Category Archives: painting

Building habits

 

Portrait of Callan, by SpAE - digital 2017
Callan
Digital, 2017

I recently discovered I miss blogging, or at least that doing things on the blog isn’t as scary as I remembered it to be.

One of the goals I’ve set for myself lately is to do more finished paintings, as opposed to the many – and extremely useful – rougher studies that I’ve mainly been posting on instagram. This painting isn’t exactly finished, but it’s as close as I’m going to get for now. So far I’ve been pretty successful all year with my goal to draw something once a day (posting those daily drawings – not so much). This portrait was completed in Clip Studio Paint, which is a change for me as I normally prefer painting pieces like this in Corel Painter. The Carp, a painting I did this year that I somehow managed to forget about, was painted mostly in Painter until my computer had a fit, the file corrupted, and I finished everything in Clip Studio Paint.

The Carp - by SpÆ 2017 - spaemakesart.com
The Carp
Digital, 2017

So. More regular painting, experimenting with new production methods and – in the background – I’m working on a few comics. It’s been a while since I wrote my own comics, without a theme or a concept ordered by someone else, so this feels a little like starting from scratch again. Now that I’m thinking of blogging again, it feels like I’ll have a legitimate excuse not to do so so often!

Wantonly, Paradise

Wantonly, Paradise Digital art, 2013
Wantonly, Paradise
Digital art, 2013

New post! I’ve been working on a few new things, but saving them all up…sadly, this means not much to show in between. I’ll be posting up the framed print and the story of this piece soon. She was fun to work on!   UPDATE: I’ll be exhibiting this piece as part of the CCAS Annual Members Show for 2013. The show’s theme is wonderful, immoral, tempting and terribly satisfactory – and I really can’t think of a better way to express that than by having magical powers and using them to remorselessly turn people I dislike into ice-cream. Maybe this piece got a little bit too deep inside my head. The framed print (with a special addition to the frame) will be available for sale. I’m also planning on selling prints of this at other sizes after the exhibition. x

The Magpie Bridge

The Magpie Bridge Digital, 2013
The Magpie Bridge
Digital, 2013

Over the weekend, I completed Nathan Fowkes’ Designing with Color and Light course at Schoolism. (Mini review: it was fantastic and I would absolutely do it again – the big thing I’d do differently is save up for the full feedback version, rather than the self-taught!) This is one of the portfolio pieces I completed, working from a value study, through about fifteen different colour iterations and finally to this. One of the best parts was ploughing through the Hubble Telescope space image archive and admiring some beautiful photos of stars and galaxies.

EVENT: ACA Exhibition at Top Ryde City

Hello Sydney-siders and people visiting Sydney from late August to early September!

I’ll be exhibiting at the Australian Cartoonists’ Association Exhibition at Top Ryde City from 24 August  to 7 September. I’ll be exhibiting GUILT, IFRIT and some pages from Sweet-NV iss 1.

Unfortunately I can’t confirm when I’ll personally be at the event. But my art will be there the whole time. As well as the illustrations and comics of many other incredibly talented people. Have a look!

 

In the mean time, life has been finding other ways to keep me busy. I’ve managed to scrape aside a little time for projects, but I’ve been keeping busy with doing a few five minute colour studies every day. Here’s some of the latest:

Digital, 2013. Each timed to 5 minutes
Digital, 2013. Each timed to 5 minutes
Digital, 2013. Each timed to 5 minutes.
Digital, 2013. Each timed to 5 minutes.

These are kind of the 2013 version of the Monday Night Lifedrawing sessions I used to do, only with a completely different focus! All of these images are referenced, and all timed to 5 minutes. At the moment I’m focusing on colour and value, but I really need to get mood working too.

For regular updates of the 5 minute studies, check my sketchblog.