TArthurSmith - Sketches & Projects (nudity) UPDATE Friday Jan 13, 2012

[TASmith]

Here are some sketches from a theater trip.

[TASmith]

sketches at work

[TASmith]

So I decided it's time to finish some things. This was a quick fix for the background, and now it goes straight to the portfolio.

[TASmith]

Another study from life:

[velderia]

I love your paintings. Great work. Keep it up.

[Black Spot]

The theatre and sketches at work are very good - nice and direct with your lines. The contours are working a lot better now.

Can you return to the same place on another day to work more on a picture? I feel painting more layers when its totally dry would help a lot to get more depth into your colours.

[TASmith]

Velderia - thanks!

BlackSpot - I feel the same way. I've been taking pictures of these scenes, and I want to do some work from the photos - using the sketch for colors. Maybe I can get up early tomorrow and work. If it rains I'll rework this. If it's sunny, I'll start another.

[vineris]

I like your landscape paintings! I think you're heading in the right direction with those.

The eyes on your portraits still seem somewhat symbolic in places. You seem to do better with eyes that are wrinkled or have puffy flesh around them, they look much more realistic.

[TASmith]

I couldn't resist some studies of Jeff de Boer's animal armor. More to come!

[Sidharth Chaturvedi]

Hehe, those work sketches rule, isn't candid drawing the best ? You're starting to drop the eyes back into the sockets now, awesome! The next step is to start unifying the shapes there, soften them a bit and not get too specific. My old drawing teacher at school showed this off to us pretty clearly, so I'll link one of his drawings- look at how the shadow shapes in the eyes are basically unified? The only real detail in there is the edge of the lower eyelid, which he probably just made with a kneaded eraser (incidentally, you need some vine charcoal, that stuff's great).

[TASmith]

Whoa! What's your teacher's name? post more!

[Sidharth Chaturvedi]

His name's Mark Tennant, really awesome guy. He was the director of our fine art program for a while, tried really hard to get a 19th century vibe going in the place. He bolted for Paris in January though (Now we have Craig Nelson, who is awesome in a different way). Anywho, I don't want to spam your sketchbook with images, so here's his website- www.marktennantart.com.

[TASmith]

Shameless Plug Time!

Anyone who's interested can bid on my watercolors! For the next week, it's all up on ebay. There are five landscapes to choose from, and the starting price is only $15. Here's a link:

http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...=tab%3DSelling

[TASmith]

Here's a wedding present I just finished. In the end I decided the signature was obnoxious, so I painted it out.

[TASmith]

here's the last work framed, and a new watercolor I'm working on, to sell. Remember I joked about switching to nudes to increase sales? I hope it works. This one's from a photo by andre-j, painted with permission.

link: http://andre-j.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d17wq4s

[TASmith]

Watercolor's finished and ready for sale! Here's the link: http://cgi.ebay.com/Original-Waterco...item2a08bcf135

[Basham]

The sheer amount of practice you do is showing, man. You're a monument to diligence. Keep working on your faces, humans, composition, the basics. They're a LOT better than they were when you started this book, but could still use a little refining. I could say the same about my work, as could any artist who likes to improve.

You make some very cool watercolor, by the way. Nice chick and beach.

[TASmith]

Basham thank you very much. I was beginning to worry with the lack of interest in my recent work. I'm still worried.

Here's a still life I just finished. It'll be the first of a series. It's also for sale on ebay: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=180536028778

[Black Spot]

Oi! You've taken the link to your SB out of your signature. Are you hiding?

I love the latest watercolours. The depth of colour has improved immensely and that last still like is amusing while excellent.

[TASmith]

Thanks Black Spot! No, I'm not hiding, just spamming my signature in the hopes I'll make a sale...

Here's my latest WIP. I'll put the SB link back in my signature. Painted with permission from a photo by Erro, at www.errotica-archives.com

[SoufMeng]

The still life looks good. Your painted sig reminds me of someone else's. Is there some sort of logic to the arrangement? Like, toilet paper=poo/plate=food=poo/animal patterned cushion~animal patterned TP? I'm actually half seriously asking.
I like her face in post #496. In that last one however... Her features are too big, It takes some time to realise but features are often smaller than we want to make them. And I dont know if you should use that sort of greyish black to darken her mouth and other things, for example her philtrum looks like a hitlerstache.
I like her thigh, her leg is too short though. I could say more but I'm sure you will see it by yourself from looking at your reference harder.

[TASmith]

SouMeng, thanks for the crit! You're dead on about that hitlerstache, I need to somehow dilute that... Her head's too big. I think I might cheat a bit with her head/hair and use some acrylic later. We'll see. It's really hard painting this small, but I need to make them small so they're cheaper and easier to ship.

The still life is a simple metaphor for life. eat, shit, and sleep. Just a joke. The objects here are what I use. Next time around it'll be what my son uses: diaper, bottle, and the same pillow. Eventually, I'll be adding in other objects.

[Yor]

getting better and better i see! ur lucky with a teacher that talented , i'll be watching this SB more often, ur progress is fascinating

[TASmith]

Yor, you're so much better than me it's not even funny. But thank you! Any crits greatly appreciated.

So I had a bit of time and worked on this some more. I feel I've mangled her face, and I'll try some watered down acrylics once the background is done. We've got guests right now so I only have a couple hours in the morning to work. Here are some photos from our recent trips around Slovakia. Today we're going to an ice cave!

[Diarum]

Cool stuff dude, really like that still life of the pillow and Toilet paper. ....I thought those pictures were come of you painting, but then I read the post lol. Those mouse armor look really good. Nothing really to crit on, me thinky you know what your doing

[Yor]

going the right way with the last painting, you need to show us the ice caves!

[TASmith]

I didn't photo the ice caves because it cost extra and I had to borrow money for my ticket. Terrible, I know, but I made it up paying for lunch with a credit card. Dobshinske cave is really nice. They had some huge rooms in there with enough ice to practice hockey on, and they even used it like that for some famous Slovak hockey players. Felt like I was in a Kekai Kotaki painting. Sorry for the lack of pics...

[TASmith]

update, still not done...

[TASmith]

Okay, it's done. I'm posting two versions - the first is a straight photo and the second is photoshopped a bit to make it look better on my computer. I say better meaning, closer to the original. But, every time I do this, people say it looks oversaturated, which makes me worry if my monitor settings are off. So, which looks better to you, first or second?

Again, this is painted with permission from a photo by Erro, at www.errotica-archives.com a great resource for artists.

For sale on Ebay here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=180539055799

[TASmith]

Hmmm, not so much enthusiasm for the last pic... Ah well, here's another new one. For sale here: http://cgi.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll...m=180540894097