For purchase inquiries contact: gerimi@optichouse.com - Gallery 1- Gallery 2 - Sketches - Wallpapers

Started with a small sketch on a 3 x 5 index card made while waiting for a business meeting to begin.

Enlarged the thumbnail sketch, then worked out the anatomy/perspective on the lightbox. The image is flipped because I tend to work on the back of the enlarged sketch, instead of drawing over it on a fresh sheet. Helps make me more aware of mistakes in the sketches (Thank Komic Karl for instilling at least one good habit.) Note the original title "Behold this Dying Flesh"

Made some progress in experimenting with wire-framing an environment with objects in order to create a sense of depth. I don't know if the graveyard is that convincing, but at least I gave it an honest effort… spacing and overlapping elements.

Fought tooth and nail to get the woman's left hand correct. Probably redrew it 6-7 times. At least it's passible. Still not 100% happy with it.

The trees are causing me a bit of trouble. In my attempt to do more describing forms, instead of merely suggesting, I'm forced to reanalyze how I interpret forms that are, by their nature abstract or indistinct.

I need to do more nature drawing in general anyway. Maybe I should get a bonsai tree or a little indoor garden. At least a hardy desk plant. Something hard to kill. I'm not great w/ plant life.

Working on simplifying the tones of the grass directly under the figures is a bitch. I want to keep it less detailed so it doesn't fight w/ the main points of attention.

I usually have a layer in Photoshop that I name "Marker" becuase I basically do quick marker-style tonal studies to figure out my values. A sloppy version of the final tones. Very simple, blocking in elements, checking to see what parts need to stand out more, which need to be pushed back. There's times when I look at the marker stage for this one, and I want to go back into the final and knock out all the detail in the trees, reducing them to almost silhouette.

Areas of concern…
1. balance of light & dark
2. Sense of depth in background ( I don't want the background to look fudged, but I also don't want it so detailed as to fight with the figures
…
Earlier in the piece, just before starting on the figures, I wiped out most of the detail in the grass underneath the figure… Just airbrushing most of it into a gradient/soft transition.

My original thinking was to keep the background looking very flat/minimal detail, gradually adding detail the closer we get to the figures (with, of course, the figures being the most detailed elements in the image.

…But even detail in the grass, just below the figures, were too distracting. Besides, the main goal I've been trying to work toward is letting the linework do most of the heavy lifting, in terms of visual description of forms/volumes, and keep the tones to minimum, serving only to indicate light sources AND/OR as a design element to separate forms.

For a moment, I even played with blending some photo textures into the image, but that runs counter to my goals. I don't think that sort of thing is cheating or anything. It's just that I want to improve my draftsmanship, and it could be a little too easy for me to start using it as a crutch before I've mastered the craft for drawing.

…

…Even the rays of light added at the end were questionable for me. The voice in me that wants to improve tells me, it's all gotta be in the pencils. Anything else is just flash and style. In the end, the light felt like a necessary poilish to make the image feel like a finished piece.

The draftsman and the expressionist within arrived at a civil (albeit uneasy) truce on this one.