Preparation

Finished cropped thumbnail\sketch

Next month is the Fall Arts Festival. I am preparing my entry for the art show. The secret series I am working isn't ready to be revealed yet, so I decided to work on and submit something else. A bear portrait. There is a story behind it, which I'll share along with the final product on opening night.

Even when I work with traditional mediums at some point of the process I incorporate digital elements. Hence mixed media artist. Some people get all finicky that digital artists aren't "real artists" it depends. With anything there are skilled people in their craft and not so skilled. I pride myself in my digital manipulation does not look "photoshopped" but looks natural and un-tweaked with. ;]

There are a lot of cool things happening for the Taos Fall Art Ferstival Paseo. It's pretty neat and when the time gets closer I'll post event times and such.

Everyone has a different way of doing things and one of these days I'll be more detailed in my process. Even how I print large format with one of my home printers.

I draw relatively small. Thanks to modern technology and my photo manipulation skills I can adjust a sketch to whatever size I want without losing quality.

I wasn't sure how long I was going to take but the sketch took less than 20 minutes.

Was watching tv Game of Thrones S7, generally the episodes are like an 1hr long. Totally preparing

and gearing up for this to take longer. Wasn't sure if it was going to be one of those episodes where

I could't take my eyes off the screen or the fact I haven't drawn animals in awhile.

Turned out the episode was a slow paced talking one and the sketch was done pretty quick.

Although I drew the whole bear's body, I knew I wanted to focus on the Bear's face. It would be wonderful to paint the entire
bear, at this moment I don't have time to do all that. In photoshop I played with the composition of the image .

Illustration board cut to custom size and taped to a board.

Got an early birthday present! from Blick. This past week.

My mom let me get what I wanted!

She's so awesome.

One of the things I choose was a marker airbrush system. Haven't used it yet

because some assembly is required and *sigh I'm no good with

cords and building stuff.

The battery did not come included. It's like half the price of the machine itself.

For now its all plug in action.

Fun fact:

If I was born a day later I would of been a Virgo.

But my astrological sign is a Leo.

I don't believe in horoscopes 100% Sometimes they are quite spot

on with compatibility with the types I get myself in

trouble with and interesting things happen

and other times its all made up mumble-jumbo.

For example with friendships I gravitate towards Geminis, and two of my best friends are. With compatibility I have to watch myself with Aries and Sagittarius men. One thing that isn't true is that it says I have to be the center of attention and tend to be loud and outspoken. Once in awhile I'll be loud if I'm on a roll with a bunch of jokes but other than that, I don't care.