color comp

So, here's a quick color comp for the commission I'm working on mentioned in the previous post. I wanted to get something with lighting as dramatic as possible like my other paintings. I think I still need to work on it, but I'll do it in paint. I don't like to spend too much time on a digital color comp when I'm just going to paint it anyway. Doing the armor for me is always a challenge, especially if it's somewhat dull but has a shine to it. One old classmate of mine, Chris Rahn, is a master of painting armor in my opinion. I'm happy I could say I went to school with this guy, although I wish I got his secret on painting armor when we were in class together! His work is awesome, he's pretty successful and has done numerous illustrations for Wizards of the Coast and their Magic cards. Check out his website at www.rahnart.com . I was looking at one of his paintings for almost an hour yesterday trying to figure out what measure of saturation he puts in his armor and how much of a highlight is in the armor, it's still a mystery to me. Anyway, looking forward to actually start painting this one, should be fun!

New painting!

It's been a while since I posted anything on here, yes I know that everyone's been waiting in eager anticipation for a new one, haven't ya? I recently had a show up at a coffee shop in Redlands called Augies, with great coffee by the way, and it was pretty successful. Well it was as successful as I could hope for. I was able to sell 3, and the night that I was hanging I sold one! Talk about a great start right? It was the painting titled "The Struggle Within", and the guy who bought it is commissioning me to do another one. The painting I'm working on for him is called "Full armor of God" and it depicts a warrior in between the realms of heaven and hell wearing the Armor of god. The armor is a little too Roman for my taste, but it's what he wants so I'm going with it. Oh and also, a little more news, there's actually someone out there who thinks I'm interesting enough to write about! Hard to believe, yeah? I'm meeting up with Kylie DeForge, a local blogger and aspiring Journalist for the New Yorker, and we're gonna have a sit down and talk about whatever and let her pick my brain. You can check out her cultural musings at her blog, http://kyliedeforge.blogspot.com/.
Hopefully I'll update again soon with a color comp.

painting study!

Here is a small study I did earlier on in the week. I posted outside and painted my parent's fountain. Planning to blow this up and elaborate on it a little be more, add some more detail to it.

Some sketches

I went to a live model drawing session tonight and had a great time! It was hosted by Rachel Schwarz who runs the blog page "Art for Arts sake" which you can go to here: http://sanfranartsake.blogspot.com/ . It felt great to get some drawing in, seeing that I haven't done that for a while I really needed the practice. Here are a couple sketches I did, Enjoy!

It's Time for a Change!!

Waiting in line at the polls to vote was just the start of a day in anticipation. I anticipated while I worked, while I ate and even while I rested. This type of anticipation didn't just start today though, but last Wednesday when I e-mailed the art director of Night Shade Books my final painting for my first fantasy book cover. I got it to him on time, but waited everyday to hear back by phone or by e-mail. I hadn't heard anything and was worried that maybe it didn't go through or he hated it. I heard from him tonight that he got it and he really liked it, so that put me at ease. Then watching the television and seeing Barrack Obama win the President Election was even more great news that put me at ease. His ambition for this country and his ideals is a change that I think everyone needs. Eight years of Republican leadership under George Bush made people very unbalanced and doubtful about where this country is headed. What needs to be fixed and how to fix it were questions that were tossed around. What needs to be done? For a while I felt like nothing was working for me and I doubted what I was doing would actually get me anywhere. Fantasy is one genre that I focus on heavily and want to do, but there's so much different kinds of fantasy that I don't do. Dark fantasy, modern fantasy, classical . . . romanticism . . . medieval. The list goes on. The book cover I did for Night Shade Books was for the American version of "The Lee's of Laughters End" by Steve Erikson. It's very different from my other work as you will see. It's darker in tone and color, has a limited palette, no dragons, no women, nothing medieval about it and has an interesting composition! You can go view the painting at www.iankirkpatrickart.com/laughtersend.html . Maybe I should do darker stuff like this more often, or just different stuff in general to get more book covers. It's time for a change, not only in my artwork but for the country as well!

I've fallen for "Fallen"!

So I went to go check out the Carlos Huante and Jose Fernandez show, "Fallen", in San Francisco at the Varnish Gallery last night and let me say that it was AMAZING!!!!! I already knew that Carlos was a great artist but realizing the scope of how detailed and how much you can pick out and appreciate in his pieces was staggering. If you have seen his previous book "Monstruo", expect some different type of paintings here. These are more reflective on the human will and spirit rather than twisted, grotesque monsters. He wrote poems to go along with a lot of his pieces that compliment them very well. I got to talk to him for a bit and I was asking him about how it was as an artist in the film industry. He said he loved working for films but he strove to have more of the artists being recognized in the movie production, like in movie guides, that's why he first came out with "Monstruo". He also talked about some of his influences, which I found a few surprising. He would integrate a lot of fine line quality and shapes inspired from Alphonse Mucha and Gustav Klimt, pick out the negative spaces like J.C. Leyendecker and choose adventurous subjects like N.C. Wyeth. He was a very down to earth guy and really nice, and I enjoyed meeting him. Jose Fernandez of course is an incredible sculptor! All his pieces never seemed to be static, there always was some type of fluidity in them and looked malleable. He was telling me how he worked with Jordu Schell, along with Carlos, on a little movie called "Men in Black" and I really couldn't imagine Jose sculpting little aliens and creatures because all his sculptures were epic and weren't really grotesque. Again, Jose was a very nice guy and down to earth, and he offered me a piece of his gum! *swoon* ha ha. Anybody who is in San Francisco needs to go check out this show! Varnish Gallery 77 Natoma st. @ 2nd. Be There!