Creativity Post 13

I decided to do something totally different than I have ever done before this week. I've obviously taken some inspiration from Jackson Pollock with the whole splatter painting technique. But I also feel really good about this painting because it's the first time I've ever painted something that was absolutely 100% done without looking at something else as a basis. I love the abstract feel of the painting and I think it looks pretty darn good if I do say so myself. I think I got pretty creative here. This ideas for this one just kind of came to me as I went along. I first put down a thick black stripe across the middle. That's all I knew I wanted at first. The light blue came down as a sharp contrast and as the lines got closer together, I liked how the white stripes looked so I left them. I looked for colors that would look good in contrast with black and blue. Red was first and it turned out well but I could tell it needed a little something more. I applied some white splatter lines and spots and I just knew I was done. This is one of my favorites for sure.

Creativity Post 12

I thought that I'd show a little more of the process in this post. As an artist, my "roots" have always been in black and white pencil sketches. I only started painting last semester but I've been doing pencil drawings my whole life. I remember back to my elementary school days having a great love for sketching like this and I still feel that way now. Because of my history and tendencies as an artist, my painting kind of relies on my drawing as a sort of crutch. I always sketch out what I want to paint first in pencil and then paint over it. I can paint pure paint if I really want to but it's never quite as good as when I stick to this process. Closing in on the end of the year I'm feeling a little nostalgic and wanted to do another version of the UGA Arch. The last one was dark and almost a little spooky. With this one, I think I'm going to go for the complete opposite and make it very bright. Sunshine, blue skies, the whole nine yards.

Creativity Post 11

One aspect about becoming a better painter is improving specific skills. Aside from the fact that I love Peanuts, I wanted to paint this picture so I could practice my color blending/transitioning. Making a consistent transition of white at the horizon up to a royal blue at the top of the sky was pretty difficult, much more than I had imagined anyway. To do this, I mixed a series of different shades of blue. I painted white at the bottom and the blue that I already had at the top. I then painted a section of each mixed blue that I had in between. I used broad strokes to mix the wet paint on the canvas to make it look more consistent. The trees and clouds offered some obstacles to the blending but it worked out. I feel much more comfortable with this specific skill now that I really spent time to concentrate on it.

Creativity Post 10

Wanting to do more simple paintings led me to this one. I can't really say why I like this painting so much. I just do. It's definitely a blend of the color scheme along with the challenge of painting the female face. I think this is an example of an image where less is really more and maybe that's what I like about it. Aside from taking forever to try and not let the female look like she had a lazy eye, the other huge challenge was to get a consistent blue over the entire background. That ended up being a lot more difficult than I had anticipated. I think I might lean towards doing some more minimal works in the future.

Creativity Post 9

After the stretch of really elaborate paintings I did for a while, I'm liking getting back into simpler images. Here's a rendition of the Batman symbol inspired by one of the original Dark Knight trailers that came out in the summer of '07. The image itself is pretty simple. The shape is basic. The painting itself comes together as a whole through the lighting effects. That was the difficult part. This was one of those paintings that I kept on having to do part of and then go across the room to look at from far away. I kept needing to readjust the colors over and over again to get it just right and make sure that it was balanced as a whole. In the end, I'm very happy with how it turned out.

Creativity Post 8

Here's the finished version of last post's painting. I used a lot of subtle strokes and shapes. Along with the shapes and lines I specifically drew, I used some layering and shading to give a feeling of depth in certain parts throughout. I really wanted to go for a kind of uneasy feeling. As compared to the last post, I really think that the black shapes and lines make it look more disconnected. The idea that this is something that has familiar images in an unfamiliar context also makes the viewer unsure of what to think. I think this turned out pretty well.

Creativity Post 7

For this week I wanted to try something a little different. This is not done yet but it's getting there. I liked the idea of doing something that was a little less colorful or rather only used a couple colors. This will look different but by the time it's done but everything will be derived from a mix of black or white. I also wanted to do something a little more abstract just to see how it would turn out. I'll post again when this is finished.

Creativity Post 6

Here's the finished product. One challenge I faced here was using less black on the face and hands. I typically use a lot of black and it creates a more cartoon like effect. In this case I was going for more of a realistic look and was challenged to find ways to paint the hands and face without it. I came up with several color blends of gray and skin tone colors as well as a new technique I just came up with which is creating lines or shade with a pencil and then painting over it. The lead smudges and can't be discerned as being pencil drawn but just looks like another shade of paint. This also helped me to be more detailed with the fine point of the mechanical pencil. All in all, this turned out really well and I was very happy with it.

Creativity Blog 5

I'm working on this painting for an auction to help the Georgia crew team. It's on a much larger canvas than I normally work with so it's taking me quite some time to get through. I've put somewhere between 10 - 15 hours in what you see so far. There's an interesting question that's raised here about artist's rights and so on. I was watching something that talked about taking an image and changing it and whether or not that gave the new artist the rights to it or not. This might be a case where the new image is not changed quite enough from the existing one. But I did try to exercise my creativity by substituting the Superman emblem for something new. I'll post back later with an update on my progress.

Creativity Blog 4

This might be my favorite painting that I've ever done. My big struggle has been that I have to look at things to paint and that can be seen as a lack of creativity. Laney had the great idea that I could paint still lifes or to reproduce scenes from life rather than reproducing images. I think it's a great idea and that it makes me feel a little more justified as an artist who is not just ripping off other artists but doing something a little more creative and original. I'm really happy with how this turned out.

Creativity Blog 3

So far my creativity is kind of taking the route of me learning to take liberties with the way I paint. This is a painting of The Flash, a fictional character who possesses super speed. There was a very basic picture that I looked at to get the general idea of what I would paint. The liberties that I took were in how I would make him look fast. A lot of the streak lines and shadow lines that give the illusion of speed were personal decisions. I thought this was a good idea for me because they were kind of free form. It's not like the human face where people know what to expect when they look at one. People don't always know what they expect to see when something is moving at "light speed" so that helped me to be able to have a little more freedom in the way I painted this.

Creativity Blog Week 2

I know that the transition to me becoming a more creative painter is one that has to come in small steps. The basic step that I've taken here is with colors. I did the outlines first and had the basic idea of what colors would be where. Normally I pay very close attention to exactly where colors transition and how much intensity and hue they have in the original and so on. With this painting, I took more liberty than I have before. I did a lot of broad strokes and just kind of did what I thought looked good rather than to have to keep referencing something else. I think it looks pretty good.

Post 1 - Week of January 21st

Earlier this school year I tried out painting for the first time in my life. Well almost the first time. I had painted in art classes as a child and a little while building models when I was young. This was the first time I had ever taken a serious approach. I came to find out I was pretty good. I finished the bottom panel in this painting this week. There's still work to be done but I definitely am pleased with how it is coming along.
I chose this as my creativity focus because my biggest problem as a painter is a lack of creativity. I consider myself to be a great painter as far as realism is concerned. However, anything past that is a real stretch for me. It's tough for me to find inspiration. It's incredibly hard for me to paint things that are not based on real objects or people. I can hardly paint without looking at something. My eventual goal is to be a halfway decent abstract artist or to employ other styles of art like impressionism or modernism and to come up with my own ideas. We'll see how all that goes.