Art

I am trying to lose the lines and finish more of my work… I would really like to be able to a sketch to more of a finished image.  This is caricature of myself for a SketchClub competition…

Wow this last week went fast.  This years FanExpo started on Thursday and lasted 4 days… and it was incredible.  Again I was sharing a table with my very talented friend Marco Bucci… from who I was able to pick up a few more titbits of knowledge and a ton of inspiration from .

Most mornings we started our day off with a  big breakfast at Dunn’s before grabbing our coffee at Starbucks.  Only then were we ready to face the crowd.  Having Thursday to warm up to everything was great, but I realized that I needed something new for the show… so that night I was off to Kinko’s 24hr shop to print up some “mini-prints” (5×7)… I had to battle the drunk university students …. one of which tipped my scooter… and didn’t get home till 3am… but it was well worth it.

We are already booked again for next year and have already started to plan how to make our space even better!

Thanks to all the fans and friends that stopped by to show your support!

I was sketching the other day in my new coffee shop location  and came up with a  couple of quick sketches that I sent to my iPad to “ink” and colour.

The SketchClub had a 1 day competition to draw an Ewok. I drew it in Starbucks on my iPad with the SketchClub app.

The full image can be found in my digital gallery.

I did this drawing on my iPad last night for one of the SketchClub comp contests.  The winner is randomly selected from the top 100 entries to win an iPad stylus.  I have 4 of these already… but hey… you never know when you might need another right?

The new selection “digital” has been added to the gallery.  Here you will find some of my iPad and Photoshop pieces.  I have been using the “SketchClub” a lot as my default drawing app.  I am even using it work out some thumbnails for a graphic novel I am working on with my brother…

I love getting mail… especailly when it’s a book… especially when that book is the newest Doug TenNapel graphic novel!

“When a family takes a boating trip, the last thing they expect is to be shipwrecked on an island—especially an island with weird, otherworldly plants and animals. Now, what started out as a bad vacation turns into a terrible one as Lyle, Karen, and their two kids, Janie and Reese, must find a way off the island while they dodge its strange and dangerous inhabitants. Is the island alive? Is it from another world? In this rousing, Swiss-Family-Robinson tale with a twist, the answers to these questions could save them… or spell their doom.

One thing Reese knows for sure:  THIS IS ONE BAD ISLAND.”

(tehehehehe… I know what I will be doing this weekend)

Bengal’s euro-manga style has fascinated me for years.  I have (still do) spend a lot of time pouring over his images from his old site but he hasn’t updated it in a very long time.  Perhaps it’s his cool French air of condescension or his seemingly indifference to his own talent that restrained him from proclaiming his “new” (to me) blog.  An article in my recent edition of ImagineFX magazine highlighted his new virtual home which can be found here.  Keep in mind, Bengal is French.  (Some of his art may not be considered “workplace safe” … you’ve been warned.  Savvy?

I’ve started redesigning my site into a WordPress driven site for a few reasons… I hope the simplified experience helps with some serious navigation issues I was having. I hope to make better use of my blog as well… which should remind me to update my gallery more often than I do. Plus I am a MAChead… and I hate not being able to see my art on my iPad… now I can!

the WAR of ART by Steven Pressfield is one book every artist, student and human being should own.  Thanks Marco for the suggestion.  The very fact that I am writing in this blog instead of drawing validates the point of this book.

“It’s not the writing part that’s hard.  What’s hard is sitting down to write.  What keeps us from sitting down is Resistance.”

I am only on page 25 and already the truths Mr. Pressfield brings to light justify the somewhat hefty $18.95 CAD price tag (less my Chapters discount)

“Henry Fonda was still throwing up before each stage performance, even when he was seventy-five.  In other words, fear doesn’t go away.  The warrior and the artist live by the same code of necessity, which dictates that the battle must be fought anew every day.”

How could you not love a book that uses a simile of a warrior to describe the motivation of an artist?

Go buy it.

I have added a few new images to my site.  I am almost finished this sketchbook and I am really looking forward to starting a new one.  Every time I do, I have a renewed spirit to try and make it better than the last…

Anyway, here is perhaps my favourite image from the most recent uploads.  It is a concept for a character in a graphic novel my brother and I are working on:

I sketched it in my sketckbook, took a photo of it with my iPhone… transfered it to my iPad and “inked” it with SketchBook Pro… then when I got home (I was sketching in Starbucks) I touched it up with Photoshop.

*check* *check* is this thing on?

Hello everybody, my name is Shane and I am blog-neglect-olic…

…

Wow… seriously… how lame is this… this is my bi-yearly post.  Well things are going to change (as “things” constantly do).  No more excuses!

Yeah!  2010!  I had a great start the the new year already.  I spent the first day at Starbucks drawing for a couple of hours.  Here is what I did: And here are a couple of images to finish up 2009:

I will be posting the sketches to these images and much more in my sketchbook on the main site.

I LOVE Claire Wendlings work… this book is a collection of poster work she has done for some festivals in France.  They really have that art nouveau feel to them.  Simply beautiful.

… and this, the second volume of Drawn to Life:

My book collection is HUGE now!  Over 400 art related books… now I just have to find time to read them all…

Updates added to the website.  You will now be able to access my current sketchbook from the main menu with the archive sketchbooks in their own folder.

Also, I have started to add to the portfolio folder some of my better work…

Here are a couple of sketches done over the last couple of days…

Hi everyone!

Sorry for being so neglegent with this blog lately.  Over the last few months I have been finishing up a contract doing I.T. work that has had me working 10-12 hours a day.  Needless to say, trying to switch over to the other side of the brain and do something creative after a LONG day of troubleshooting computer issues in such a high stress job proved too much for me.

A couple of weeks ago though, I was given my 2 weeks notice.  I was extactic.  I knew the project was coming to an end and I had told myself that after I would focus most of my attention to art.  Well, that was short lived… I was offered another contract to do similar work.  I have been lead to believe that it will take up less of my time and much less stress… so I am going to give it a shot and see if, once again, I can do both.

I will post the few pictures I have been able to create over the last few months on my main site.  I have plans to start a graphic novel with my brother Jeremy and of course there is our webcomic that we are doing as well…

So if you don’t hear from me, send me a virtual slap upside the head and ask me ‘whats the hold up?’… I can really use all the encouragement I can get!

I didn’t get much time to look around this year.  But I took some snapshots from my iPhone of some of the scary, funny and beautiful costumes that walked by.  Here are a few:

Want a signed sketchbook but missed the show?  Don’t worry about it! Fire an email off to me using the contact form below and I will drop one in the post for you for $5 + shipping.  I will include a blue pencil sketch in the book upon request…

So I had a chance to visit the MET in NYC last week. It really has been the highlight of my “trip” to this city. Here are some of the photos I took with my iPhone of just some of what I saw that day…

Located on the edge of Central Park in NYC… the MET is simply regal…

The most famous Sargent painting. This image is one of my top 5 favourite paintings of all time…

The security guard gave me trouble for taking a photo of this picture… LOL

…was awesome.  My first table at a show was a blast!  So much so that I booked another table for next year already.  The best part of the show was meeting so many people that love art.  A very special “thank you” to all the people that bought my book or even took some time to stop by my table for a chat.

I had the good fortune to sit between 3 unbelieveably talented people at the show.  To my right was Mark McDonnell, who kept me laughing for 3 days straight with all his crazy antics and note passing during class:

I could make a book with the number of post-it notes Mark passed to me over the 3 days.  Instead, when I sold enough of my own sketchbook I picked up this incredible book Mark was selling at the show:

He gave me a chance to flip through his personal sketchbook as well during the show.  I was blown away… check out his site here

Then the table to my left, sat 2 of the most talented and popular local artists I think I have met.  Julie Faulkner and Brian Evinou.  Julie, was there promoting her new webcomic “Promises Promises” … it’s awesome.  Go there… read and subscribe… then come back here and thank me.  Aside from that she was pumping out the most obscure requests for free sketches along with Brian 3 days straight…

Brian is like a people magnet.  I swear when the convention doors opened on Friday, the first person through them was there to see him.  I got the better end of the deal with a trade for his 2 books for my one (insert evil laugh here)

Here is Brian’s blog.

After the show on Saturday we did the dinner & drinks thing at Fionn MacCool’s.  Music sucked, burger was good, and the company was great!  It was one of my favourite parts of the show…

Looking forward to next years show already!!!

I have a weakness and I am not ashamed of it.  Books… especially “art” books.  I was reading Chris Sanders blog (Lilo & Stich creator and artist).  In it he mentioned selling out his #3 Sketchbook at the recent San Diego Comic Con.

One of the boxes he said went to an awesome local bookstore here in Toronto called Labyrinth Books.  “Well then,” says I, “we must get that one book” especially since I am a huge fan of his art and the greatest Disney 2D film ever made.

Well it just so happens that an Adam Hughes sketchbook was also for sale there as well.  Now, since my sister has asked me to draw an AH! style Catwoman, I had to pick it up… for reference… I swear…

Okay… so at this point I know I am in trouble.  Now I am beginning to reason with myself saying, “Shane, you saved ALL that money by not going to San Diego this year… so you deserrrrrve a couple of new books that you would have picked up had you gone.  Besides, look at that book there…” which turned out to be this book here:

Now you might be saying “How To Art?!  That’s not even proper English!”  Well, this how-to book is in French.  “Shane I didn’t know you speak French!”  … I don’t.  If you have ever seen the artwork of the European artists, I think you would agree that learning another language is a small price to pay.

Here is the problem with Labyrinth Books… Its directly across from a HUGE discount book store called BMV.  Books that retail for $30 sell for $10 as an example.  Sooo, with that logic I bought 3 more books at $10 each simply because I didn’t have to buy them at full price!  Here are books 4, 5, and 6:

Now, I could have stopped there.  And I did for lunch.  So I walked up a few more blocks and had a beer and a burger on a patio and regained my strength.  (By this time, my stockpile of books was getting rather heavy)  In doing so, it drew me within a block of the infamous Beguiling book store AND I had been trying to get my hands on a copy of Doug Tennapel’s new book “Power Up”… which I did:

By no means were these the only books in my hands but they are the ones that stayed in my hands (this time)…

I LOVE getting packages in the mail.  It doesn’t have to be a surprise either.  I ordered a couple of books online last week and coming home to see a BIG box sitting on my porch fills me with such excitement.  In fact knowing what was in it this time even made it more exciting.  Adding now to my currently 449 art book collection are these books (amongst one other that I ordered):

LOL… I can not express how inspirational Watterson’s work is to me.  Perfectly illustrated.  Funny.  Smart.  I know a lot of artists feel the same way.  It is a great day to finally get to say “I own that”

Speaking of inspirational … I was in the theater waiting to watch a movie called “Moon” (great movie by the way) when, in between two horrible country songs I heard what I thought was a song by Radiohead.  It turned out to be a group called Muse.  A song called “New Born” off their album “Origin of Symmetry”  … wow.  I was riveted to my seat and almost forgot to whip out my trusty iPhone and tag it with Shazam… later on that night I had the whole album.  The next day I lost track of how many times I let it play through.  Great music.  I will be making my way to the record store this weekend to pick up their entire discography.

… I JUST bought my first SLR camera! I am so excited to try my hand at photography. I found I really needed the ability to take my own high-res photos of textures for a recent job I was working on… and I had to settle on some images from the web… but never again… since I have this little puppy…

Just a month and a bit away and I am working feverishly on my very first sketchbook. Its a lot harder to do than I first thought… but I am sure there is a huge learning curve that is coming with it.

Moving up in the world of blogging… finally have my blog hosted on my own domain!

If you have not had a chance to check out my new site… please do. Many people have told me the old site was a bit hard to navigate. I hope with the new menu system things will be a bit easier. Let me know what you think.

(well for me anyway…) I am sitting here… typing this and looking at my trusty 3 year old Mac Mini… who is soon going to be getting the new job of becoming my web server. What a great little machine this little thing has been. I do not regret buying it. Anyone interested in a “starter” mac… I would highly recommend it.

I am almost done with sketchbook 18… and I have a ton of images to scan, clean and crop. I have uploaded a few with more to come.

So here are some screen shots of the layers I used while making this Amelie painting (so far)

I started off with a blue background and used an airbrush tool to block in the shapes. I adjusted the size and opacity of the brush throughout. Then I rotated the canvas just a bit to get the angle I wanted and set the layer to overlay

I needed to add some highlights and since the lightest blue on my painting wasn’t light enough for me, I created a new layer and laid down some transparent near whites… which brings you to the image I posted earlier.

***edit***

Just a small update on this image… I adjusted the position of the eye a bit:

My favourtie movie of all time…