Weekly Update #7 (March 22nd-28th)

So last week I had the change to see my sister as she came to visit for a few days. I was very lucky and had two extra days with her since I worked from home instead of in the studio in Canterbury. It's more important to me that I got to spend time with her, my FMP revolves around her anyway. I admit I went a while without doing much work as I was spending time with her, but she gave me very useful feedback, inspiration, and she helped me work through some other stuff that has been troubling me. We visited The Making of Harry Potter which has provided me with many interesting photos that will make for good digital paintings I feel like.

Sister and me at Warner Bros Studios

Sagazan Speedpainting...playing with Overlay Layers

I'm not sure if this will be 'bad' since it might seem like a random jump in another direction but again, my FMP is about my sister and this visit was unexpected. My sister is a yoga instructor so I may see if I can incorporate that into my work, maybe even drawing/digitally painting some of the crystals she uses for Reiki healing since they have very interesting colours and shapes. I was reminded that Lord of the Rings was what made us bond, so I may look into doing some sort of 'fan art' too (I got that idea from both watching the films again with her while she was here and seeing all of the props/art/sets from Harry Potter...we aren't massive fans of it but we love both scifi and fantasy films and games so we both loved it).

Werewolf speedpainting using new brush for clouds

Original pencil sketch of werewolf using a photo I took at Warner Bros Studios

I've done some artist research and a new issue of 2D artist magazine has come out which I'm slowly reading through. In my digital speedpaintings I've been playing around more with overlay layers along with trying out the Curves adjustments which made my werewolf speedpainting much more interesting. I also was able to download a good brush set thanks to the help of my boyfriend...I needed to convert the ABR file to be compatible with my version of Photoshop, which is impossible to do for me because the app to do this is for Windows. Luckily he was willing to help me with this.

Thestral from Harry Potter using a photo I took at Warner Bros

Drawing of Fenrir Greyback from Harry Potter using a photo I took at Warner Bros

I have started a new speedpainting but I'm obviously not including it in this post, but I'm trying out those new brushes in that new speedpainting...I also used one of the brushes for the clouds in the werewolf one, which I really liked. Other than that I just did a few basic sketches...I plan on doing as much work as possible while still being able to relax over Easter, but I love drawing for fun anyway. My art might start teetering between scifi, fantasy and more normal images depending on how I feel and how I think it connects with my work. I hope to remember to actually record the speedpainting process to see if that will be of any use. We'll see.

Thanks for reading, know it's kind of a crappy post but things have been all jumbled this week...but it's been very useful for both my work and my general happiness...which I needed desperately.

-Deanna Crisbacher