The Starry Skies

Last night was the Perseid meteor shower and while I did not attend, two of my good friends did, Sean and Jeremy. Even though they stayed up all night knowing there was church in the morning, I'm sure neither of them regret staying up one bit. 

This painting is inspired by them, who took the time to admire God's beautiful creation. It was under the stars where they saw just how small we are. There are numerous stars out there that are much larger than our very own Sun, yet they seem so minuscule being so far away. But these things, no matter the size pales in comparison to the ever-awesome power of our Heavenly Father. Yet even as small as we are, He loves us just the same.

Sean and Jeremy learned something that night, and they inspired me to be hungry, hungry for more knowledge and to keep learning to succeed as an artist under God's grace.

Gouache, no reference

*I originally wanted the sky to be opaque, but I ended up liking the watery look. ^^

From a Photo

I'm not sure if you can call it a study, but alas I referenced my good friend and roommate, Sean Michael Whitmore's photo for a quick painting. It's a little dark because of the camera.

~45 minutes

Now that I'm looking at it like this, I see I didn't get some of the shapes right among others. My biggest thing is getting a skin tone. I'm not sure what colors to mix for it.

I should probably do more photo studies if I can't do plein airs. D:

P.S. The person in the photo is my good friend, Danielle.

-Signed it after I uploaded this.

Sketch Update

Some sketches over the past two or so weeks.

 Some from life, some from imagination.

Must do more......a LOT more.

In other news, I recently got a Macbook Pro and Adobe CS5. The Wacom Intuos 5 should be arriving soon as well, and then I can start practicing speed paintings. In the meantime, I should go out and break out the gouache.

Since it was quite some time since I painted anything, (bad on my part, I know D:), I decided to do a lit sphere with no reference. I forgot to time it so I'm not exactly sure how long it took.

I really need to make sure I crack down, especially with school coming up.

Update on my trip down to SoCal to come soon!