Can I Lead You Through The Darkness?

"Can I Lead You Through The Dark?"

The quotation at the top of says, "Can I lead you through the darkness?" and the answer, "When I'm with you, Vincent, there is no darkness."

Things are fairly quiet right now, but that will change in September. Right now I am taking advantage of this "free" time to do more Beauty & The Beast theme fine art illustrations. It is really fun and I am learning things about illustration art by doing this. I am playing around with a couple of different "styles" of art, but the one I seem to come back to most often is the usual colored pencil, Turpenoid, and mixed media style, as seen in the illustration I have posted above. This is my latest one. It is called, "Can I Lead You Through The Dark?." It is based on an episode of Beauty & The Beast called, "Dead of Winter."

There is a personal story behind this particular piece of art. It actually has a very spiritual message to it. When Vincent says to Catherine, "Can I lead you through the dark?," it actually refers to my personal spiritual faith. I picture Jesus holding out his hand and saying the same thing to me. This piece of art is a symbol of all the times when the light overtook the darkness and I felt that someone was protecting and guiding me.

Experiments With Paper

I have been experimenting with a few different types of paper to see how colored pencil & Turpenoid work on them. I used cp & Turpenoid on Duralar paper (transparent vellum). It was interesting, but I found I was unable to do much layering on this paper. It just can't take a lot of layering. In order to do a lot of layering, you have to color on the front & back of the paper and/or use another sheet of vellum to add more color and put the two sheets together. It gets too confusing. I like the old method better!

The other type of paper I used was a Canson watercolor paper, Rives paper about 115 wt. It was very odd. I love the texture of this paper because it is soft. But when I tried to layer my colored pencils, the colors come out different. I found that layering one color upon another sometimes made it look muddy or too dark. That doesn't happen with regular watercolor paper. This is a very smooth paper that gives a very soft, fuzzy look, which is nice, but putting Turpenoid over the colored pencil did not always give me the effect I was looking for. I think this paper would be great for watercolor, but not so much for colored pencil.

Pencil Sketches as Finished Art

"Can I lead you through the dark?"

I just made the most amazing discovery! I found that I can get some really cool and fantastic pencil sketches off my DVD player when I'm watching a movie. I just press pause button and make a sketch. Why haven't I been doing this before? I decided to do some sketches from an episode of Beauty & The Beast called Dead of Winter. The process was really fun--once I figured out how to operate my remote control! I posted a few of these sketches above.

As I watched an episode of Beauty and the Beast and used the "pause" button, I did graphite pencil sketches on a small sketchpad. Then I scanned them, enlarged them, then printed them out. I was actually surprised to see that they look really good enlarged. For some reason I thought they wouldn't because they were too loosely done. When I do this kind of fast sketching, I switch to an entirely different style that is very loose and free, not like my usual tightly controlled style I have when I work with colored pencil & Turpenoid. When I enlarged these small drawings, I thought, "These look good enough they could be considered finished pieces. It's just that they are done in a different, more contemporary style." I guess this was kind of a "wow" moment for me because I was looking at it from a different perspective. I had gotten it into my head that a drawing isn't good unless it has that very realistic and overly detailed look. I'm beginning to see that is not true.

Last Class Project--Oil and Turpenoid

"Owl" (Oil Paint and Turpenoid)

A month has gone by and my class, Drawing 212, is over. The last class was today. I have posted a photo of my last project assignment from this class. This is actually an oil painting that was done combining paint and Turpenoid. It comes out kind of watery and thin. You can actually move the paint around with your finger or a rag. It was a messy, smelly process, but it was fun.

This class was a good fit for me because it dealt with mediums and techniques I was not familar with. The artwork we did in this class was most focused on black and white, with only a little bit of color involved. If this class had been about graphite and colored pencil, I would not have learned as much because I already know about that medium. But I am not very familiar with charcoal, gesso, pen and oil paint and those are the mediums we used in this class. I have had a tendency to try and use a pen like it was a pencil and it just doesn't work that way. In this class I learned a lot of pen techniques and how to create a good drawing without having to erase. I also learned how to draw with a wash of oil paint and solvent, and I learned about some interesting ways to use gesso. I also learned that the beauty of a pen drawing lies in not controling the pen, but in the lack of control. Some of my best work came from me just fooling around not trying to control the pen, but letting it do whatever it wanted to and experimenting with it. This class was not work, it was play! And thanks to my teacher, I now have a few more artistic tricks up my sleeve!

New Catherine & Vincent Portrait FINALLY done!

Detail of Vincent--The Beast

The middle of this portrait isn't pictured, but this is the top and the bottom

I am so excited because I finally have had some time for myself to do my OWN art projects. Usually I am doing homework art projects, or planning art lessons, or something else has my time that doesn't even relate to art. But during this July 4th weekend I finally have been able to finish a project that I have had a real passion for. It has been in the works for about two or three months. Lately I have become interested in (okay, maybe obsessed with) the characters of Catherine and Vincent from the 1980's TV show, Beauty and the Beast. This show is really unique and has some of the most beautiful music, poetry, and romance you will ever see. There is a depth to it that you just don't find on television today. It is not just a TV show, it is a philosophy of living. It speaks to my heart and has given me much encouragement over the past few months. And since I am all about music, poetry, art and beauty, what could be more perfect for me?

So folks--here it is! I couldn't scan the entire thing, so I had to scan it in three parts. You have use your imagination and put the parts together. The portrait was made using colored pencil & turpenoid, but the rest of it was a collage of different pieces. The sheet music are from the Beauty and the Beast theme song and the poem at the bottom is actually from the show. It says 'Across what instrument have we been spanned? And what violinist holds us in his hands? O Sweetest Song.'

Does this rock or what????!!! I really love how it turned out!!

Angel Cats

The above illustration is actually an assignment for my Drawing class at BSU. My scanner isn't quite large enough to get all of it. I call this piece "Angel Cats." This assignment involved using a laser jet copy of a photo (black & White), then expanding it into something else. It has to be in black and white with only a touch of color as a highlight. So the color part is actually the paper, which looks like clouds and blue sky.

I used photos of my cats, Maynard and Bonzai Pete as models and put wings on them. This is particularly appropriate, since Maynard actually died last year, but I like to pretend that he is still around in spirit. Or maybe he really IS an angel who watches over me??! Pete is pushing 19 years old, which is about 95 in cat years, so he will be there with Maynard someday.

I have two other artworks that are very close to being done, but am running into some slight problems. I misplaced a portrait I did of my mother-in-law's dog, Micah and can't finish it until I find it!!! The other problem is that I misplaced some sheet music that I was going to use as a back ground (in collage form) for a Beauty and the Beast portrait I have finished. What is up with this? I think it is time to de-clutter and organize so that maybe this won't happen again. (LOL)