Mayernik's sketchbook Madness

[ChrisMayernik]

suppose to be my bathroom. From head.

[ChrisMayernik]

warm up for the morning. from head.

[Flaskpost]

you´re a machine! great studies, and a great number of them! you´ll be a pro sooner than ya know, mate!
been watching your stuff over att sijun for quite some time.
your grayscale value studies are really top notch!
not necessery to tell you to keep workin, because i know you will!
peace!

[ChrisMayernik]

Thanks flaskpost.

Here are some real speed paints from last week. Last week I started doing 4 oil paints a week. 3 little quick ones and one larger one then takes 2 weeks to finish. The larger painting is not shown here because it's to big to scan and still drying. I would do 4 everyday if I had enough space to store that many but I only have space for 4 paintings a week to dry. I actually had to scan these in because I don't have a camera so that is why there is a glare. It's the best I could do.

Now about the process. I used only burnt umber ,white and black. The car one is just burnt umber and white. They are done in a quick sketchy underpainting fashion and I use turpentine so I can put the paint up there quickly. The car and tree ones were done outdoors far from my apartment ( can't drive) and both fell as I was balancing them in my hand as I walked home, so they got a little messed up.


hour and a half


30 minutes

30 minutes

30 minutes

[ChrisMayernik]

these are quick.

[ChrisMayernik]

I love this opera station. http://www.vivalavoce.com/?sid=166748&nid=6# It's great for painting and drawing.


charcoal drawing with color overtop.

[Zebz]

Nice charcoals, man. Your stuff is comin' along really great! I love that hint of color in the first one. The last couple are really fluid and give us a great sense of movement. If you can get some of that in your other stuff you'll really have someting, I think. Some of your other work seems stiff at times. I love the contrast in these works as well. Keep droppin' more on us, ok?

[Mr.Blonde]

hey chris, i've seen your speedpaintings around i think. I love the pot in oils. after lookin' at those vehicles you drew, i think you should check out scott robertson's gnomon dvds if you get a chance, he uses a lot of methods that would really help you nail your perspective and solidify your designs. (thankfully my school has most of the gnomon dvds at the library, wewt!) keep on working!

[dymrus]

Chris,

A lot of nice stuff here. You've shown imporvement through the whole post. Keep it up.

[ChrisMayernik]

Thanks dymrus.
Mr.Blonde: your school has the dvd's! how great. what school are you going to? I'd love to buy some of those dvd's once I hit it big on the price is right! COME ON DOWN!
ZebzFree: thanks .


( if you don't know what I'm talking about then just ignore it. Once I got it figured out for myself then ask some questions.)
working on some notes I took the other day about the range per material in the light. I think my problem is exposure and deciding how large the range is in light and shadow. I know the shadow range is smaller but I'm still trying to get a firm grasp on what's going on.




I think this makes more sense but it's still not right to me. I gotta do some more studies to figure this out.

[Dan1989]

Really nice stuff, the painting are cool. The only critique I can think is for the highlites on the people. They look way too white and plastic, They would probably look better if the value was put down. Great work otherwise

[ChrisMayernik]

Dan1989: Thanks. OH man you are so right about the high values. Those pictures look terrible. ( Lights torch) Next time ( pouurs gasoline ontop) I'l try to keep the skin more human instead of GI joe. ( lights gasoline trail.... swooshjhhh BURNNNNNN!!!! artworks go up in flames)



speed paints

[thief]

like that enviro from November 14th, 2005, 11:41 alot :]

[pennington]

hey gotta love your color/light studies. the red hat per material is a little plastic. think it needs a little more grain

[yAdam]

You have a great contrast in all your speedies, the lighting is really solid. The non ref character/figure stuff still has some anatomy issues that detract from the quality of the rendering (mostly pencil work).... Great experiments too! You don't seem scared about doing anything..It would be good to see more finished work, 'cause i'm sure you could do a really quality piece with what you've learnt so far...

edit... just wondering what the hour and a half painting in oils is, in post 125 on the 30th? I can't figure out what it is...

[Olof]

Nice stuff here!
You seem to do basic shapes really grate, and it shows in your work!
Your stuff feels very clean and still a bit scribbly, a nice combination

keep it up

.peace

[ChrisMayernik]

thief: Thanks.
pennington : Your right it does look plastic. I think your right it needs some texture.
yAdam : thanks. charactors are my number one focus right now. most of my speed paints with figures are not meant to be anatomicly correct but I am just painting form and if its good thats great but I am dealling more with value and light then figures or specific subjects. all my Design studies are done in sketchbooks. By the end of this year I should have mastered the figure, if not sooner.

My notes are what's going to set me apart from the crowd, building my own understanding of light and learning everything on my own has allowed me to have a open mind and create my own color theory and so on.

The painting you are talking about is my "bed" and blankets on it with some pillows underneath with my adio shoes on the floor and bed. I scanned the oil paintings in and the scanner light reflects of the oil paint so alot of it is not readable but thats the best I could do. It's alot more readable in life.

MorteM : Thanks! the basics are the foundation as everyone knows and I draw tons of shapes everyday to get my mind to think fast about light and how to render stuff.

[Master 25 Days]

great work in the walkway over water piece. Too right about learning to think fast about rendering light also.

[ChrisMayernik]

master : thanks


I've been sick the past couple days and it's really messing up my practice routine cause at the beginning of the week I started a project where I was filling up 200 pages of sketches and studies of the foot. I got 112 pages done in 3 days but then I got sick and now I'm really going to have to do a ton tommorrow if I want to meet my goal. Next week I'm doing 200 pages on the whole leg. I managed to do this speed paint. I hate being sick.

[blacky]

Dig all of your updates, specialy this one. Realy great to see you come up with such a mass of work that varies a lot too.

[ChrisMayernik]

blacky: thanks
This is a speedpaint from last year. I don't think I posted it cause it was really bad. I did some quick touch ups and now it doesnt need to go to waste. so here.

[ChrisMayernik]

I'm feeling much better now and almosted finished up my feet studies. I've done 144 pages so far and going to finish it all up tomorrow hopefully so I can start on the whole leg as a unit. I'd like to bring to your attention a great anatomy website I found. here it is. It's got to be the best on the net.

http://www.hk.edu.tw/~mehu/Tortora/C...r%20system.htm

Here are some of the foot studies. Almost all of them are done from life in the mirror. Some of the poses are really arkward cause I had to look over my shoulder to draw, but as I was doing this I found that looking and then drawing as much as I could without looking again is great for remebering. when drawing from life a lot of the time I just look at the subject and sketch without looking at the page and while this is more accurate, I realize now it's much easier and you don't learn as well.
In between sessions I would use my screensaver to study anatomy doing 2 minute studies of the muscles and using a red pencil quickly putting in the muscles and any form that could be used as a landmark. I carried this technique over to the life drawing, adding in muscles with the red pencil overtop the sketch and then naming them. I've been doing this alot and it's really helped me learn much faster.
I've got a lot of normal sketchbook stuff to scan and I plan on putting some of that up tommorrow. Going to go watch The office now. Later

[Shinryu]

hey man, some real nice stuff here, that last update is great, my only real crit would be that sometimes your proportions / anatomy look off but with all the studies im sure that'll be down soon, keep it up

cheers

[pennington]

wicked sweet! great studies. i think what shinryu said is because you don't look down very much. but awesome indeed. oh and where's the blind contour sp?

[ChrisMayernik]

pennington and MeridianiShinryu : thanks.

some "creatures"




and here are some prop sketches. I started doing this last week where everday I pick a theme and then I draw props for that scene. I pretty much just draw whatever comes to mind right away and then move on to the next item.





almost forgot. here is the blind contour. I didn't have time to do a long one so this was pretty quick. I did 3 oil paintings today and I had to clean up the mess considering it was 2 in the morning. I'l do a longer one tomorrow and see how that goes.

[pennington]

wow that pretty crazy how tight you blind contour is. nice props and creatures. could you draw the creatures at diff angles?

[ChrisMayernik]

Pennington. Thanks. Yea I could draw the creatures at other angles. One reason I stuck with those angles was because I wanted to focus on different rendering techniques rather then actually designing a creature. I had different processes on each one and I wanted to focus on how to render it fast but still have my painting style involved. In the end I didn't like any of the techniques to much and I'm still searching on how I want to render my stuff in pencils. When I first got into drawing I wanted to draw just like Iain McCaig, well, I still do but I want to use more values if I can find a way of doing that fast. I love Iain McCaigs work.

Mr. roboto
It's not very readable. Ok enough with these crappy studies from me. From now on I'm doing real work cause my compositions suck and I havent even tried to do anything cool in a long time.

[Deselect]

Hello, Mayernik, great to see your progress in rendering. Just wanted to stop by and say that I really enjoyed your coloured pencil portrait of your friend back on page one.

Keep it up!

[pennington]

good i really like your full blown stuff

[Orozc0]

kool stuff