Challenge Beauty

I finished another painting! It's smaller but pretty packed with personal symbolism. It's 8x18 inches--that's a pretty rough estimate considering i used my fingers to measure it... but it's done in oil on masonite.

This piece is supposed to spell out what i want my undergrad portfolio's message to be. It illustrates and idea of challenging the social norm of what beautiful is considered to be. It's a really broad concept so I shouldn't have any problem generating pieces for it.

I've been using jellyfish because I feel like they are an abstraction of what ghosts look like--thus the the shroud on the figures head. The bigger jellyfish are a particular breed that lives infinitely. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Turritopsis_nutricula Using a jellyfish that can go through cycles of their growing periods suggest that there is a constant need to judge ourselves, physically and mentally.

The shrouded figure is holding a bloody Leafy Sea Dragon (a type of sea horse). He is using an enlarged pair of scissors to make "adjustments" to the sea dragons appearance by cutting off the "leaves" that grow from it's body. So overall the piece speaks of our constant re-adjustments we take to make ourselves more comfortable in our own skin, sometimes to a grave level that can effect our body in a negative manner. We're all insecure about something and we try to hide it one way or another.

The painting came kind of easily, the concept sketch did not. I have pages upon pages filled in my sketchbook about how i wanted to compose this concept. I finally came to this when I was listening to this remix by oOoOO of Marina and the Diamonds' "Obsession" http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HNP69HA89Is I think it's pretty appropriate. Not to mention it's a DAMN good song--I almost like it more than the original. Spooktastic.

I'm going to eat my ramen now--It looks like brains because I don't use the flavor packets anymore, I just put spaghetti sauce in it. Yum. If you have any questions about this piece, feel free to ask me! I would love to have an artistic discussion about.

Thanks for reading! This piece is a little more personal that I generally like my illustrations to be... so... good night.

society6

I finally decided to sell stuff on here. Including my three headed High Society Walrus man! Also--I got on the front page! I be geekin.

High Society Walrus process

 I started this painting as a traditional alla prima. Unfortunately for me I'm not good enough (yet!) to have a complete painting that is 100% traditional alla prima painting. However, I start all of my paintings off this way because it's the best way to practice and get as much of the surface covered as possible--

 Sorry for these poor process shots, I don't currently own a working digital camera, so I took these off my laptop and played with the color in photoshop. After the underpainting I wait for it to dry and go into the piece and start working out kinks. This takes forever because I have so many kinks all over the place. The inspiration for this painitngs color scheme came directly from a James Gurney (DINOTOPIA) piece. I use his color theory book Color & Light all the time. I suggest picking one up yourself--

Here's the final product. It's an oil piece done on a piece of masonite that is close but not exactly 18 by 20. The piece took somewhere between 20-26 hours to do, maybe more. I should start writing down how long it takes for me to do a painting. This character I made up last semester in my Head Hands and Feet class. I wanted to do a painting of him because I had so much fun doing the drawing. I had some character design changes, but overall he remained the same--

20x30 graphite on paper

I hope everyone had a great holiday weekend! I sure did! Now it's back to reality. In the next two weeks I will probably won't get the pleasure of being social--so, I hope i get to see you at school!

You can see this on any of the websites I'm participating with. http://tdeyampert.daportfolio.com/ This is one of my online portfolios! Have a look and see!

Rat King

So, my school is having a holiday sale. The Illustration club participates in this every year, and I finally decided I would join in on the fun. So I did this 8 by 11 oil painting. The first sitting took about 6 hours and then when it dried I did about a 2 hour touch up session. I scanned the painting and printed and cut out cards to sell for an affordable price--the painting however... 50 dollars? I don't know. The cards are going to be 3 dollars each or five cards for 8. Come to the holiday sale-- many great illustrators helped out and are selling stuff! There's going to be ornaments, earings, cards, wands, necklaces, etc...

It was nice taking a break from school paintings and illustrating something that wasn't terribly complicated for once...

This band.

Balam Acab is a band that has been influencing my work a lot these days. My aesthetic and the bands overall sound has come to an overall agreement in my imagination. That's where my fuel has been generating fairly recently. So, I would suggest checking them out. This song inparticular has been pushing me towards what I want to do for this next project. I'm only in the sketching stage but you will be updated soon! In the mean time, listen to this song. This song is my current favorite, but I'm in love with it all. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FZH1_Lk0YBY&feature=watch_response

Who ever made this video thought of using the same sea creatures as I did. Maybe for the same reason? Maybe not. The only one that was missing out of my current choices were sting rays. Fact of the day: Did you know when stingrays migrate, they're called Fevers?

screen shot

Hey! So, I'm probably over reacting about this, but my piece showed up on the front page of soceity6 on the bottom part under popular posts! This is like the first time I've ever recieved that much recodnition for a single piece on the interent! I'm kind of embarrased by how excited I am, but who cares! I even took a screen shot... haha!

The Caged Bird and The Bat

This is a rough of the painting I just finished. The painting is a 22 by 30 oil piece done on backed masonite.

I changed the cage to a bell jar with a hole in it. Apparently bell jars were originally used for stuffed dead birds to i thought that would be a fun twist to the story as well as everything else I did. I'm pretty happy with it, I hope you like it too! Check it out on my website, dA, or my society6 account! On to my next pieces! Here's a link to the fable: http://www.yankeeweb.com/library/storytime/fables/fables_7.html 

Time for another sneak peak

This is another little teaser of the High Society Walrus. Well, maybe more of a progress photo. Anyway--I've been working hard elbows deep in oil paint (i'm going to die, i'm going to die, i'm going to die). I worked on three separate (approximately) 20by30 pieces today. One of which is due monday and another i finished. It was my Caged Bird and the Bat painting and I'll have an update on it tomorrow--let alone fill the interent with it on all of my gallery sites. Now I have to figure out what i want to do next for my Alla Prima class... it's an open topic so... here's to sketching!

Start Workin'!

 This is a color rough and a preliminary sketch of a painting I'm starting for my overall portfolio. It's going to be roughly 18x20 Oil on Masonite. The character is a play on the High Society Walrus illustration concept. I designed the character in my Head Hands and Feet class-- I made some minor adjustments but you can see that for yourself on my website. http://tdeyampert.daportfolio.com/gallery/608311 I'm pretty excited about this. :)

Hiya, friend!

Welp. I figured it was about time to start up one of these here blogzzz. I've been working pretty hard on getting a few images going and some of them are kinda close to done. This here is a sneak peak of my next alla prima assignment: Illustrate an Aesops Fable. I chose the Caged Bird and the Bat.