Follow Me

This is just a quick photoshop painting I decided to do today based on my Shadow/Nightmare cerise... No, this is not the Easter bunny, and the fact that I posted this Easter weekend is coincidence only. This is the Soul Stealer, also known as The Stirrer of Shadows in her most frequent form from a reoccurring dream... The Black Rabbit.



The Black Rabbit with the glowing eyes seems to haunt my nightmares from time to time. She always wants me to follow her, but I cannot shake the sinister feeling when I see her. Where does she want me to go, and what will I find when I get there? It is not exactly a question that I want answered.

Stirrer of Shadows

This is a project that only took me about 45 minutes to finish, it was just a bit of practice for another piece that I am planning to do... but I ended up liking it so much I felt like I needed to post it!



She is the Stirrer of Shadows and she sometimes haunts my dreams...
The first time she appeared in one of my dreams, she took the shape of a black rabbit with glowing white eyes and three very long pointed teeth... Later in the dream the teeth became a hand and she took the form of a shadowy woman, also with glowing eyes... if you pay close attention to the upper left corner of the image one can almost see the shape of a black rabbit in the stirring shadows....

She first appeared in an image I did about a year ago called "The Soul Stealer" which I will discuss at another time.

"The Timeless Prisoner" finished

Alas, it has been a bit of work here and there much of the week, but I have finally finished "The Timeless Prisoner"



I will admit it, about half way though working with this image, I really wasnt feeling my old sketch anymore, so I decided to redraw it... This happens sometimes, while working with a picture, nothing is truly set in stone, and sometimes you feel that you can improve your original idea or add to it...



I got a little engrossed in my work with it, and sort of lost track of my step by step process when it comes to most of the painting... However, I do have a few images to share that show how some of the things came to be.


Face Development: Here is how the face came to be...


Chest Development: Here is how the chest came to be...

From Thought To Imagery (Part 3)

Part 1 Bringing the World To Life (continued...)

So, now on to day two of my progress with this image... I've only stepped away from it for the night and the length of my work day, and my mind has been jumping with ideas of ways to better bring the world to life... so lets continue...

The next couple steps I did was place a few more outlines of trees closer to the front, then like in the previous post, I added some lighter and darker colors to give these new trees depth. I like to do a lot of tree layering when it comes to forest scenes to add an almost endless depth of trees.



After that, I add a bit of plant life and what not behind the new trees to fill up some of that empty space. To do this, I like to start by adding dark colors to create where plants will take shape



Then I add a bit of green highlights over the dark areas to start the plant life...



Something a little more time consuming is to go back into the highlighted green areas to create the plant details...



Then I add some plant life growing up the side of the tree to give it a more overgrown effect...



After satisfied with the way that looks, I decide to draw the shape of a stump... This is for our Timeless Prisoner to sit upon.



One of the saddest things about these sorts of paintings is with all these layers and what not, some of the work put into the image will never be seen because there is a tree or a bush or people blocking some of things you put work into... but I guess as the artist it is just satisfying knowing that they are there... this is also the reason I like to have another version of the painting without the people within them... just the setting... otherwise the work I put into this stump would be entirely purposeless.



Now that I've added some detail to the stump, its time to start building up the world around it... the stump, at this point serves as a marker for the subject of the painting... I like to then add a bunch of little plants and flowers and that kind of thing, and set up the ground...



And there you have it, a few hand cramps later and Part 1 "Bringing the World to Life" is complete with a little forest scene...

I am one who is really sort of all for "The Big Reveal" and by doing this step by step process it sort of takes some of the power away from the unveiling of the finished piece... so I've decided that what I am going to do is not post the step by step process of the rest of this painting until after I've finished it. Then you can see the finished piece and see the steps I took to get from here to there.

From Thought to Imagery (Part 2)

I've ended up deciding to start with Sketch #2 "The Timeless" to continue on with this "Thought to Imagery session.



The idea of "The Timeless" is sort of this man who is ageless and he sees the world around him ever changing, it is a lonely feeling and sort of the dark side of immortality.

Now that we have our sketch of the image, from here it has to be decided where we will go from here... will the image remain etched in pencil as a finished piece, or will we take it further to completion? Obviously, we are going to take it further... this is the point where I decide which rout it will travel down... the art of oils which I've been doing since 2001, or bring it to the digital world in the form of a digital painting, which I've been doing now for less than two years.

This particular image I've decided to take down the digital rout. In many ways I sort of prefer working in the digital media lately because I find that I can hone my skills better, bring to life more luminosity and create more defined detail, not to mention I do not have to deal with drying time... in oils sometimes things take too long to dry, sometimes things dry too quickly... in the digital media I can start an image, come back to it in and hour or a month from now and still am able to work seamlessly.

There is also a bit of misconception out there that a digital painting created on the computer is not as respected as one created on canvas and is sort of a lazy rout to take... as if it sort of creates itself by pointing and clicking... this is of course wrong... In many ways I find working on digital paintings to be somewhat more challenging because I am using a mouse instead of a brush, but I tend to prefer the final outcome more.

The first thing I do when starting the digital painting is laying out my canvas... I usually work with a canvas that is about 3000 pixels by 3750 pixels. This gives us a lot of room to work with and easily translates to standard printing sizes (8x10, 11x16, 16x20 etc...)



Then I import the scanned image of my sketch into the blank area so that I can get an idea of the layout and what the finished image will sort of look like.



Part 1 Bringing the World To Life

After I get things where I want them, it is time to start bringing the world to life. Most of my work is based deeply in setting, so I always build my world first before I do any work on my character or characters. I also prefer layering the world so it feels deeper than just the small area of our subject. In this instance, we are aiming for an overgrown sort of lonely forest area.

The first thing I do is put down a rough idea of color to build the setting.



Then I hide my sketch, and begin building the world



Creating a forest scene, for me, is kind of fun because it doesn't have to be perfect... you can really be kind of rough and wild with it without focusing too much on clouds and sky... you just sort of let the world build itself and grow naturally...



Sometimes I decide to go in and bring a little more light and color to the background to give the forest a little more light...



After that, I begin to add a few more trees to give it more depth



Next, I begin to lighten up the trees and add a little detail just to layer the world a little better.



After that, I tend to add some darker color to the area behind and around the trees to indicate where some plant life might be...



Then I add a bit of detail to the shadowy patches to give it the effect of foliage and plant life in the background...



And sadly that is all the time I have for today, so I shall soon pick back up on bringing this world to life.

From Thought to Imagery (Part 1)

Some have expressed interest in the techniques I use when it comes to bringing the realm within my mind to life. How exactly does an idea become a finished piece? This is, of course, one of the main reasons I decided to start this blog in the first place... Aside from showing the world some of my art, and going into the details of my thought process and the symbolism behind a finished piece, I wanted to show how a piece actually comes to be.

The first step in creating a picture, for me, is that moment of inspiration. There really is no telling when exactly my muse will whisper the idea into my head. Sometimes the idea will come to me in a dream or while listening to a song, and sometimes the idea will come to me completely out of nowhere at all... but when the idea strikes, sometimes it is difficult for me to focus on anything else. Other times an idea will enter my head, but the process of translating it to an image becomes quite a challenge, so the idea may sit for a while before it is something I can compose. The idea begins as a feeling or a phrase and I begin to shape that idea in my head into some sort of a scene.

Once the idea is there and I can sort of see how to convey it into imagery I get out my sketchpad, or sometimes a just scrap piece of paper when the idea comes to me quickly. For me, when the idea strikes, sometimes its best to sketch it out quickly before the idea disappears into oblivion.

I have, at this point included a few of my sketches that I have not yet transformed into finished images. At this point I would like to make things a bit interactive and ask for an opinion on which one I should use to continue this "Thought to Imagery" sort of lesson...

Sketch #1 "All She'd Never See"


Sketch #2 "Timeless"


Sketch #3 "But a Memory"


Fear not my decision, for each of these sketches will become finished images in time... But which will be the first to be completed? Which will be the first image to gain a step by step from start to finish documentation here on this blog? I would like to hear your opinions.

The Meaning of Death

I have decided to discuss the idea of death in this post is because it is one of many reoccurring themes that pops up within the realm of my art. When one thinks of death it is almost always associated with negative connotations. Death is dark, death is cold, death is painful. Death is the end of the story, death is closing the book and putting it away. Death is, in a word, final.
(Recalling Innocence)


So what does death really mean when looking at it from an artistic point of view? For me, the symbol of death is not necessarily a negative outcome. Death is not always the end, but sometimes just another path we must take in life, after all just when the caterpillar thought her life was over, she became a butterfly.

I often times use the symbol of death as the closing of one door and the opening of another... a representation of a new beginning (i.e. Grave in a Bed of Leaves) It is often used to reflect a change in the life of a character I've created or a symbol of some change within my own life. Very rarely within my work does death truly represent something as dark as the end...
(Grave in a Bed of Leaves)


Sometimes the theme of death is necessary within my art, after all, it being primarily rooted in emotion, I find it only natural to use a theme as dramatic as death to express certain moods and feelings of the work. Sometimes a character must die to usher in their new beginning, while other times a character must die to make others value life more.
(At the Edge of Life and Death)


So in the end, the theme of death within my artistic world is not always dark, cold or the end of the story. Death is not always the grand finale, and is often times warmly welcomed by characters ready to transform into their proverbial butterfly.
(Welcoming)

A Look at "Grave in a Bed of Leaves"

The first painting I would like to take an in depth look at would be one entitled "Grave in A Bed of Leaves"



This painting was finished in mid 2004 and is one of many that holds a very special meaning for me. It features a pretty simple night time scene in a somewhat forest like area featuring a couple people. At the time I had been experimenting a lot with the blending of oil paints to create fire. This was the first painting I had done at the time in which I was very happy with the way my fire had come out. But there is more to this painting than three people in the woods near the fire...

In the lower right hand corner of the painting there rests a woman near a tree amongst the leaves... This is where the title of the painting originates. I painted her in a somewhat awkward position discoloring her skin only slightly to indicate that she is dead.

The woman's bed of leaves indicates that this an autumn scene even though it was not painted in the autumn months. For me, autumn was a symbol of the end, and by putting the woman within the autumn leaves I was indicating that this was the end... like the leaves on the trees, now fallen to the ground, this woman's time had come to pass.

Our second subject in this painting is a woman who's feet do not touch the ground. She is floating through the air and has stopped to peer between two trees. One might note that the colors that make up the woman's dress are brighter in color than the previous woman's dress. One might also note from the light cast upon the two trees that the woman herself is glowing in the darkness.

The floating woman represents the spirit of the dead woman and she has paused to peer between these two random trees in the forest. Here at the edge of these two trees the viewer of the painting might see that the trees form what looks much like a passage way, a gate or a door way so to speak. It is time for her to make a decision...

Our final subject of this painting is the fire itself. The fire is glowing brightly and many streaks of light and color seem to be burning and almost dancing from the fire. When I painted this, I wanted the fire to symbolize change and conversion. As wood burns, it is converted into energy. The bright colors emanating from the fire sort of symbolize joy, happiness, something new... they have somewhat living shapes, and would sort of indicate that they are spirits being released from this dark world converted to light.

There is also another woman standing at the edge of the fire. She is standing at the threshold of the flames that symbolize change. Her arms are wide open as she embraces what the fire itself symbolizes.

When it all comes down to it, there is only one person in this painting, but we are seeing her from three different moments, but all the same moment. The real woman is standing at the edge of the fire embracing the coming change. The women in blue are symbols of herself... She has shed her mortal coil and left it to lie within the bed of leaves, her spirit is drawn to the fire, standing at the gateway between life and death, making the decision to whether to cross or stay.

In some ways the woman represents myself at that time. I had come to a point in my life filled with a lot of changes. I had to say goodbye to some friends because they could not accept the person I was, but in the end I embraced the change, got on with life and became a person who I liked much more than the person I was...

A Somewhat Darker World

Since I was a young child spending my time in the woods, either alone or playing with friends, I imagined a whole other world filled with adventure, magic and unspeakable dangers... This world was my own, a fantasy world so to speak, and it existed only within my mind. As I grew older I found that there was a way into this mysterious world, and the secret key that unlocked the gateway from this world to that magical realm was as simple as paper and a pencil. With these tools I found that I could entertain myself for hours either by writing the tales of this strange world, or by drawing it into existence.

For as far back as I can remember I have found myself drawing and sketching this mysterious world that I created in my imagination. It is a pass time for me, and most of all it is a passion. I will never claim to be an amazing drawer or an amazing artist, but I am happy with the work that I produce simply because it comes straight out of my soul and into a place where I have the chance to share it with those around me.

Most who have seen my paintings have told me that they have a somewhat dark and almost creepy feel to them. This is quite true, for the world that I create is a somewhat darker world than the one I see around me. I do not really try to recreate a perfect representation of the world around me or focus a lot on making things look 100% realistic because that is not what art is about for me. Art for me, is about emotion and feelings more than physical detail. In some ways the work that I create is an almost impressionistic style focusing more on mood colors and light (or in my case, often shadows)

So why is it that I prefer painting this somewhat darker world rather than creating a happy world filled with sunshine and smiles? It all goes back to my overall theme of feelings and emotions. Someone once said that light lives in darkness and beauty lives in pain, and I've also heard tell that the greatest of art can only be born out of the greatest of pains and the deepest of wishes... in many ways I find this to be true. My art is a window of expression, and sometimes there are feelings too deep to be expressed by words alone, and sometimes there are feelings that dare not be said at all. That is where expression though imagery comes into play.

Where is it that I get my ideas? What do some of these images I create really mean? How do I go from an idea to a finished piece? Some have recently expressed interest in my artistic process, and for a while now I've been considering unlocking some of the secrets behind some of my paintings. Through this journal I am hopeful that I will be able to lay some of these questions to rest. I would like to share some of my thought process, decode some of the secrets and symbolism, as well as show some of my current projects, sketches and possibly even attempt to create a few tutorials to help others out as well.

I would like to invite you to join me on this tour though a realm within my mind; a somewhat darker world filled with magic, fantasy, and unspeakable dangers. A world born of the greatest pains and the deepest of wishes, and a world born of passion. Welcome my friends to A Realm Within.