Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays

I've been busy and I realized that I haven't posted in a while so here is a few images to fill the time between now and the next post.

Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays.

November Moon

I thought I'd share images of tonight's moon, I found it rather well placed above some trees. I shot this with my Samsung Galaxy Stratosphere with the night scene setting.

Still At It.

Been a bit preoccupied with life but I'm still at it, plugging away at a piece I'm temporarily calling the Queen of Spades. I thought I'd give a sneak peak at a prop within the piece.

Now I better get back to work on the piece, I've given myself the deadline of January 15th to get this piece completed. I feel like it's only sixty percent complete the character is nearly completed but now I need to build her environment. I better get to sketching.

Contests and Learning Experiences

I've been plugging away at artwork and trying to deal with everyday life, all the while trying to find the balance between the two. That being said I have found out that my entry for the Scribblenauts Contest http://angela-way.deviantart.com/art/Harley-Quinn-404798169 did not win. To me that isn't really a surprise or a let down, because for one I'm still learning and teaching myself to get to the skill level as the artists that did win http://moonbeam13.deviantart.com/journal/Scribblenauts-Unmasked-Winners-405958120 by not winning it teaches me I need to go back to the drawing board, yes I did intend for that to be a pun but it is also true an artist only gets better with better practice.

With my entry into the contest I just could not get into the background and at the last minute decided to go with an abstract background. Playing off of the diamond shapes on Harley Quinn's outfit and the white diamonds representing the Joker's smile. Lesson that I take away from this contest is even though a contest says all skill levels, you better make your piece stand out.

So I await the judging of another piece for Style Noir Magazine: http://angela-way.deviantart.com/art/Time-Keeper-400355008 I wish I had found a model that could schedule in time to make this piece look better however, I think I will be branching off of this idea for another piece later.

But I didn't stop there, in fact I entered Imagine FX's Rising Stars Competition, for which you had to enter 5 pieces that best represented you, I chose one new piece, and 4 others that I've shared on here. Roses are Red, which I edited to have a black background:

Diana Bathing, Green Milky Way, and Ascension were the pieces that I shared previously on here. Now as to the new piece this is where I was torn I made a Spacescape and I had been critiqued as focusing my art too much to the center of the page/canvas/screen to me this spacescape looked like I was still focusing to the center, but I couldn't let this piece just sit around. I liked it this way, and this is what I sent in to Imagine FX's contest: 

But I also liked it this way:

So I sent this one into The Artist's Magazine's All Media Art Competition. Now I know there are a few out there that would argue not to enter a competition if they charge a fee, which I highly recommend that you don't enter if there is a fee, so why did I spend the money on this competition? In the past I had entered poetry into a contest that targeted poets and schemed them out of money, which I am still infuriated with myself about because I didn't research before I entered, as Stephen King pointed out in his novel/memoir ON WRITING anyone can advertise in a magazine so long as they pay for the ad. I fell victim to this particular scheme of send us your poetry we'll publish it and you could win $$$. Sounded harmless so I entered no up front fee, just send in your poem, well here's where the scheme part rolled in. We liked your poem but in order for us to publish it please send us another and if you want a copy of the book we published your poem in, send us $$$. I became a semi-finalist and three poems later I realized if my poetry is so good and you keep asking for more why don't you just offer to publish me? Answer is short and simple, it was a vanity press. Why did I use the word scheme instead of scam in this described situation? Because when being schemed you don't have to pay anything you can just let the items they entice you with go. A scam they demand money be sent and that is why many people will tell you not to enter contests that ask for money up front. I will tell you from experience don't send money up front unless you have researched, researched, and researched until your butt cannot take any more sitting. In my case for entering The Artist's Magazine's contest and paying the fee, it was because I held the actual magazine in my hand at Barnes & Noble and inside the very issue in my hand was the contest rules and terms and the information matched the newsletter that I was sent via e-mail, and I haven't seen any bad press about this competition so I've sent in my entry and I will await the results.

2013 Fair Entries

This year I decided to enter into the fair on the last day that entries could be submitted to the Ashland County Fair. I had two entries ASCENSION and a more closely cropped print of HONEY I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE.


I'm happy to say that ASCENSION won 1st place.

"I wish the sun wasn't in my eyes."

Honey I heard it through the grapevine didn't place, but I'm happy with the results. On to the next competition.

KaleidoCamera App

I have a few apps that are worth the download to my smartphone one of which is the free app from the Google Play Store called KaleidoCamera. There are some things about it that I would like to see fixed, like the app likes to have one spot that is true color and then the rest of the image is darker than that spot, and the camera button icon disappears before I can focus on the image I want to capture half of the time, but as for an overall app it functions well and I'm having some fun with it. There is an image I'm working on where I need a patterned carpet and I've got a good feeling that this app will be of use for this sketch I have in mind. I've already gotten some beautiful images, and I wanted to share a few with you.

A Year and a Day

Yesterday marked the one year anniversary of me opening this blog, and I had wanted to post something to commemorate the moment, but I just couldn't decide what to share. I have many projects scattered about various corners of the house, more than one sketch pad in my backpack, multiple images captured on my camera phone, the beginnings of entirely new digital art pieces on my hard drive, but it's still not easy figuring out what to put on here and when. Some people carry journals around to write down their thoughts on the day well my sketchbook is more like a journal. The images in my head come from various encounters, dreams, random thoughts, the what ifs all tied into one journal entry. Some might wonder where the image of a man in armor fighting stone reptiles: Man It's What's for Dinner comes from or where a rose with petals shaped like skulls: Roses are Red may come from but that can be simply answered by the statement of, I see things differently. Man It's What's for Dinner started out from a Google image search, that's right I Google images, I had noticed that most of my artwork was beginning to focus on the female form and I didn't have enough male form based artwork so I searched for body builders. When I found a pose I liked I printed off the black and white image and used it as reference, instead of the body builder having the tight spandex briefs, that in the reference photo was obviously giving him a wedgie, I turned him into a gladiator. Roses are Red began as a what if I could turn a skull into a rose thought, so I found an image of a skull and used Photoshop to skew the skull into positions that would replicate the petals of a rose to serve as a template for me to use as reference. Once I got the sketch completed I got it into the computer and used Photoshop once again to airbrush the colors in.

What mostly matters is that inspiration comes in all forms and from anywhere and it is important to continue to pursue new sources and create what comes to mind. In one year and one day I have posted 48 entries and have gained an audience that continues to come back for more. I thank you for joining me on my journey and continuing to return as I continue to be inspired and learn new techniques. While I work on more sketches and pursue new reference materials I will share these photos:

Despair

This is a piece I'm considering for a writing project. I'm hoping that I can create enough poetry to go with some of my art pieces and vice versa. It's an ambitious project and will take me quite a chunk of time to complete, but various pieces of poetry and artwork for poems will make their way onto this blog, for example one of my previous entries LOVERS will be making it's way onto the manuscript pile.

This may or may not be the final image, I have a different image also created and I've been debating between the two, as to which one is the stronger representation for the poem. When I make my final decision I will make another post to share the journey of art and writing with you, but for now here is the initial rendering.

Despair

You can also now find some of my pieces like this one on deviantART: http://angela-way.deviantart.com/ this will be where you can purchase some of my pieces until I am able to print sizes larger than 9 X 12 and set up my amazon.com store. Or you can contact me through the e-mail on this site if you would enjoy owning an original art piece of mine.

Green Milky Way

I've been learning new techniques on how to create starry backgrounds out of the book EXTREME WORLDS drawing and painting sci-fi art by Francis Tsai out of the Impact series.

As part of a request on www.hitrecord.org calling for visual artists to create stars and galaxies I thought this would be a good trial for the new technique I've been using. The reason this image is done in shades of green and black is part of a story we are creating for the HitRECord on TV show on the new television network Pivot, it started with a story by a contributing artist roswellgray where she tells us how she is losing her sight due to being diagnosed with Retinitis Pigmentosa she was diagnosed as a child and is night blind and unable to see the stars the way that those of us not affected by this diagnosis, that the first time that she was able to see the stars was through night vision goggles. I'm not certain this is how she saw the Milky Way for the first time, but this is my interpretation.

Deadly Desire

I've been blocked lately not on ideas for projects, but more so on what to work on first and what to release next. Going back to my previous posts Roses Are Red and Concept Art I feel it is time to release the full piece that I am calling Deadly Desire:

Deadly Desire

Though it is difficult to see there is a small skull rose pendant being held by two skeletal hands around her neck. I used the pattern stamp brush set to black marble for the floor, walls, and alternate stairs, once that was set I used the pattern stamp brush set to white marble to fill in the remaining stairs for both marble settings I used the brush's Multiply blending option. For the gold tone I played with each layer's blending options using pattern overlay and color overlay and playing with the opacity of the overlays.

Hedy Lamarr

I was debating on whether or not to post this, leaning more toward not posting this portrait attempt. However, the more I continued to think on what I could do with this the more it grew on me and the fact that I am still learning how to use inks just reminds me that not everything is going to look right. I know what mistakes I made and I will be learning from them so that I can improve. When I began the black and white pencil sketch I was looking at an odd angle to the computer screen and what began as a sketch of Hedy Lamarr began to look more like Helena Bonham Carter, but instead of crumpling the sketch up and throwing it over my shoulder I took some advice from my high school band director, John Howell:

"If you're going to make a mistake make it look good. That way if anyone [points] says 'hahaha she made a mistake! [rubs chin] But it looked good.' "

So with that in mind, I took out the metallic colored generic permanent markers and went all out. After shading with the different colors it became a bit of pop art, but more of a likeness of Hedy Lamarr, not an exact match but I will make another attempt. Here is the current attempt:

Hedy Lamarr

Farmscapes

Here are some farm landscape pictures, while I work on some other projects.

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Super Moon and Sunset

I finally sat down and put the SD card in the card slot on my computer, to move pictures from my Samsung Galaxy Stratosphere smart phone. Here is an image of the Super Moon from my front yard, I used the Night scene option on the phone's camera I like how this shot turned out especially for a camera on a phone.

Super Moon

Today as I was leaving my grandfather's house I took some sunset photos a couple from his driveway, another at my neighbor's pond.

This shot was taken without the Sunset Scene Mode.
 I like how it picked up more of the pink, orange, yellow, and red hues.

This one was taken with the Sunset Scene Mode.

Sunset Pond

Step2 Fun And Sun Climber Sandbox (Google Affiliate Ad)

Vortex

I've been creating things quite as often as I can and recently, joined HitRECord.org and have been collaborating with fellow artists and writers. One of the collaborations I've been adding to is the Space Collaboration and this is one of my newest submissions.

VORTEX

http://www.hitrecord.org/records/1338122

Canon SX50 12.1MP Digital Camera with 50x Optical Zoom - Long Zoom Cameras (Google Affiliate Ad)

Illustrators of the Future Contest Entries

As I was promising I would share what I have long awaited for, alright so I really only had to wait 5 1/12 months but still that's 5 1/2 months of nail biting tension, these are my entries for the Illustrators of the Future Contest.

My first entry I titled  SORROW'S HOLD:

I chose to enter this pose instead of the other (see SORROW'S HOLD ALTERNATE POSE) after having some feed back from close friends, because of the story line associated with the picture. Where the previous pose showed more emotion this pose shows how close the angel came to falling for the man she fell in love with but their hands are just never connected.

My second entry titled BEST FACE FORWARD:

 

The original concept sketch can be seen on a previous blog entry, Concept Art, this is the finalized image and contest entry. For this one I am happy with the way it turned out her story is one of vanity, she had become so narcissistic that she was cursed to always have to put her face on in the morning using a special hand mirror and a paint brush.

My third entry titled ADAM AND EVE:

In high school my friends and I speculated, in Advanced Chemistry class, that human cloning had already occurred after we had heard on the news about the sheep named Dolly. As a bit of a tribute to that memory, where our hypothesis was that the cloned children would be named Adam and Eve, I decided to create a science fiction piece where kids were genetically created for space travel. Whether they created by older adult scientists or aliens is up for your speculation. I wanted the columns to represent DNA in silver, gold, bronze, and copper tones, I wanted a window of sorts, which would probably have to be a plasma polymer for long space journeys, and placed my Nebula in the window.


I didn't win this round but I have been encouraged to enter again so back to the drawing board.

Montello Wall Mirror (Google Affiliate Ad)

"Heard It Through the Grapevine"

I have a grapevine growing in the backyard, it's only a few years old, but I have modifications to do to its current setup. While looking at my grapevine to see how well it is doing I was delighted to find some visitors on my vine.

HONEY I HEARD IT THROUGH THE GRAPEVINE

YOUNG MANTIS















American Atelier Fresh Fruit Grape Pitcher (Google Affiliate Ad)

Ascension

It has been awhile since I posted a digital art piece, and since I recently completed one that I showed a character sketch of, in a previous post, (see Mermaids) I decided it was time to show what I am calling the completed piece.

I added bubbles to show her letting out a breathe as she began to surface and at the base of her one fin to make it look like she had just moved that tail. This is a mixed media piece as I created the mermaid using a Poser debut CG model and then added fins and colored in the sketch by hand then the rest was Photoshop CS6 with help from tutorials out of Photoshop Creative and Imagine FX magazines.

I would also like to thank Irene from Simply Beautiful's Facebook page for allowing me to download Star Gem as a reference photo.

Cartesian Indoor/Outdoor Fountain (Google Affiliate Ad)

Greenery

I took another walk around the yard trying to get a picture of myself for a profile picture and while I was out in the sunshine I found a couple of emerald gem shots I couldn't pass up taking.

This is one of the favorite trees on the property, it started out as 5 maple saplings that intertwined and grew into 1 tree, but two of them became diseased and had to be removed to save the rest of the tree. Unfortunately, it looks like fungi may be taking over another portion of the tree.

This is the same maple and it's neighboring maple.

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Walk In the Yard

Took a walk in the yard with my pug and found some great photograph moments, and captured them on my Samsung Stratosphere.

COCOON

SUN THROUGH THE DOGWOOD

VIOLET

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My First Ink Practice

Sorry it has been awhile since my last post, but I'm still working on art and waiting on contest results. I thought I would share my latest works I just got a pack of Faber-Castell 6 PITT artist pen, the basic color set, and Pigma Sensei 6 piece set of Manga Drawing pencil, eraser, and pens by Sakura. I've rarely used pens for artwork before, because ink is permanent and you have to be sure you want that color or that line there, but I am actually content with these practice pieces.

uni-ball Vision Elite Stick Micro Point Rollerball Pens, 8 Colored (Google Affiliate Ad)