New Pics

Hello all, not too much new too report here besides the 3 paintings I finished up this weekend.  All three of them are watercolor paintings done on cold press paper and are a mixture of different techniques.  The painting of the Flash is part of my "Everyday"(tentative title) series and 5 prints will be available for purchase at Phoenix Comicon.  The Ms. Marvel painting will also have 5 limited prints as well.  See you soon, hopefully with some more painting in progress images...

FCBD

Free Comic Day was awesome at Drawn to Comics yesterday! I was crazy busy for the 4 hours I was there drawing free sketches for the kids and adults out there. Thanks again to Ken Brown for inviting me and giving me a spot next to my table mates Mike DeBalfo and Jacques La Grange, it was great talking shop with them amongst the craziness.

New Stuff! FCBD! Math?

Hello everyone, here is this week's nonsensical ramblings-
First up, I finished up my latest watercolor over the weekend and here is the final scan of it... the scan is not perfect, they still seem to wash out the lighter colors and also add some strange textures to the image that are not in the actual painting.  However, these are only in a few small areas so I'm not going to worry about it that much.

Ms Marvel in Public 2012 watercolor, hot press paper

  The whole idea I have for this picture and for the rest of the series of paintings is based off the fact that I wanted to keep drawing super heros but I wanted to portray them as normal people doing the normal mundane things and routines that we have in our everyday lives.  I wanted to make these paintings as fine art rather than the graphic qualities we have today in normal comics.  Why?  I just want to do something different with the characters I love in different situations and mediums that I rarely see used now a days.

I also have been working on a few other ideas recently and it has to do with adding some math into my art... wait, huh?  I'm honestly the last person you ever want to ask about math, I'm sure I couldn't even pass math 055 at CMU right now.... but anyways, what I'm doing is as old as art itself or at least from the Renaissance period or so for painting.  I'm going to try to incorporate the Golden Ratio with a special focus on the Golden or Fibonacci Spiral into my work.  Look it up, it's way too much to type.  Wiki it...  Anyways, spirals have so much movement and are very aesthetically pleasing to me so I will be drawing my normal basic forms but there will be spirals creating the whole of my compositions.  I blame all of this on the band TOOL.  I've always loved them and recently I've really been listening to the interesting time signatures  and lyrics they were using in Lateralus and 10000 Days and it got me thinking about Fibonacci, art and life in general and now here we are... Here is a practice drawing I did the other day that has the general idea but without all of the measurements(which I'm sure I probably won't do perfect, because I'm lazy) or ideas I have for the backgrounds...

india ink, pencil on paper-  the hair will especially have all of the spirals the future images... does this one?  only in a few areas.  this is VERY rough btw...

     

I will also be at Drawn to Comics on Free Comic Book Day (May 5th) with a bunch of amazing artists so check it out here-  www.DrawnToComics.com

What I've been up to... Practice

Thats right, I've been practicing with my art techniques.  Nothing special, just trying to fix little things that i tend to mess up often in my art work, correct anatomy, especially hands (which are still a work in progress) and perspective.  Really exciting stuff, I know, but they are essential in professional art and if I keep slacking I'll never get to where I want to be...  So I've gone back to the basics when in reality I should be getting some really nice fancy art done for the Phoenix Comicon next month.  However, I'll find a way to cram in a couple of cool pictures for prints last minute as always.  Anyways, here are some of my practice images that I worked on mostly at work, a conte crayon drawing and a big painting that is a work in progress and still needs a little more work.

watercolor, hot press paper, this one is about halfway done, time for the little details.

more drawing at the job, took about a 30 minutes on this one, the shoulders and delts need some work but I may turn this into a more finished piece.

 

conte crayon, i haven't used these things in forever!  Love them but it is so different from using the old lead holder.

hulk practice, and the hands still suck but mostly due to the foreshortening of his massive right forearm.  Just needs some tweaks if I turn this into a more finished piece.

Buddha Monkey Print fund

Hello everyone,

Just a quick plea tonight for donations.  One of my artist groups, Speakeasy Primates, is trying to get our 1st three issues of the comic Buddha Monkey printed in color.  I supplied the pencils to issue #2 and I would love to see my work in color print!  The actual goal is fairly small in comparison to some of these other kickstarter campaigns out there so any contribution will be much appreciated.  Please check out this website for the information on how to donate as well as the amounts that will get you special items/art.

http://www.indiegogo.com/buddha-monkey

A few more pictures

Lately I've been playing around with the old watercolors and it has been hit and miss with the results.  It's been hit and miss because I've been experimenting with a new type of paper and I just tend to ruin things the more they don't turn out the way they were supposed too in my head.   The new type of paper I've been using is hot press watercolor paper instead of the cold press, which I've been taught to use with an iron fist for watercolor since I first starting taking classes for it 20 years ago.  The 1st two images are quick paintings I did of my daughter.  The first one is on hot press paper (140lb) and was finished in about 20 minutes.  The wet into wet technique and the dry brush work both responded well and my only complaint is that wet into wet is MUCH harder to control because the paper is so smooth. The major plus is because of the smooth paper you lose none of the images quality in the scan process. The second painting is on cold press paper (140lb as well) and it reacted just like I always remembered, the water goes wherever you want (for the most part) because of the slight texture in the paper.    So besides a few mistakes I made with her hair I really liked how this one turned out.  It is too large for a scanner so thats why I have a photo of it in it's frame.  However, the cold press images I have scanned tend to seem a shade lighter than if you were looking at it in person and I'm not sure if it's because of the textured paper or my old scanner just sucked.  Both paper stocks still warp at 140 lb so you have to get them under a flat surface with heavy weight after painting or you are stuck with the warped paper.  If you try to fix it after it has set a couple of days you take the chance of getting creases and they look much worse.  The second image is the first relatively big watercolor painting I've done in about 4 years and they just seem to be getting better... oh wait, I haven't gotten to the giant mess up at the bottom of the post yet.  

       The 3rd image is the inside of my new sketch book, I just decided to mess around with some markers and color pencils and I sort of liked the results. 

 So the last one... this thing has been annoying me for about 2 weeks now.  I've even painted over it some more   since this photo was taken (and have yet to fix it.. it seriously looks terrible now).  I've been trying to get a more classical look in my work and this is the perfect example of why not fully planning out a painting will 90% of the time just completely screw up any possibility of it being any good. The other 10% is that time when free form experimentation just truly works and you make something that is just amazing... then you just kill yourself to try and repeat it( this is for me, other artists out there are the opposite.  I have to plan to my skills).  Medusa is lost in the curtains... the curtains just look terrible in general, they were a last second addition.  I wanted this thing to have stark contrasts of light to dark with the characters popping out with the bright/ darker images and the background being kind of this off white marble look... then I added those curtains...  I just thought they would make it look more like a throne room... oh well.  I may fix it or re do the painting, or just call it a learning experience and move on.  

So it's time again for this years Phoenix Comicon Badge Art Contest.  I entered both the Batman and Batwoman paintings that I recently posted online in the past few posts.  If you haven't voted already you can go to phoenixcomicon.com  and click on the badge art contest.  You can vote once and like a painting by facebook log in or by creating a membership with the convention, which allows you to vote everyday on 5 images that you like.  Here are the links directly to my work if you wish to vote.

Phoenix Comicon Badge Art Contest - Batman Arkham City. By Matt Goodallphoenixcomicon.com

http://phoenixcomicon.com/badge_art/voting_detail/156

I'm not sure if that second one is going to work... but I'm note happy with it anyways.