That's Right I'm Back!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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!

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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