New Painting!

This is a horrible photo, since it's too large to scan I just took a cell phone pic (and I've got an old phone, back when they only put 1 megapixel in a camera phone ^_^)
I'm really happy with how this turned out, and had a lot of fun drawing it and painting it. I'm getting a lot faster at drawing up things and kind of having more fun because of it.

Been getting a lot of shit for liking traditional. I really don't care. I have never knocked on some one for specializing in something that isn't traditional. I don't plan to ever do so, either. To be honest, I really don't care. Some one told me when I started my apprenticeship that I can do what I like- if you like portraits, do portraits, if you like new skool, do it. If you want to specialize in traditional, fucking specialize in traditional.

All I know is that I have more fun drawing traditional, I like the way it looks, I like that it's classic, and there's a simple look to it, although it's complex in a way, and has a great deal to do with composition. Clean lines. It's not the same imagery over and over again, like most people think. You can take any image and make it traditional. And from what I've found out, the assholes that dog on me for liking this style, will admit it's only because they don't understand it.

Ok I'm done ranting.

More paintings soon. Cause it's what I like to do. And I'll probably keep doing it.

How to improve just about anything by layering yellow!

I thought it might be fun to write out a little walk through for this post. This is a painting, one of our 30 in 30 collabs Nick and I have been working on. He drew this up and started it, so now I get to finish it up.

I was explaining this little trick to Kelsey one day, and it's something I just about religiously do. It works great with your greens and especially browns! It's so easy to make anything that's brown come to life by layering over a little yellow at the end.

This is the before picture, with no yellow in the leaves/legs. It's pretty simple...


For this, I used Dr Martin's watercolor instead of FWs. If you use Dr. Martin's, just dip your brush in the paint, then brush over the entire area. If you're using FWs, I will usually dip in the paint, then do a quick dip in your water cup to dilute the paint a bit, then brush over the entire area.

If you don't brush over the ENTIRE area, it'll leave choppy paint lines. you want to wet the entire area for each color you add. This is important, but I'll go over that maybe sometime later.


I brush over the entire area here, starting at the tip, then right into the green and over the black. Over the ENTIRE AREA. You can do this, I know Dr. Martins are smudgy and annoying, but you can STILL do layering when you paint.


This is the end result. You can see that the leaves are brighter, and prettier. :) Next time I'm painting something with brown, I'll do another walk through, because it's so so so worth the extra step to do this same thing with your browns. They'll look richer, and less mucky!


I'll post the finished painting in the next couple days with some more collabs! Hope this was somewhat helpful, I'll do a few of these walk through tips every once in a while.

Collabs...Again...

We are nearing the end of 30 in 30, just a few more left to do! Then I can focus on a few things I've been keeping in the back burner. I will try to always update this blog with whatever project I have going on. Usually I'll start about 10 things at once, so I don't get too burnt out on any one thing. But, naturally, I just end up procrastinating. So, needless to say, I've got many many many unfinished paintings stashed away in my apartment.

Also! I've decided to do a convention with Nickhole in January! Surf and Ink in Australia. Check her out at nickholetattoos.com She has become some one I look up to and respect in the tattoo industry. She's a no nonsense type of gal, and I dig that shit. She's very passionate as well. She's just awesome man.