Art time.

Hello me hearties =)

Hope you all had a lovely christmas with a pile of presents under the tree? I for my part was glad when the next morning was there... xD

So... What I've got for you now are some WIP's =) I haven't been doing much these days due to the whole christmas hassle and all that sh** and having to work a bit besides that cause my boss is building up his own web page now... so ... yeah, but now I've got back cause I had one of these "I'll do one within the last days of the year" - painting ideas like with sleeping sun last year. So.. yeah, I'll probably finish it soon. Here are the pics:

First of them is a WIP of my current portrait... I'm coming forward very slow with this one cause it has so much difficult shading in the face -.- I'm wondering if I'll ever finish this one.

So much for now then =)

I wish you all a happy and healthy new year. Don't make too many resolutions, as I know it from myself I hardly ever keep them. ;) C'yall next year.

*vanishes*

P.S.: Do not forget lovelies, I do have a homepage now! :D And since yesterday there's aaaallll the old portrait stuff up in the gallery! So you can see how bad I was ago almost 10 years ^^ Have fun and spread the word: http://www.artrefugium.de

Houston, we're online!

Hello me hearties!

I have one big announement to make! 

My very own web page is finally all finished and online! :D It took a long long time and much patience but now it's done! Please come in and have a look around!

http://www.artrefugium.de

You can find yet unreleased photos there, tutorials, videos, journeyblogs ... =) Hope y'all like my page :D

Do not be deceived btw by the .de - domain name. I had to do this because the .com was already taken ...

A big fat THANK YOU goes out to my boss who made the database beneath the page and puzzled together the template. He had a load of patience with me while I was partially very very impatient. 

So... yeah, click and see if you can find something useful for you =)

*vanishes*

P.S.: I now installed a working guestbook plugin and a visitor counter x) Everything's complete now :D

Tools of the trade.

Hello me hearties =)

So short before christmas I decided to finally take that big photo of all my materials I've got here and do a little material tutorial. Hope it's helpful for some of you. If you've got questions - feel free to leave a comment or write me, I will try to help as good as I can =)

So here we go:

1) My beloved Derwent Graphic pencils. Grades 9H to 9B.

About grades: pencil leads consist of a graphite + clay mixture. The more graphite, the softer the pencil and the darker the abrasion is. The more clay, the harder the pencil. From 6H on - in my eyes - you can use those pencils only for technical drawings.

2) A 120 piece box of Faber Castell Polychromos.
I love them but haven't found much use for them yet cause I still need to practise... (Btw if you notice that glitch on the upper side of the 3 parts of the box... this was Microsoft ICE's fault... :-/ haven't got them twice xD)

3) Acrylic colors. The big bottles are from Schmincke, the small ones from ALDI.

4) Acrylics again. A collection of all sizes and kinds of tubes, most of them aren't used anymore... ^_^° The bigger ones are from Schmincke, the clear ones are from REWE I think and of the rest I don't know anymore where I got them...

For Acrylics: They're a mixture of pigments and an acrylic polymer emulsion. The cheaper the paint, the less pigments are contained. Still you can buy cheap stuff as well, they're good for doing areas where the underground has to shine through. 
Acrylics are water soluble - means you don't have to poison yourself with toxic solvents. There's also a lot of effect, thicking and thinning addition stuff for them out there so the possibilities with acrylics are endless.

5) Schmincke Watercolors.

6) Drawing tools... From top to bottom:

   - Paper stomps in all sizes
 For smudging in pencil drawings. They're good for details. If they get too dirty, use a nailfile and file the dirt off. If they're REALLY dirty, get a crapet knife and cut off the dirt.

   - A mechanical pencil
They come in several grades, just as pencils themselves. They're awesome for doing details in beards and hair.

   - Faber Castell Eraser pencils
Perfect for erasing small detais such as highlights on hair

   - Different erasers, a grey one from Faber Castell, a white one and a kneaded eraser, also from Faber Castell

You can trim the grey erasers to sharp edges to erase light hair with it. The kneaded eraser is great for lighting up areas that got too dark or erase details such as stuff in hair. 

   - White gel pens
 For highlights in eyes and metal pieces etc where you can't reach complete white with erasing-

   - A jumbo 8B Faber Castell pencil
Love to use it for bigger black areas..

   - A 9B graphite stick, also by Faber Castell
Usually just used by me to make graphite powder by sharpening it

7) Graphite powder in a small glass and pencil sharpener
Graphite powder is awesome. Dip a paintbrush into it and start painting with it or make a smooth background. You can make it yourself or buy it in art supply stores.

8) A big brush for big canvases and backgrounds and doctor's Q-tips for smudging in pencil drawings
I chose to get those Q-tips with the longer wooden stick because normal ones just weren't made for my chubby fingers..

9) Masking tape (cheap stuff from ALDI) to tape my future portraits 'n stuff.
Discovered that lately. I wanted to get straight edges and neat white frames on my pictures so I told my sister to bring me masking tape :D

10) Paintbrushes. A load of them. One can never have enough paintbrushes in my eyes x)
Not much to say here. Just so much - the white haired synthetic brushes are awesome for acrylics. I tend to use more synthetics these days cause normal paintbrushes are made of animal hair and I don't want any animal to die for my art.

11) Fabriano Accademia paper.
The best stuff for portraits, really. The blue labeled blocks are 120g/m² (56 lbs), the green ones 200g/m² (94 lbs). I recommend to not use the 120g/m² for things where you need to get deep black spots because it gets wavy then. Better use the thicker one.

12) Stabilo liners in several colors, silver gel pens, blender pencils, a silver Faber Castell Pitt artist pen, a black Edding marker, a Faber Castell broadpen in black, and a classical Online fountain pen
For doing all kinds of stuff... details, writing, signing...

13) My beloved Canon CanoScan5600F scanner
Not much to say either, just: I love it and can highly recommend it. It has an incredible sharpness so I can even scan canvases with it. It comes with a scanning program where you can adjust just EVERYTHING.

14) The chaos under my table... Art folders, more paper of all sorts, small things such as corks, stickers, more paintbrushes, beads and all kinds of stuff.

15) Glow-in-the-dark paint and Schmincke masking fluid
The glow paint can be mixed to a certain grade with white paint before it loses its ability to glow... For the masking fluid - always have an eye on it, the last bottle dried in due to unknown reasons... and never leave it on your paper for more than 2 days. Better not use it on canvases and any surface that sucks moisture in.

So... yeah ^^ All I know for now in short form. There will be an even more excessive tutorial on my upcoming web page =) 

So far, have happy holidays and many presents beneath the sparkling tree =)
*vanishes*

Wow.

Is it already christmas? Why I'm asking? Well, today I got a new wire for my router. I've now put it over to the window and the connection didn't fail anymore for over 4 hours now. Besides that, my monitor problem is also gone (I guess it were interferences from the router which was standing right beside it before..) ... Finally some things work :D At last. I had enough trouble the last week... first a big family row and then being ill having to take heavy antibiotics... but now I'm all back =) Just need to adjust my sleep-wake rythm now. 

What belongs to the art department I'm not doing much atm due to my illness last week and because I'm awake at daytime which makes it impossible for me to do art because I hate people gazing over my shoulder asking "what'cha doing?" ... Still, I've got a few WIP's for you from my current project =)

Had some problems with the hair strands in the face and they're not totally right but eh, whatever...Probably gonna try to correct it. if it won't work I'll leave it like this. I know he's gonna like it anyway :D

Meh... and I've thought I've beaten the monitor devil but it starts flickering again ... seems the router wasn't the cause... opening a window to cool that pc box down -.-

*vanishes*

Art, art and ... art.

Hello me hearties =)

I'm full back in doing what I usually do. I started a new portrait to inaugurate my new Derwent pencil set =) The portrait is one that I wanted to do since a few months now. Here are some WIP's:

This time taped like a pro cause I want a neat white area around the pic. I might even get  a frame for it when it's finished. I try to get that awesome facial expression right but it's actually not as easy as I thought it would be. Still I think this will be one of my best works when it's done x) Probably I'll even show it to the model... ^_^ <3 I've got no title for it yet but I think it will be something special since this person is kinda special to me.

Btw here are the pencils I got lately :D I love them, I keep opening and closing the box just to look at them *_*

I have to get a bit adjusted to them, dunno but drawing with derwent pencils is different to faber castell xD Maybe it's only illusion and my head tells me that but I feel it is like this. 

Also - I lately discovered a new way to get great, smooth graphite surfaces in a walkthrough I found online. You simply need graphite powder and a bristol paintbrush and / or a kitchen sponge ... dip your paintbrush / sponge into the powder and work it onto the paper until you're satisfied. I still need a little practise but this method is great :D

 

So much for now =) C'yall :D

Review time.

Hello me hearties,

I got a very cool early christmas present yesterday and now have watched and heard it completely. So I thought I write a review about it x)

It is: "Showtime, Storytime" by Nightwish - the nuclear blast mailorder edition.

It comes in a noble looking "book" ... as I think that this was meant in the description saying "book" .... There's high gloss black cardboard inside which contains the CDs / DVDs and the extras that are:

- 12 high quality photo cards

- a (printed) setlist

- an "access all areas" - pass (which will be of no future use I guess xD)

- a certificate (I've got number 832 out of 1000)

- an autograph card (sadly printed too. At least here I would've expected original autographs since this box is limited to 1000 pieces... but whatever, I've got enough of them ^^°)

Also sadly, that high gloss cardboard catches ugly fingerprints very fast that are hard to remove ... :( 

For the media content:

- The concert still is catching me, waking up some memories. Floor does her job very well, better than expected while hearing the record first before watching the DVD. I think they'll reach totally new levels with this woman as singer.  She's still got some dents here and there but I am sure that will fix with time.

- The documentary ... hm well. My mind is splitted. At some parts I'm just thinking "actors!" ... And it's clearly visible that they had trouble editing the material so that Anette is not to be seen. All in all it's nothing really new in the north. 

So at the end I think I'll give it 4 out of 5 stars because of that fingerprint - catching design and the questionable documentary. The rest is cool. And my DVD - drive is slowly dying T_T 

So far from me, cy'all :)

So much to do, so little time.

Hello me hearties =)

The giveaway is over, the 2 winners are chosen ... I will send out the pics within the next days then.

I also finished another piece of my nightwish paintings lately. It's for "Taikatalvi" and more of a speedie... but see yourself =)

And the other thing - so I found this song online which immediately reminded me of south pole and polar ice deserts ... so I decided to start a totally new project. I'm doing a video. Shooting around the area here, putting it together with the song and let it work. Here are the first 4 official pics for it :) 

I really wanna bring over the feeling how cold it is but at the same time show the beauty of the area where I live.. hope I will make it. Needed to borrow the cam of my parents because mine doesn't wanna eat that light anymore... -.- Got me a 16 GB memory card now because that 2 GB that's in there only eats 10 minutes of filming and that's simply annoying. 

Another thing - I'm at the moment searching the internet to learn new stuff about drawing ... I always get kinda jealous when I stumble upon people who've been at art schools such as that one in Florence ... I'm a poor mouse and can't afford the sums they want there so I need to search and teach myself...
So lately I found this walkthrough that's using a sponge and paintbrushes to get smooth graphite areas ... I now tried that myself and am positively surprised. Been searching for a way to do this for ages and now finally have a solution :D I'll in general try now to get a bit more into the traditional technique stuff and all that because there's so much stuff I am not able to do simply due to a lack of the technique needed for it... hope I can solve this problem and surprise you with better artworks in the future =)

Yeah, so far for the news.. I'll keep you up to date what belongs to my winter project and stuff =) 
Cya next time.