wedding photography

I did some wedding photography on the side for a little while, thinking it was going to be fun...free reign to shoot people and places. It turned out to be one of the most stressful project I ever picked up. Not how I wanted to spend my weekends. I've only shot about 6-7 weddings and vow to never do it again.

plein air

Trying to get back to painting outdoors. I was given a 6x9 pochade box by a friend awhile back and I didn't even know what it was. After he showed me a few of his paintings, I was determine to learn how to paint. I then forced myself to paint a small painting a day for a complete year...an ambitious goal I have never achieved. I've managed a little over a hundred paintings until winter came around...bbuurrrr. I'll post some of those soon.

This particular painting was of a historical house in Pasadena early one morning. (It actually started to rain on me.)

water soluble oils on illustration board. hated to carry around turpentine.

life drawing

from the archives... charcoal on smooth newsprint.

Alien Girl

more stuff from the Drawing Club...the theme was Trekkie alien girl. Ink and cheap watercolor on very cheap cardstock.

Richard Schmid exercise

I was watching a demo on head painting by Richard Schmid (on VHS no less.) I've heard about him by many artists over the years but never had a chance to read or watch any demos. A friend finally let me borrow a tape. I decided to follow along using the photoshop, occasionally pausing on the model to catch up with him. I tried to let go of what I know and approached the painting as he did. It might not show in the painting but it was an interesting excercise and I think I've learn quite a bit from it.



Even though he was painting in oils, I thought some of the techniques translated on the computer. I used a dry medium brush with "other dynamics'' on to have the opacity set to pen pressure.



I also discovered that if I open another file to mix my colors, it's almost just like having a pallete in oils. I would drop in colors that I was used to in traditional paintings and mix them in that file. For instance, I 'squeezed' out some Alizarin Crimson and scumbled White and a bit of Yellow Ochre over it to get the skin tone. I just sampled my colors from there.



I would double check my values by occasionally toggling between the B/W and color mode.



There's alot of good things in the video, I highly recommend it.

funky fashion chick

Hand drawn then taken to Illustrator.

Yosemite Pics

View of Half Dome from Glacier Point. The tree in the foreground is actually 3ft. tall.


This is the view right as you enter the the Valley. It's absolutely breathtaking and far more majestic than any picture can capture. I've been here so many times but with each trip, I'd see a different perspective. I saw the light hit the trees earlier but had to wait for quite some time before I was able to take the pic.


Mist Trail