Art: Crow.

Crow (Oil on canvas board. 9x12").  I had originally painted this to enter into the Black & White juried competition, but couldn't get it to photograph correctly and held it out.  After playing with my camera settings, I was able to finally create a suitable reproduction.  And when I say "play with the camera settings," I mean constantly tune the manual settings to get bad results, eventually settling on the "auto" setting which created a great picture.  Ugh.

Jury.

My artistic goal is simple: To be good. I don’t have a career motive. I just really enjoy the artistic process, what it brings to my life, and want to be great at it. I work hard to improve. Because I’m not concerned with money, I draw and paint whatever subject matter I want, without concern for marketability. However, without financial motivation, I also don’t have the provocation to do full-scale pieces. Nearly all my work consists of practice -- developed in sketchbooks, or on newsprint, or small painted studies. To get out of the practice mode, I decided to enter a juried art competition. It forced me to create a fully-formed work in a finite amount of time.

A week ago, I submitted my piece to the La Jolla Art Association Black and White juried competition. The rules required that the art be rendered in any medium as long as the only colors involved were black, white, and pure greys. When I hear black and white, my mind immediately shifts to one of my favorite mediums: ink. I decided to build off an earlier ball-point pen study and blow it out. I wanted the image to look imposing and menacing.

Walrus Skull (Ink on illustration board, applied via W&N Series 7 #2 brush. 6x12”).

The results of the competition will be announced on September 5th. Wish it well.

Sketchbook: Comic Con Booth Girls

All drawings were done in a 5x8" Moleskine sketchbook.

Pencil.

Ball-point pen.

Watercolor, colored-pencil, and ink applied with W&N Series 7 #2 brush.