Tuesday, January 26, 2010

new website & blog

Hi Everyone,

I had a friend redo my website and I added my blog to go with it. Please take a look if you have a chance and add me to your blog, or however that works! I hope everyone is good and look forward to the next show... when is the next show?


Thanks,
Jim

6 comments:

pw! said...

sleek and slick website! like a day at the arcade!

it sure is wonderful being greeted by the Golden Girls!

Unknown said...

hahha, thank you pw!

Anonymous said...

I think you need to switch back to acrylics...digital is not working for you. It all looks Photoshop-y now.

Unknown said...

thanks for the advise anonymous, but i'm happy with my new stuff... i felt like my oils were too sloppy and was never completely happy with them. mostly for detail reasons, i used to work very large in oils and could achieve better detail, but for time & money restraints i had to scale down, sacrificing much needed detail.

pw! said...

i struggle every time i soup something up on the computer with "why can't i just paint this well" but the fact of the matter is that the computer gives me much more control and variations than my palette does. i still hope to master mixing paints as well as i would overlaying swatches. my oils used to look like chocolate mud by the time i was done, but i jumped adversely too far the other way and just squeezed acrylics right out of the tube and onto the canvas.

Jim i think your work is clean, and maybe the background sky just Blurs too much (i think that's what might be considered photoshoppy) but there are so many ways to paint in the computer. even if you didn't want to go the Jon Foster route and get a WACOM tablet (but dang, i would love to see what kind of caricature mayhem you would cook up like that!), photoshop has so many variations of brushes and layer styles to give any technique a shot. i love a thick painterly look and i think it'd be something cool to try. or instead of a blurry effect, maybe a watercolor wash-y effect?

the bottom line is, if you are making the kind of art that you want to see, then that is a success. but keep evolving, keep trying new stuff to grow, like you're clearly already doing. these days art directors complain a lot that no one knows how to paint anymore. i'm not saying those are the folks you're targeting, but you obviously know how to paint. i see no reason why you couldn't apply the same skills you have as a painter into the computer (and obviously you already are!)

finally (and i don't know why i'm writing so much, i'm sorry), have you ever tried gouache? they can be cheaper than a full set of acrylics, and they're the perfect halfway point between acrylics and watercolor. basically, you can be bright, detailed, and painterly, as well as soft when you want to be, not to mention it is as workable as you want it to be (dries when thick, can always add water and push around). just a though, and just for fun

Unknown said...

hey pw, i appreciate you explaining the "photoshoppy" look and i am trying to find some kind of happy medium from the "too airbrushed" look to a "painterly look." but as you said, i'm very happy with my digital results (i do appreciate the criticism anonymous, as harsh as it came off.)

i guess i need to play with the brushes a bit more in photoshop. and thanks for the tip with the gouache pw, maybe i'll give that a shot too. i am thankful you gave the whole thing as much thought as i had!

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