How humbling to stare into the mouth of a Dragon (fruit flower)!! Such a mysterious and mighty flower that one only gets to view on rare occasions, partly due to the fact that each blossom only opens for a few hours, and those few hours are always at night.
A special nocturnal treat for sure! Just one of the many exciting and exotic fruits my stepdad has planted around the yard:)
We just got the first few fruits off the cactus… a real delight in my afternoon smoothie!
7.30.2020
This highly detailed and extensive workshop features everything you need to know to draw refined and realistic hands. Together we will start off with basic palm and finger structure utilizing correct proportions, then move onto how tendons affect movement. Next we'll incorporate muscle, skin, and fingernails to round out our drawings and finally learn about shading to bring a real depth and realism to our works.
You also have the option to get personal feedback through email from me three times over the course of this workshop for that extra boost in conquering this challenging subject matter. Woo Hoo!
White Conte Pencil: https://bit.ly/2DbnqQ5
2B Pencil: https://bit.ly/3jHhDml
4B Pencil: https://bit.ly/39woBGg
4B Woodless Pencil: https://bit.ly/32VNolv
9x12 White Sketchbook: https://bit.ly/39C3wdu
9x12 Toned Grey Sketchbook: https://bit.ly/3hDUrDH
Kneaded Eraser: https://bit.ly/2VC4qBB
Map Eraser: https://bit.ly/2wgzoop
Mono Zero Eraser: https://bit.ly/3885Fej
*Any supplies purchased through my special links helps to support my YouTube channel at no extra cost to you, so thank you!
If you're new to Skillshare I have a special affiliate link that gives you your first two months for free! And that's not just to my classes, that to the 10's of thousands of classes available on the Premium plan. Enjoy lots 'o learnin! https://skl.sh/39snxCW
7.26.2020
Whew I am working around the clock to get this multi-video workshop uploaded here on my website, on Skillshare, and on YouTube, which let me tell you with loading times and small hiccups along the way, that in no small feat!!
7.23.2020
Aloha friends, it’s been a minute since I’ve shared a behind-the-scenes peek into the Nest so I figured this hot July afternoon was a perfect time to sit in the AC for a spell and spill the Birdie tea.
I’ve got two exciting tutorials coming out! One is a detailed workshop in how to draw hands (see this post from last week), and the other is about how to paint skulls in a very lifelike way (right here). I also share a few adventures I’ve been lucky enough to go outside for and my latest 3D painting.
Make sure to grab some new stickers here too!
7.19.2020
Living by this lake lately has been a real gift for pre-dried critters to enclose in my artwork. The more that I stay in Florida the more I see just how much wildlife is around here!
I can’t wait to get to the resin layering of my skull trio paintings!! I’m definitely going to be having fun with all these creepy crawlers…..
7.16.2020
Okay my lovely patient viewer, I hope you learned a lot from last week’s ‘Copying vs Stealing and Being Inspired’ video, and now as promised I have five sources where you can get copyright free photos for your artwork. Yay!
Finding free good quality reference photos is not as hard as you would think if you know where to look and sometimes who to ask. It can be easy to fall in the habit of just finding images through google searches and using those for your paintings, but taking from other artists without permission will not get you or your artwork very far in this life so better to go ahead and source ethically.
Let me know in the comments if you can think of any other great reference photo sources!
I’m excited to share a little progress on probably the most detailed workshop I’ve created to date! This is an super thorough examinations of how the hand is structured, how tendons affect movement, how to draw details like wrinkles and fingernails, and then finally how to shade and render it.
I’ll have around a dozen step-by-step drawing examples of the entire process as well as lots of copyright free photographs that anyone can use for any project.
So make sure you stick around and stay tuned because I’m not sure when exactly this will be published, but I’m hoping in three weeks or less! I’ll have the first part on my YouTube channel and the rest will be available for download on my website or to experience on Skillshare.
7.9.2020
Are you familiar with the difference between copying vs stealing vs being inspired? The lines can get a little blurry sometimes, especially when needing to use reference photographs that you may not be able to create yourself. While it's fine to copy (with credit given) while we're just practicing, when it comes time to make real work that represents us as individual artists, it's absolutely essential that we do not take nor take credit for other people's work.
Hopefully this video will answer all your questions about how to get inspiration from artists we admire, without stealing their ideas. Make sure you tune in next week too because I'll be bringing you 5 different ways to find copyright free images for you to use in your art that don't cost a thing!
Both the master copies above are mine from years past. The first one is by Henri Toulouse-Lautrec called “Corner of Moulin de la Galette’, which I painted in 2015 after visiting his works at the National Museum in Washington DC. The second one I painted in Florence, Italy at my first atelier program back in 2010 after ‘The Annunciation’ by Antonello da Messina.
7.5.2020
You may have seen the live skull painting demo I did on YouTube a few weeks ago (if not it’s now listed as a ‘Real Time Skull Painting Demo’ in two parts), but that lively lil guy is actually just the first of three skulls I’m painting and will eventually layer with resin and some creepy crawlers or other found objects.
One of my favorite things about this process has been exploring all of the different earth toned hues that can actually be found in bones… far more than the basic grayscale one usually associates with bones. I’ve delighted in using a lot of sap green and a light pink-ish mauve color that has really brought these three skulls to life (ha! see what I did there??).
Enjoy these work-in-progress shots today and if you like checking out my painting process regularly, make sure to find me on Instagram where I’m constantly sharing paintings and drawings as they are created.
7.1.2020
Just uploaded a brand new intro for my YouTube channel! I hope it gives a really full view at the value of my channel, please have a lil looksy and tell me what you think:)
Are you an artist or creative with goals of perfecting your craft while furthering your artistic career? Do you enjoy being inspired by the amazing natural world around us?
Well then welcome to the Nest, you're gonna fit right in!
I am extremely passionate about helping fellow artists and since I've been practicing and teaching fine art skills for a number of years all while steadily growing my own art biz, I've got loads of helpful tips and advice for anyone ready to become a fully actualized professional artist.
Thanks for checking out my channel! I hope you learn a whole lot!
6.26.2020
