A thread with artwork and words (Nov. 25th MASSIVE ART DUMPING)

[ryan mcshane]

aww bro, you did not just do that.. did you? OH FUCK YOU DID O_O
the portraits are sooo beautiful bro! that sculptures looking superb bro. superb.

p.s. @kidult: sketchbooks are for unfinished work, gamerhomie posts his sketchbooks and his overal process of everything in here, who are you to tell him to post what you want to see? look at other guys sketchbooks for concept art, what gamerhomie's doing is awesome and it is a sketchbook. he's also a full time art student so he obviously doesnt have time to do concept art/doesnt want to do concept art, and it's not only about skills it's also about time bro.

[Adam Nowak]

ryanoir beat me to it.

[magicpudding]

Why do I feel the need to rethink my life? Crazy sketchbook, utterly mindblowing.

Magiks sketches

[ryan mcshane]

aww sorry to take the fun away bro, you coulda done it too
that paintings supper nice!
the blue lights realllly nice!
keep at it, more like this yeah?

[Loathsome]

Super impressive stuff!

[kidult]

Could have sworn this website was called conceptart.org? my bad.....really dig the last piece don't get me wrong you have skills but somehow I get a bit bored with just seeing work from observation. Check the guys from the next gen atelier, now that is some sick observation skill aaaand some serious concept work.

[Marian Rowling]

Wow Adam how glad am I that you commented in my SB! Yours has been like reading a best seller that I just couldn't put down. Truly brilliant and so inspiring. Have to say that you make me want to draw, paint and sculpt. Your passion and hard work really shows in all your work and I can see just how much you have grown and improved since your first post. I genuinely feel very excited for you and where your art will take you. Like all good best sellers you have left me wanting more.

[Jason Scanlon]

Nice work as usual. You ever do open studio sessions at the P&C?

[Lionsword]

Kidult, this is the sketchbooks section. Anything goes here.

Sweet stuff in this update, your paintings are getting much stronger! I"m really liking the fourth painting, it's good a lot of great colours and it also has personality - the man feels like he's got a story, know what I mean? Don't get lazy defining edges and forms though like in the second painting of the woman. You've got lots of soft and lost edges, but there's not many hard edges to balance them out.

As for hash-dash lines, well, I was really thinking of the figure drawings in your November 23 update, but I went back and looked at them again, and I realized you were probably just trying to sketch nice and loose. All the more finished stuff like those two girls in the last post have nice and smooth lines. So, not a huge thing, but something to keep in mind I guess.
I'm liking the cast, it's turning out nicely. How did you go about giving it that weathered look?
Thanks for taking the time to answer my questions, your answers were very helpful.
Don't stop!

[Adam Nowak]

magicpudding - Thank you, I appreciate it.

ryanoir - I only hope there to be more. Always more.

Loathsome - Thanks.

kidult - Hey man, I didn't get a chance last time to reply since I was so tired. I totally agree with you about only showing observational work. I remember when I first turned on my computer about 6 or 7 years ago and I typed in "art" into Google to see what I could find. That night I eventually found a place called conceptart.org and curiously clicked on it. I had read about "conceptual art" before and thought it was going to be a website full of installation art and the deep meanings behind our everyday thoughts and all that. Well to be frank, I was SOOOO BLOWNN AWAY with what I saw. I clicked on my first thread and saw a digital painting (I didn't even know what a digital painting was, I haven't even seen a real painting) of either an orc or samurai, or a combo of both. I made up my mind that night that no matter what, art is what I needed to do for the rest of my life. No matter what happened, or what kind of jobs I would have to work to get there, one day. So for so long I was caught up in the site but I knew after research that in order to be as good as the greats here I needed to understand the fundamentals of art. That led to traditional art, which led to representational art and since then I've grown a huge love for it. I'd still live to do more digital, more illustrative pieces. I love that stuff as well. In fact when I started this thread I had it in the Fine Arts section for months before requesting it to be brought here. That stuff that's coming from the NGA and all those new places popping up, well, it's an exciting time to be an artist. It's really astonishing the amount of great work there is out there. Truly mindblowing. Right now I'm hooked on this stuff. So who knows where I will end up. That's why it's a journey for me.

Marian Rowling - Thank you so much. Anyone can do it, they just have to destroy their social life.

Jason Scanlon - Oh yeah man, definitely. I try to come as often as I can. right now with school I (really try, but sometimes I wake up late) go every Sunday and sometimes during the week if I have some time.

Lionsword - For the fourth painting I chose not to take down an exact likeness but sit down and observe him for a bit and help "push" his emotions and his little tics. He was a fellow painter who was there all day that day and it was his turn to pose for us. He really hates doing it and was constantly trying to keep himself entertained. As for the second painting, that's a failure. She came up to me afterwards and I told her I had such a hard time painting her. She asked me how many times have I painted Asians before and I told her she's one of the only ones. And she said there you go. I'm really not liking my sketchbook too much, I gotta keep experimenting with that. I just stopped by a hobby store and picked up some patina paints. It's an acrylic binder with metal shavings inside of bronze and an acid to help "age" the initial layer. I painted the recent plaque I got done with and I haven't gone over with a second pass to bring down the intense colors the patina gives off. It's kind of wild how the acid interacts with it. I only wish I could one day cast a bronze and do a real patina.

__________________________________________________ ________

So I don't have much right now. I just did a quick figure study, 8 x 10 with a limited palette of titanium white, yellow ochre pale, terra rosa, and ultramarine blue deep.

A cast I previously posted, working with a patina on it.

And I had a friend from the Palette send me some photos of his wifes pochade box and I went to work on my own. My dads friend helped me with some of the construction like thinking up the idea of the slanted clips on the top and left hand side to hold a canvas in place. I threw in a piece of glass in there, it hasn't shattered yet (crosses fingers) and it looks like it'll hold up on the tripod. Super excited about it. And as I look out my window I see we got another few inches of snow last night. I have such great timing.

[ryan mcshane]

pochade boxes look so good O_O but they're like $300 for the proper ones, soo good work on making it! it looks great!
also that sculpture is soo hot @___@
& ofc figure, yeahhh your figure paintings dope

[kidult]

Hey that's cool and very good reasoning. Guess it was" be an ass" week on CA for me....keep up the good work

[purplegoat]

The painting of the mandolin(?) player is intriguing to me. Looks very "dreamy". Enjoying your sketchbook. Please keep posting!.

[Adam Nowak]

ryanoir - Thanks, thanks.

kidult - It's all good.

purplegoat - Thanks, I thought the same thing!

I know I keep posting this (last time), but I decided to get the bust against a backdrop, I thought it would look cool. But I know my P+S cameras sensor is too weak to read anything in dark colors so everything in the shadow is just pure black.

I got to collaborate with my friend who just started to digitally paint only about two weeks ago. Just passed it on and off every hour or so.

Got some more portraits done. I took some photos of one of them doing it stroke by stroke and not touching it again unless I overlap strokes. I also forgot to take a photo or two before the end so there's a big jump.

Finished that figure I mentioned a few weeks back. Half scale full figure in clay. I'd like to cast it just for fun but it'd be so much trouble since all I have ready right now is plaster so I'll probably dice it up next week.

I also did a portrait for my friends mom. Did it in one session, around 7-8 hours. First time I painted from a photograph so it was interesting on how to take it on. The most trouble was the water so I went to look up Mr. Sorolla for some inspiration.

Hope everyone's having a good time/relaxing/making art/celebrating or if you're working during the holidays. I feel you.

[~KJK~]

crazy paintings! effin miraculous work!

[ryan mcshane]

is that ochre wash? in the background
i really like your colors, especially in your digital one, you have a great confidence that will get you far!
you make me want to get out my paints, just dun have a model to paint ;_;

[Metal Fingers]

Nice lighting on those bust photos mang, Those cast shadows on the neck are a beauty. lovely stuff as usual!

[Marian Rowling]

Hey Adam, nice update I really enjoy seeing your work. I like the dramatic lighting on the bust photos and I especially like the painting of the lady in the grey hat. I think it's the combination of brush marks, colours and composition. Hope you enjoy your holiday and I wish you well for the New Year.

[Adam Nowak]

Parsakoira - Dude, thanks.

ryanoir - That's actually just a raw umber wash. And you can always look in the mirror.

Metal Fingers - Thanks!

Marian Rowling - Thank you very much, same to you.

So today I started off with the first painting over a 4.5 hour pose and after an hour a few people told me to stop where I was at and not to lay down another brushstroke so I obeyed. I know the risks of ruining a decent start and I had backup panels so I took out another one and went further along with it, probably 3 hours. The second one's colors don't read very well when I took a photo, there's more green in her mirrored shadow. Oh well. It was a very interesting setup nonetheless.

[jNeumann]

Latest updates are mindblowing man, great great work. I love the sculpture as well. keep up the good work!

[Adam Nowak]

jNeumann - Thank you, I really appreciate it.

Today was interesting. We had another go at the mirror setup with a different model. I've been looking at Impressionist paintings recently so that helped with this painting. First off, the first one is an hour into the pose with my glasses lowered. When I looked up at the model, I couldn't see anything except shapes of color (I have terrible vision, I can't see anything crisp after about a foot away from my eyes) but when I looked down at my palette my glasses helped to mix the color a little faster. The second image is the finished painting, I mainly worked on the model, more-so the reflection which was my focus. This was a different approach and I'm quite pleased with it.

I did a self portrait today in-between sessions. Titanium white, transparent oxide red, and viridian. About 1 1/2 hours.

Last portrait was of a new model. I would have made it more 1/2 figure and included the hands but I won't have to time to continue it next week and I didn't want to paint another small face, I've had enough of those. She wore all black and she had such incredible pale skin, whiter than white, something that was hard to capture in paint. Hopefully encasing her in dark colors helped. 2.5 hours.

[ryan mcshane]

this is dope
i love you

[insanelight]

Absolutely brilliant sketchbook.
I'm always amazed by people who are able to manage so many different techniques... well, probably because I use only pencils...
Love everything here, 5* and subscribed.

[purplegoat]

The skin in the model's portrait looks a little too white too me. The abrupt color change on her forehead above her right (our right) eye is a little distracting. The contrast there is high which draws my focus to it. If you were to provide more definition and contrast between the hair and the background I think that it would really help both paintings so the head is not swallowed into the background.

You look evil in your self portrait with the red/orange eyes and glowing skin. I really like the broad brush strokes in there.

I think it's great that you are pushing yourself to learn new things (i.e. the Impressionistic paintings, digital etc.). I appreciate that you are showing some pieces in process and the final piece as this really helps people like me learn. I'm really enjoying your sketchbook as it is one of the few that consists of primarily traditional painting and drawing which is what I'm mostly interested in. Looking forward to more!

[Adam Nowak]

ryanoir -

insanelight - Thanks.

purplegoat - I agree looking at it I should have softened the edge a little more on the forehead. My intention was to lose the hair in the background but I probably could have added a few notes of color here and there to bring it out somewhat. Thanks.

New Years resolution: More drawing, more painting, more keeping my resolutions.

I don't like the way I go about doing a lot of my drawings so hopefully I can get to something I'm okay with this year. I'm still going along with painting, going to keep trying new things as well. I don't have something that just starts the year off with a bang, more just a quiet update. Same model from the last post, I came in very late and had about 2 1/2 hours on this. I made a few dozen panels last year that I'm just about out of. I really disliked them in the beginning and a lot of these paintings have been made on them to just get rid of them but by the end I've grown to work with them and know how to manipulate them. I need to get back to making more of them for the year.

I did a self portrait with a mirror below looking up while I held my glasses juxtaposed off the right side of my face looking through the lenses so that they distorted my view. Sometimes I would see double features in places, one eye is larger than the other, etc... fun stuff.

[tehmeh]

those painting are incredibly inspiring to me.. especially this one has really made me want to go learn to paint.. that is not saying the rest aren't brilliant! Keep it uppp

[ryan mcshane]

self portraits fucking cool D: i love that haha

[Adam Nowak]

Thanks to both of ya, keep on doing the art thing!

I started up some more classes again so I might not be posting as often. I also have a class that goes late into the evening and that interferes with the portrait studies I've been doing once a week but it does leave one hour before it's up so I'm making a new set of panels to paint on in less than an hour. Some more figure painting. I stopped again on the first one, didn't think it needed anything else. Second is a burnt umber + titanium white portrait study of the first figure. Third is my sister, who posed for the Palette. Fun to paint a younger person, but I didn't like the outcome, I felt pressured to make a "good painting" and I feel it suffered because of that. Fourth is last nights nude male study. Thursday nights at the Palette there's a very interesting cool/warm light combo that happens. I've done at least one in the past before, it's very surprising what kind of tones pop out as a result of the two lights melting together.

[stone.]

great!

[~KJK~]

great job with the last paintings, no critiques yet, just stopping by and letting you know that you do awesome work! keep up