A Creative Restart.
Restarting with my structure and direction.
Hello to you, and I hope your summer has gone well as we approach fall. If your new here, my name is Stephen and thank you for stopping by. The format of news letter while get ironned out in the next email as to sharing what I have been working on, school or art practice wise as well as write ups for things related to gaming, art, inspirations, etc. It’s been a little while since my last email, I know, life was being life. One life change happened with me back in school, taking 2 classes. I needed a bit more organization and a set schedule, as things have a way of coming up unexpectedly. This unfortunately meant less time for art recently, but that is a story for another day. It’s one day at a time with focused, consistent work.
Beginning with my primary area of study, this second go around for schooling is weilding. It’s a skill I have been meaning to learn,, but life had other plans. I am happy that now seems like God alighned it for this part of my life. I have a few pictures of the object I am testing a few techniques on. Micro adjustments, Safety and consistent, straight, overlapping weildings is the goal.
Since I am at school more, I thought, why not take another class that will help me as an artist. Web graphics and Animation was a good choice and partners well since weilding is extremely active process requiring different hand eye cordination. Animate brings me more inline with my artistic past. My thoughts on Adobe`s monthly subscrition model is not for me but have always enjoyed using there products since my High school Photoshop class. A few alternatives I am thinking of trying are Blender, Krita, and ClipStudio Paint, so I will let you all know how that turns out.
Lastly, on the back burner is, of course, the creative practice. The painting has slowed down since the last Greninja study i fought with. I eventually gave up trying to enlarge it, so I went back to the original sketch. On a side note, the new Mega Greninja design looks a bit on the obnoxious side with its huge water shuriken. Reading through its description on the official website, it makes sense why the shuriken is that large and why he is upside down. It’s growing on as time passes, though I have already thought of a few new concepts to rework this, inspired by Ash Greninja`s design, which i hope to slowly work through.
We will end the recap with a long-term project as I want to expand the art practice. It’s in the early stages, gathering inspiration and outlining what i need to study, but this is a direction i feel will add to my creativity. Scalping and crafting something uniquely me is going to be a challenge, but excited to see where this takes us and happy to take you all along for the journey.
This Pinterest Board: Portrait Study Reference
The 2 artists I am learning to paint Portraits from on YouTube. There is, of course, a wealth of knowledge out there that i will use, but I thought to have a point of reference as they explain the portrait creation process very well.
ChrisHongart: (1978) Chris Hong Art - YouTube
LironYanconsky: (1978) Liron Yanconsky - YouTube
We will end this first newsletter back as I think the month in review works for now, along with a Vi-doc, but we will see if lord permits. Alright, I hope you all have a great rest of the week, and will see you in the next newsletter.