My watercolor, No.3 shaft house stairs, has been accepted into the Transparent Watercolor Society Annual national show! I usually throw in some opaque color and computer work to get the composition I want, but this one is pure transparent watercolor. The composition depicts my inner conflict of wanting to see what’s inside, and acting like an adult who doesn’t injure himself climbing an obviously dangerous structure. Copper mining website
Once I get an idea, I often create a Google sketchUp model and play around with shapes and configurations, spurring more ideas. I might spend time in Adobe Photoshop to flesh things out. As you can see from the final artwork in last weeks post, the computer is just a framework for the final piece.
I keep painting images of these towers on spindly columns, which would fall over within a day if someone attempted to build them. The idea came from a trip to Yellowstone, were I ran across a vein of columnar basalt along the road. Basalt is a volcanic rock that forms into hexagonal columns as it cools. The expose rock looks like a dense series of columns holding up a huge mass of rock. I like the scale and variety of textures, which I transformed into a row of towers, but I like the depth and uneasy balance created by seeing through the columns, hence the spindliness. I spend so much time drawing things that need to make sense in reality, that I purposely created something impossible.
Renaissance Gold wanted to use their logo (Getty Images), but add a holiday theme into it. I first created three snowman related ideas, than created the final in Autodesk 3Ds Max. I used reflections instead of shadows to keep the image dark, along with complimentary violet backlighting to make the gold stand out. I also able to make the Snowmen heat-resistant.
This is one of a series of three collages for the Psi Upsilon Fraternity at University of Illinois. We needed to insert as many recognizable portraits as possible, along with the fraternity house in back. As you can see from the collection of photos, developing a composition was quite a task. I created some depth and movement by starting with the right foreground sign, swooping around to the left, and back to the building. It seemed almost impossible when we started, but we got it done!
I created this image for a client that wanted it for a gift. The site has trees running rampant, and a common challenge is to prune and organize them to guide your eye to the house, while still giving a lush feeling.
Century Mine No.3 Hoist House I have been fascinated by the copper mines up in The Keweenaw Peninsula of Michigan, and this is my favorite one because it's the only one that's mostly wood. I love the exploded, deteriorated nature of it, including the fact that it's sitting quietly along a side road with no fences or signs. I mirrored the Hoist House tower on either side, because I love the repetition of it. I also enjoyed creating depth inside the big opening for the mine car.
