 20"x20" on canvas. The layout will obviously be slightly different because it's square instead of rectangular. Hopefully I can keep a similar composition because I like where it's going.

~Adam

Painting : Week 4 and Figure 1 Final

2006-09-27T18:37:00.000-04:00

I'm starting to get annoyed with trying to take pictures of my oil paintings. They're so shiny that the flash causes a really bad glare. If anyone knows some kind of trick to get around that I'd love to hear.

Anyway, here's the latest painting I did. Only worked 2.5 hours on this one. It's not as detailed as the last, but adding in an extra color makes the whole process different. Having all the shades of a new color allows you to describe things in a way that doesn't require such fine details. (Though, the pencilman could look better)

Oh, for those who don't know, or if you just don't recognize them, these are sculptures that I did last semester. Check out this post to see pictures.

Also, here's some final views of the full figure I modeled. I ended up with a C. So I guess I'll need to work harder on the next ones. I pretty much had to start from scratch the second day I was working on this because my proportions were so off the first day. Here's what it initially looked like incase you forgot.

That's all for now.
~Adam

Hand and Foot

2006-09-27T18:02:00.000-04:00

I finished up the foot model that I showed earlier and I also did a hand model to match. Though, I guess they don't really match since the foot is Anne's and the hand is mine. Anyhow, I got an A on each of them, so I guess that means they're not too bad. Here's some pictures.

~Adam

Painting : Week 3

2006-09-21T19:05:00.000-04:00

These are the paintings I did for homework this week.
The first two are 20 minutes each.

This last one is a diptych, if you can't tell. I know the picture is a little blurry. The problem is, oil paint is shiny, and using a flash causes glare, while no flash makes it blurry. Can't win.

Anyway, please leave comments! I love to hear what everyone thinks.

~Adam

Clay People

2006-09-14T19:03:00.000-04:00

For my human figure class I do a lot of sculpting in clay. First I worked on a life-sized foot.

And next a full figure, about 18" tall. (sorry about the distracting background) Obvioulsy, I can't have a picture of the model for this to compare, but she has about the same build as Anne, for those that know her. So, you can see that it's not all that accurate, but hopefully it will come together more after another session.

Both are works in progress.

~Adam

Tower Painting

2006-09-14T18:57:00.000-04:00

I had to do a large painting that would require several hours. So I decided to do something that I enjoyed and was familiar with. The Tower. It's done all in black oil paint. (I haven't graduated to colors just yet) And it's really big, 39"x27" on cardboard.

The first shot is after 2 hours and the final shot is after 4.

~Adam

Backyard Warm-Up

2006-09-12T23:33:00.000-04:00

My painting teacher told us we should do 20 minute drawings with lots of "energy" before we do any painting. I'm not completely sure how to tell if a drawing has "energy" but I thought some of these turned out pretty well for 20 minutes, especially the one with the pool.

That last one is also almost the same view as a previous ink drawing I did.

Anyway, what do you think? Energy or no?

~Adam

First Oil Paintings

2006-09-12T17:41:00.000-04:00

I just started using oil paints last week in painting class, my first time. It's pretty much just practice at the moment, and I'm only using one color. Trying to get used to the medium before I try anything too complicated.

The first two are still-lifes from class.

This one is a fairy statue sitting in my mother's garden that I did today.

~Adam

Fall 2006 Semester - Week 1

2006-09-06T18:09:00.000-04:00

Here's a few of the things I've done in the past week and a half for school.

The first two drawings were done using Adobe Illustrator in my Intro to Computer Media class.

Next is one of four drawings I've done so far for my Human Figure class. This was the best I think. Obviously I really need this class :)

And last is a texture study done for my painting class.

~Adam
(I also did a little Team Joe's Basement Logo last week)

Witch Splash

2006-08-23T23:51:00.000-04:00

I did a few more color splashes tonight. A witch sort of character and a knight of sorts. Maybe a minotaur in armor? It's just whatever popped in my head first when I saw the splash. The colors are actually a good deal brighter than they appear, I'm not sure why the scans turned out so dull.

~Adam

Painted Duck

2006-08-22T16:51:00.000-04:00

I created this duck character a while ago and wanted do do a painting of him.

This is acrylic on 9x12 bristol.

I don't know how much I like painting, and it's been a couple months at least since I've done any painting, but I think this turned out pretty good considering.

~Adam

Color Splash Art

2006-08-22T16:25:00.000-04:00

Well I finally sat down and tried to do some Andy Lee style art like I've been saying I would. It is, of course, not nearly as easy as he makes it look. But as I went on I think there's improvement.

The first is a match between Sagat and Ryu of Street Fighter. I wanted to do something for Illustration Friday's topic, "match", and I had action figures of those two characters. It was my first attempt at the style, so it's not great, but fun to do.

The next is a character I created, and am still trying to get the look of him down. I actually had Andy paint a couple ideas of him for me after I described him. Here and Here. Here's mine.

And finally, I was running out of ideas and this splash just looked like a weird face, so that's what I went with. I think this one actually turned out best of them all.

Enough for now, I'm sure I'll get better as I go.
~Adam

Fantasy Drawings

2006-08-16T01:14:00.000-04:00

While hanging out with the guys tonight I did some drawings of some fantasy stuff that had popped into my head. I was not at home and had no real reference material besides other entries in the sketchbook I had on hand. This is the only one I really used.

The first is a troll sort of creature. It's not great but probably one of the best figures I've done, especially considering I had no reference. (Well, I did look at Joe's ankle and hand) The original ears I drew on him looked dumb so I did some other possibilities on the side.

The next two drawings are of a Asian style temple that sits high on a mountain and the path that leads up to it. (Based on the Shaolin Temple in China)

I'm feeling fairly confident about my drawings lately. I also just bought some new bamboo brushes and Bristol board. I'm hoping to do some good Andy Lee style splashes soon.

~Adam

Fat Again?

2006-08-09T21:07:00.000-04:00

Somehow I ended up back on fat people.

This is Guts from a Berserk poster on wall.

And this is Charlize Theron from the my Aeon Flux poster.

~Adam

More Sketches

2006-08-06T22:17:00.000-04:00

I've been having a hard time finding something I really want to do so I've just been doing these quick sketches. These are based off pictures I took at the Japanese Friendship Garden in Balboa Park near San Diego, CA.

This one is 20 mins.

This one is 30 mins.

~Adam

A Few Sketches

2006-08-03T13:58:00.000-04:00

I'm falling behind. Getting distracted by other interests and stuff. Lacking ideas. Anyhow, here's a few things I just sketched. Just to have something.

This is something I saw in a dream the other night.

And here are a couple of faces. The upper left from a poster on my wall. The lower right based loosely on a painting Andy Lee did for me of a character I created.

~Adam

That's Right I'm Back!

2006-07-26T15:35:00.000-04:00

I just got back from an awsome week in San Diego with my friends. I went to the Interantional Comic Convention while I was there and saw lots of cool stuff. I'm not going to waste your time talking about it here, but if you're interested I've created a blog dedicated to pictures and stories about the trip here.

The most notable part of the trip for me was getting able to hang out with Andy Lee and his girlfriend, Heather, and to watch him paint. I met them a couple months ago in Philadelphia and was wowed by his ability and have been trying to learn to do it myself. After spending several days watching him work I think I picked up a few new tricks and I couldnt wait to try them out. So here's what I've done so far.

This "splash painting" is really fun and helps stimulate my imagination, so look forward to more like this.

~Adam

Skylines

2006-07-11T15:42:00.000-04:00

I always like to draw architectural stuff, so this week's Illustration Friday topic was pretty good for me. The other night I got an idea to do somethings with a sort of stencil creation of mine. And today I was in a sumie ink and brush mood. So here are all the things I ended up with in relation to "Skyline".
(as always, click for larger views)

~Adam

I am a Terrible Artist

2006-07-09T02:42:00.000-04:00

I just received the following email :

constructive critisism

no offense kid,
i know you're only 24 but i'm only 28,
anyway... everyone needs someone to be blunt,
i think you're art is fucking garbage.
seriously. look through my web page. half my portfolio was done at your age.
anyway, i'm just trying to help you in the long run.
you just don't have it and i doubt you ever will.
sincerely,
-jeff
http://www.jeffszuc.com

Well, I never really thought I was about to change the art world with what I do, but apparently my work is so bad it's offensive. Enough so to cause someone that I've never even heard of to go out of thier way to tell me in more than a couple of words. So I guess I just wanted to say I'm sorry for all of you that were repulsed by my works. Unfortunately, I will be continuing my pursuit of an art education and eventually a career. Maybe one day I'll even be as great as Jeff.

~Adam

All Kinds of Things

2006-07-04T17:00:00.000-04:00

I've been doing a few random different things lately. Here's another tower piece. I wanted to do something that wasn't drawn, only painted. Not sure how I feel about it. It would probably work better on different paper and more time to dry between colors.

Here's a drawing of "The Academy" that I did a week or two ago and jsut colored today.

Here is a classic "Star Wars" movie poster that I'm remaking using only construction paper :)

And here's a neat looking photo of some inks that I was mixing.

~Adam

Further Tower Views

2006-06-30T19:42:00.000-04:00

I thought Lorey's idea of series based on the tower I designed was cool so I went ahead and did two more pieces today. Unfortunately my scanner is just barely smaller than the pages in my sketchbook so some of the edges are cut off. Anyhow, here they are.

I think I got a little too drastic with some of the shadows in the "Tower Beyond" piece, and the shape is not quite the way it should be in the "Tower Above" piece. Besides that I'm pretty happy with them. What do you think?

Here is a photo of the "Tower Beyond" piece so you can see the tower better. The colors are not as true, however.

~Adam

More Tower Work

2006-06-28T16:42:00.000-04:00

I did a more finished work of the tower I previously designed with the "333" door. I didn't realize until after I was done that it's not layed out all that well. But it still looks nice with color. What do you think?

~Adam

Kudzu

2006-06-27T14:03:00.000-04:00

I don't know why, but as I was driving home from my friend's late last night this idea popped into my head so I began drawing once I got home. I decided to call it "Kudzu", for obvious reasons. This morning I made a copy of the drawing and colored it with ink. I'm not completely satisfied witht he way it turned out, but I'm not sure what medium would be better to color it with, or if I should just create a fresh version of the work.

Feedback is welcome and appreciated.
~Adam

Here's some interesting links related to Kudzu:
Wikipedia - Kudzu
Kudzu-The Vine
Kud-Zoo

Site Updates!

2006-06-25T03:15:00.000-04:00

Well I just spent most of the day adding a bunch of neat new stuff to the site. You might notice the new title bar, as well as a couple links on the side to a store and a gallery! Woohoo! I have to thank a Chris Wahl for the ideas. The new images are based on this design I did a few months ago. As for the store I don't really make much money off the products, $1 each that's sold, I just figured it would be a neat thing to have.

I also spent some time working on a very large version of my "333 door". It's about 6 feet high, in case you're curious :) Here's a couple shots.

~Adam

Today, From Adam's Head

2006-06-20T12:06:00.000-04:00

While at my local comic shop recently I found an interesting book, The Fly Chronicles. The illustrations were intersting so I picked it up to look at more later. It's basically "The Far Side" in a new light. The character design was neat though and inspired me to want to work at some of that sort of thing in the near future. If you're curious at all, check out the website. The cards section has some nice examples of his work and they are pretty funny.

Natalie
Over the weekend I had some family over for father's day and my ousin who just graduated high school started talking to me about art and school and that she was planning to study digital illustration. I suggested she start a blog like this one and keep doing art work on a consitent basis. So, please, check it out and see what you think.

Me
And lastly, here's a few sketches of things that I've done recently. Nothing major, just a snapshot of what's been in my head.

I guess I got on kind of a door kick, huh?
~Adam

Bonus!
Here's a drawing I did a few weeks ago in the same style. Since you asked for it :)

Real Sumie Practice

2006-06-18T13:32:00.000-04:00

I bought that book that I linked earlier so I could try to learn Sumie for real. It's much harder than I realized. It takes a very steady and controlled hand. I guess that will just come with practice. The book recommends practicing at least 15 minutes every day, so I'm going to try to do that much. I spent a little over an hour today trying to get down a good bamboo leaf. Some of them are getting there, but can be better. Here's what I eneded up with along with an example from the book.

I know it's not really much to look at, just practice, sorry. Hopefully it won't be too long before I can put together a reasonable piece using this medium.

~Adam

Hail to the King Baby

2006-06-15T23:49:00.000-04:00

Inspired by this past week's Illustration Friday topic, Jungle, I decided to do a suite of lion portraits, each using a different medium. I did not accomplish what I'd hoped to, I ran out of time, but here's what I DID get done. (Hopefully I'll get back to it to finish them all up)

~Adam

The View from Up Here

2006-06-10T18:06:00.000-04:00

I did these today. I did the pen & ink drawing first, I think it turned out pretty well.

I then wanted to try the same thing in sumie style, didn't turn out so great.

I wanted to have a decent looking sumie painting so I did a plant (in a spoon), they seem easiest in that style.

I ordered the book the other day to teach myself. Maybe that will help me get the style down better.

~Adam

Portman Portrait

2006-06-08T22:11:00.000-04:00

Well, I'm sorta finished with the Natalie Portman collage/mosaic portrait I started the other day. Made entirely of pictures of scantily clad hot chicks cut out of men's magazines. Here's what I ended up with.

I was thinking about throwing some washes over parts of it to smooth out some of the color. Can't decide if that's a good idea or not, though.

~Adam

Tuesday is Art Day for Adam

2006-06-06T17:17:00.000-04:00

Over the summer I'm working full time and between that and the many nights I have obligated myself to other things I don't have as much free time as I'd like to just do art. (run-on much?) But I'm taking off every tuesday just to get things done around the house and work on whatever project I have in my head at the time.

This week's Illustration Friday topic is "Portrait". So I decided to do a mosaic/collage portrait of Natalie Portman, because she is hot. I got started on it today, it's much harder than I imagined and I'm afraid it's not going to turn out all that great, but, what the hell. Here's my progress so far.

In the middle of working on this I got distracted (never!) and ended up doing a digital speed painting inspired by Mathias Verhasselt.

Just wanted to put something up for the day. I should get bad to work on the collage.
~Adam

A Shot at Sumi-E

2006-06-04T18:03:00.000-04:00

After watching Andy Lee work his magic for a while yesterday I decided to take a shot myself at some sumi-e painting. I picked up some ink and and did some practice paintings on newsprint. Here's what I ended up with.

Well, it's certainly not as easy as he made it look, but I'm satisfied with what I did, it was a first try after all. I decided I should get this book. Who wants to spot me?

~Adam

Wizard World Philly 2006

2006-06-04T12:28:00.000-04:00

Yesterday I took a trip to Philadephia with my friend, Joe, to attend the Wizard World Convetion. I spent most the the day in the "Artist's Alley" area talking to illustrators, looking through thier portfollios, and watching them work. I had a handful of them do do a sketch in my sketchbook.

First I talked to an indie comic artist, Jason May, who I had sketch a neat spider looking robot.

Next I found a couple of guys that work on an indie horror comic, The Corpse, and had one of them, Ken Heaser, draw what seems to be their major icon.

The next couple of artists I didn't really talk to much, just asked them to do some sketches. I didn't even catch the girl's name that drew the "girl looking back" for me. She was very cute, though. I guess I got nervous. She had a website but it doesn't show much of her work, more her partner's work.

I asked Tom Ryan to sketch me his favorite character, and I'm not sure who it is. Maybe Mr. Freeze from batman? Tom doesn't have a website and is not affiliated with any comic books.

I spent over an hour watching Any Lee do his work. He calls it "Modern Zen Art", it's a mixture of Sumi-e style painting and comic illustration. Original and very fun to watch. I asked him to sign my sketchbook with his brush, to help me remember his style so I could look him up later and he instead did a sketch of me, it took him about 15 seconds, I was very impressed. I later asked him to paint a dragon for me and he gave me a free print along with it.

Last, but by no means least, Andy Macdonald of NYC Mech, did a very impressive drawing of one of his mechs for me. It was really amazing to watch the page go from nothing to this in just 20 minutes.

It was a great day and I can't wait until next month when I'm going to the International Comic-Con in San Diego to see even more artists.

I plan on doing some sumi-e style paintings of my own soon.
~Adam

I Have No Discipline

2006-05-27T21:36:00.000-04:00

One of the main reasons I started this blog was to try to get myself to develop some discipline with my art. I need to keep doing it regularly to keep in practice or else I won't get better, I'll just go suck more. So if I ever go more than 4 days or so with no post, feel free to email the hell out of me telling me to post.

My post today kinda sucks, it was just some rushed stuff so I'd have something to post, sorry.

This first one is a quick sketch of my stepfather, Chuck. The angle is a little funny, but it somewhat resembles him at least. The mouth is the main problem I think.

This one is a self portrait. An "up the nose" shot. Sexy, eh? I need to get my own camera so I can take reliable pictures, sorry the quality is so bad on this one. Anyhow, main problem is obviously the huge forehead. I'm really not a martian, I swear.

Until next time,
~Adam

Odds and Ends

2006-05-20T13:32:00.000-04:00

I've been gone, doing work, for a few days, so I've missed lots of posting opportunities, sorry. But I'm trying to make up with a bunch of crap here. (unfortunately I had a crappy camera so pics are not great)

First here's some final shots of the Tree vs. Pyramid.

Here's my last sculpture project (which I can't say I liked very much). I had to make a wearable piece of art based off a random object that was given to me. The initial object is the pointy meat thermometer looking thing at the top. (You may notice my sunburn racoon eyes in the middle, hooray work)

And finally some quick sketches I did of my little sister looking out the window this morning.

~Adam

Finished Asian Drawing

2006-05-16T03:09:00.000-04:00

I fixed the perspective issue and added washes to the Asian Building drawing. What do you think of it now? I can't decide if I like it more with or without the washes. Or maybe just without the color washes would be better?

(Click for larger view, as usual)

I'm brainstorming and sketching out some ideas for this week's Illustration Friday topic, "Angels and Devils". Keep an eye out for the results within a few days.

~Adam

Ink Practice

2006-05-15T17:59:00.000-04:00

Here's some of the result from a little ink and wash practice I did. Not great, but I felt like posting something.

~Adam

Happy Mother's Day

2006-05-14T12:55:00.000-04:00

A quick drawing I did for my mother. Cheesy?
It's not as good as I'd hoped it would turn out. I did not have a real flower, just some photographs. I just wanted a good reason to play with ink some more I guess.

(Click for larger view)

~Adam

Asian Style Inks

2006-05-13T10:31:00.000-04:00

I did a failry quick ink drawing last night based on a panel in a "Lone Wolf and Cub" graphic novel. I like it fairly well except for the one major perspective flaw. I intend to fix that and later apply some washes to really finish off the piece.

I really like working with ink and I like what I end up with. I plan on doing a lot more with it over the summer.

~Adam

Surgeon General's Warning:

2006-05-11T22:27:00.000-04:00

You've probably heard somewhere by now that our country has a problem. Well it has many problems, but the particular one that I'm referring to is the inability to think for one's self. You can no longer buy a cup of coffee without being warned that it's hot! That, and the obesity problem are what inspired the project that I just finished up.

I was thinking of making stickers, ala "Mr. Yuck" to slap onto particular foods on a run throughout he grocery store. Anyone want to help me? If you want to try something less imposing, you can click on the Mayo label picture to get a larger version which you can print out and stick onto your own Mayo jars at home, just to be safe :)

~Adam

Buried Treasure!

2006-05-10T22:56:00.000-04:00

Sorry it's been such a long stretch since the last update. I've mostly just been busy fixing up projects and haven't done anything new. However, I do have something that I've fixed up and have not yet posted, so here it is!

It's a memory box, modeled after Bettye Saar's work. None of the objects are actually created by me, just the arrangement. It looks much cooler in person than in the pictures, unfortunately. (Click for a much larger view)

And here is a final shot of pencilman after I got him back from his evaluation. I tried to add some more dimension with black oil paint. It didn't work out quite as well as I'd hoped. I also finished off the bottom of his feet so he stands much better, though you can't really tell that from the photos.

The school semester is just about finished but I have lots of ideas for things I'd like to work on over the summer, so hopefully I'll have even more posts in the next few months because I'll be doing only the stuff that I really want.
~Adam

Digital Art Cocaine

2006-05-04T10:56:00.000-04:00

I can no longer live without a "Cintiq - Interactive Pen Display". Who wants to spot me $3,000 to buy one? I'll probably need another $3,000 for a competent machine as well.

Check out this video of a guy using one. It's amazing.

Thanks for contributing,
~Adam

Paint is good

2006-05-02T22:51:00.000-04:00

At first I didn't like it so much, but I think I'm really beginning to enjoy painting more than drawing. I worked a couple more days on the clematis painting and I think it's pretty much done at this point. Here's a couple shots.

And here's a sneak preview of my next drawing project :)

I turned in Pencilman and the Tree & Pyramid today. I'll post final shots after I get them back next week.

~Adam

Draw a Pig!

2006-04-28T22:46:00.000-04:00

While perusing my usual drawing blogs I came across a site that offers a personality text based on how you draw a pig. So I gave it a shot, it's cute. Anyway, I figured I'd share, everyone should have at least a little art in their day.

Draw a Pig!

Here's the first pig I drew :

And here's my second shot :

After you try it out, copy the link that is given and post it in a comment. I'd like to see everyone else's pigs.

~Adam

More art than you can shake a stick at

2006-04-27T20:05:00.000-04:00

I've got lots of pictures but I'm not sure if there's a limit on how much I can upload in one post, so we'll see how this works out.

First off, I finished the forsythia painting completely. Here's a picture (click for larger view)

And here is a close up view of the tree in the background. This is what was giving me trouble, but it looks really cool now I think, lots of colors.

Next is a shot of the ongoing Pencilman work. I'm trying to make him looks even more like real metal, as well as fixing a problem with his feet. (he doesn't like to stand up well)

More ongoing work, the tree and pyramid project. I haven't done much with these since the last update but add a little bit of paint. I also took a shot of what the final display pose is supposed to look like. What do you think? (still one major addition I need to make)

And Finally a new painting that I started today of the clematis at growing in the back of my house. It is supposed to look realistic, but I don't think I'm doing so well on that front. But I'm not all together unsatisfied with it.

Well I look forward to hearing what you have to say about these pieces. Please leave any kind of comments you want, suggestions too. Even if you don't think you know jack about art, I'd still like to hear what everyone has to say.

~Adam

Busy Weekend

2006-04-23T16:59:00.000-04:00

Well I've had a lot of things I've been trying to work on all at the same time for the past few days. So I'm going to give a little glimpse of each of them.

First is the newest project, which is a carving out of a plaster and vermiculite mix. The vermiculite helps soften the final product so it's easier to carve, it also gives it a neat looking stone-like texture. As usual this is for an assignment in school which is supposed to create a relationship between an organic and a geometric object. The tree object is about 7 inches tall for reference.

Next up is my pencilman sculpture. I mentioned before that I dropped him and gave him a nice crack. So I was working on fixing that and a few other little parts I don't like so much. Here's his current state. Poor guy...

And finally, the forsythia painting is getting a few little touch-ups and my professor suggested I do the painting vertically (instead of laying it flat on a work table). So I went out and bought myself an easel! Woohoo now I feel like a real artist... almost.

Well, I will hopefully have some final shots of the painting and pencilman later this week to share and I'll keep updating on whatever else I havel. Until then..

~Adam

PencilMan

2006-04-18T20:30:00.000-04:00

Here's a sculpture that I'm currently working on, though it is near completion. It is a representation of me in the style of another sculptor, Tom Otterness. Check out some of Tom's work here : Tom's Small Sculptures

The original sculpting was done in clay. The clay was then covered with plaster to make a mold or cast. The cast was then filled with a harder type of plaster to make a final positive. After some fine tuning and a coat of paint this is what I ended up with. You may notice the crack in the tip of the pencil, I had a little accident. I hope to have that unnoticeable before it is completely finished.

It was a long process, but enjoyable. It would be especially cool if I would have been able to work with metal instead of having to try to replicate it with plaster and paint, though I imagine that would cost quite a bit. Anyway, fun as it was I think I'd prefer to stick with mostly 2D work as the time involved in 3D stuff is much much greater (from my experience) and I like to finish things quickly.

~Adam

Impressionistic Forsythia

2006-04-18T20:21:00.000-04:00

Trying to make up for missed time.

Here's a painting I just finished. It's the first real work I've done with paint but I feel it's not too bad for what it is. It, along with most of what will be posted here, is for an assignment at school, so it's not exactly what I'd do if I were fully in control, but maybe that's a good thing. (Click the picture for a larger view)

Well, I hope this is somewhat more enjoyable to look at then the spark plugs. Let me know what you think.

~Adam

I suck...

2006-04-18T12:30:00.000-04:00

Well, here we are, 4 days later, and my first art post. I guess maybe 2 or 3 times a week is more realistic for me than every day. Though I'd like to get to that daily point eventually.

Anyhow, here's some spark plugs I drew. Not that cool, I know, but this is more of an exercise for me than an entertainment for you, sorry. If you have any critique I'd love to hear it. I am aware that I have a problem with flattening out tube-like objects such as this. The further down the spark plug you go (from the end which I started drawing) the more flat it begins to appear. I should work on that.

Well, not much else to say. If you have any suggestions for things you'd like to see me draw or paint or ink or something please suggest away. One of the major things keeping me from doing more art is lack of inspiration.

(heh, funny note, I just started iTunes and played a random song. First thing that came up was "Dear Live Journal" by Evergreen Terrace)

~Adam

Welcome to my art blog!

2006-04-14T14:39:00.000-04:00

I created this blog mostly for myself. I will try my best to post daily some of art. By doing this I hope to develop better discipline and to keep in practice. Please feel free to bitch at me if I miss a day without an art post.

~Adam