December 31, 2012

L'éveil du coeur - Hanna Silver by Bouguereau

L'éveil du coeur

Hanna Silver in L'éveil du coeur (The awakening of the heart) by William Adolphe Bouguereau (1892)

This manipulation is a gift for the beautiful and talented +Hanna Silver and a big thanks for making my awesome jingle: http://youtu.be/KZIh3WDiQA8.

I hope you like it Hanna. Happy New Year!!!















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December 30, 2012

Charlie Watts of The Rolling Stones

This was another attempt ar a caricature study of Charlie Watts of The Stones. The source image was pretty small on this one so that added to the difficulty. I attempted to caricature Watts once before and it was a disaster. This one isn't much better. I don't know what it is about him. He has very prominent features but I have a hard time with him for some reason. Anyhow, it is what it is. Off to the next one.














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December 23, 2012

Audrey Hepburn II In Grayscale

Tonight I'm posting another caricature study of Audrey Hepburn, this one in grayscale. I'm always on the lookout for cool profile shots and this is a classic  In this one I was more concerned with exaggerating the mood than the image. This image has been caricatured by many artists so the caricature itself is nothing new. I did learn some new tricks on this one.  I'm loving the new CS6 Creative Cloud updates which offer much more versatility to non-destructive editing to smart objects. I know it's geeky but I love this stuff!














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December 17, 2012

Audrey Hepburn Caricature Study

Tonight I'm posting a caricature study of I did ofAudrey Hepburn. I've been looking to get some practice caricaturing women because they are really a challenge to me. Ugly or funny people are the easy ones. This was just a loose quick study. I have another of her which is a profile. I think I'll experiment with that one next and see if I can push the exaggeration a little further. Women are really hard to caricature... for me anyhow, so I need practice. With the personal portrait commissions I've been doing, I need to be ready if I get handed a pretty girl to caricature. Those are the hardest.














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December 10, 2012

The Ad That Never Happened

This is the ad that never happened. I was commissioned by an individual businessman who will remain unnamed to create a far right political satirical illustration for the recent Presidential election. The illustration was to go in USA Today as a full page ad. The individual who commissioned me for this piece was not able to raise the near quarter of a million dollars for a full page illustration in USA Today so it never went to print. The initial illustration was based upon the famous painting of Washington crossing the Delaware. As you can see, very little of the original painting remains, NOTE: This illustration has nothing to do with my personal political views. This was a job in which I was paid to create an illustration to the clients specifications. These are not my views. The original source image is posted below.














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December 07, 2012

The RWPike Project Winner - Arturo Adams

Last October I was contacted by a high school Digital Media Teacher in Orlando in Florida. She liked my work and shared it with her students. The teacher and her students came up with a new assignment called The "RWPike Project". Students were to study my works and try their hand at creating a caricature in the "Rodney Pike" style using Photoshop. She sent the images to me and I put them in an album on Google+ allowing my one million plus followers to choose their favorite by plussing the images they liked most which I am now featuring here and on my blog. The voting is complete and the winner has been chosen. The official winner of the "RWPike Project" is Arturo Adams. Here is a word from Arturo and a sampling of his Photoshop work. Note: This feature will be shared among my entire extended network across the web, Google+, Facebook, Linkedin, etc. etc. That's approximately 1.1 million direct connections. Congratulation to Arturo Adams and thanks to GiGi for bringing this to my attention. Let's continue to promote the arts among our youth!!
The winning Caricature:
My name is Arturo Adams and I was born and raised in Orlando, Florida. I’m 17 years old and a high school senior at Lake Nona High School. I have a passion for arts, ceramics, music, digital design and also paint. I first got interested in art my sophomore year when I decided to take Digital Design as an elective class. I felt really comfortable in the environment it had to offer.  I then decided to further my art involvement by learning to play the guitar and after that, I knew what I wanted to be in life, an artist.

I feel that as an artist you get to express yourself in a more creative and unique way rather than bold words. It’s my mission to become and artist and make the world a little better with my passion.














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December 06, 2012

An Ugly Caricature Study

This post is a fun little caricature study I just finished. I didn't feel the need to push it to a polished state as I was just kind of playing around. I'm not exactly sure why but a couple of days ago I typed the work "ugly" into Google search and found a somewhat less than handsome man. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder? Not sure about that after this project. The mouth wasn't exactly a funny ugly... it was more of a disgusting ugly, so I changed it up just a bit. This is about a 50/50 blend of photo-manipulation and digital painting so very good practice for me. Anyhow, it was fun. Sorry if you spilled your coffee on yourself. The original source image is posted below.














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December 01, 2012

Bruce Willis Caricature Study

Here is the finished Bruce Willis study I've been working on the past couple of days. I wasn't concerned with the background as this was strictly a practice piece. I did a lot of experimenting with noise reduction and creating skin textures from scratch on this piece and learned a lot. I have a ways to go yet but I think I'm onto something with these texture experiments. So, it is what it is. The source image I worked with is posted below. No time to waste... on to the next one.
















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November 28, 2012

Bruce Willis - Work In Progress (WIP)

Tonight I have a work in progress of Bruce Willis. I love the way he makes that little smirk and I found a picture with that smirk but it was very noisy and after removing the noise and enhancing the detail, I'm left with patches of skin with no detail at all. This is where the final stage of painting the whiskers, hair and missing skin texture comes in. This image doesn't look that bad because it's been shrunk down so much. It's very noticeable in the high-res file so there will be a lot of detail painting to do on this one.

Below is the source image I'm working with and an earlier screen capture of the work in progress on my Wacom which was posted to Google+ and Facebook earlier today. I've started something new on Google+ called "Whats on the Wacom" to give everyone a little better look at the different stages and my work flow. You can see the difference in the screen capture and the portrait above and there will be even more changes in the final product although the basic morph is pretty close to what I want now. And of course, he will be put in another body.














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November 26, 2012

One Million Google+ Followers - Thanks!!

I hit another Google Plus milestone today and rolled over one million followers. It's only been just over a year since the one year Google+ anniversary. Thanks to all who have supported and encouraged me here on my blog, on Google+, Facebook and all of my networks. If you haven't hooked up with me on Google+ yet, simply click the large image above.

Another milestone will happen later this week as I go over 600,000 blog views from every nation in the world. Business has been good. It could be better and I know it will be with all of this support. Thanks once again and see you at two million!














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November 21, 2012

Happy Thanksgiving From Granny Bean and I

A quick Thanksgiving virtual postcard for my friends from Granny Bean and I. The Mr Bean saga continues... The original painting was done as a Saturday Evening Post magazine cover by one of my favorite American Illustrators, Joseph Christian Leyendecker who was a very inspirational figure for Norman Rockwell in his youth. The painting was done for Thanksgiving, 1935. He was a true Master.

I thought this might be appropriate 














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November 19, 2012

Bill Murray - The Look

Yet another caricature study of Bill Murray. There was a series of images taken at a Red Carpet Event of Murray and some great shots among the set, so I couldn't resist and had to do another. I'm not sure what or who he was looking at but he was kind of giving the eye. There was nice detail in the shot so it was a fun practice piece. These are always relaxing for me and the first part of the day was pretty stressful so this helped. I'm posting the source image below as well as a work in progress (WIP) while it was on my Wacom in a slightly rougher state.














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November 10, 2012

International Artists Exhibit Featuring Daniela Matchael - New York, NY - December 2012

Tonights post is a combination New York City Art Show announcement and Artist Feature to honor my friend and fellow artist Daniela Matchael. Journey Through Creativity International ArTConneKT Exhibit - Curated by Esperanza Tielbaard. The Opening Reception will be held at JMC Frames &Gallery 674 9th Ave /2nd Floor New York, NY 10036 on Nov. 30th 5 to 9pm.  A fabulous group of artists from many different countries will be featured at this show.

Daniela Matchael - Brazil
Melanie Ezra - UK
Roni Kristal - Israel
Oscar Manjaress - Colombia
Owen Martin - UK
Daniela Matchael - Brazil
Rosita Larson - Sweden
Esperanza Tielbaard - Colombia
Christine Allan - Canada
Barbara Leahy-Edwards - USA
Lee Jakob Hilado - Philipines
Miss Garnica - Chile
A little about the artist:
Daniela Matchael received her formal fine arts training at the Panamerican School of Arts in the metropolitan city of Sao Paulo, Brazil. From her formal training Daniela says she developed her passion for Art History and the different approaches to the visual arts. After many years working as an apprentice to accomplished Brazilian artists, teaching drawing and painting classes, showing her work in galleries in the large cities of Rio de Janeiro and Sao Paulo with numerous solo and group exhibits Daniela found her career as an artist come to a screeching halt. Unable to paint for several years, the artist turned her focus to building a career as a customer service and sales consultant. In 1997 Daniela moved to the US where she started a family.

At around 1999 Daniela found her way back into painting and became an accomplished muralist owning her own business for about 10 years. Painting on canvas has always been Daniela’s preferred means of creating her art, with oils being her medium of preference.

During a trip from Dallas to Denver 14 years ago Daniela found, while looking out of the plane’s window, the inspiration for the series of paintings that have evolved into her more recent collection of work entitled “Fields.”When speaking of her paintings, Daniela often mentions the dialogue between the colors and the movement she tries to portray. “My work is almost molecular and represents all that moves the world around us,” says passionately the artist. One can feel Daniela’s passion and vivacity through her paintings. Her varied palette and technique entice the viewer to attempt to disconnect from her paintings’ near hypnotic qualities.

Daniela has her studio and her work on display at Art Matters Arts Co-op and Gallery in Athens, TX.

“She exhibits her happiness in color combinations and balance as she paints circles, some appearing to be flat splashes of color, and others which appear to have depth with their own individual secret hidden in its deep recesses. “This is my happy phase.”

On Interview by Sharon Humphries – Athens Daly Review (Athens, TX)
A sampling of the Daniela's work
My paintings are expressions of what I can’t keep inside. My goal with my work is to bring through color and simple shapes a cohesive meaning to the chaotic expression of ideas, feelings and emotions that flow through me while painting.
After many years painting with acrylics on canvas and on walls as a muralist I went back to painting with oils on canvas. It was like coming home. The smell and the texture of the paints, the way the brushes and the palette knife interact with the canvas are simply magic and hypnotizing to me.
On the winter of 1997 I was traveling from Dallas to Denver and had the opportunity to experience something that would change my art and the way I interacted with it. Oklahoma had just been hit with a massive blizzard and as we flew over the plains, I looked down at the fields below. From my window I could see the white snow swallowing the countless circular fields transforming the scenery into a fantastic and almost lunar monochromatic quilt.
The circles became a part of my personal story. I could see then that those fields were an integral part of what moved the country we live in. The circles are always present in my work in an almost molecular structure. They are constantly moving and bringing the paintings into a cohesive composition. The monotone snow-covered fields took a life of their own. Colors representing the beings, ideas and powers that move our world interact with each other and the canvas. My varied palette brings an evolving vibrancy to the paintings.
The colors have a powerful inner dialogue that is developed throughout the process of the painting. When added, they interact with the previous ones on the canvas and transform it into a new form of communication. My paintings, with all their elements, are almost like a Mozart opera’s polyphony. All the voices, fighting to be heard, bring the plot to a seemingly chaotic yet harmonious cohesion.
“In addition to pointing her own expression of her love of life, Daniela also has done commissioned murals and smaller pieces. The exciting thing about doing the commissioned art, she commented, is doing the research. She said, “I add my own expression, but I want to incorporate what is important to the client.”

In order to incorporate what she feels about the painting, and what the client wants, she must do research, and spend time getting really clear about what the client wants.
She said, “I love doing the research, getting all the information I need to build the image in my mind, and then I get to bring it all together.”

Interview
13 May 2012
Athens Daily Review (Athens, TX)
By Sharon Humphries

Daniela is a founding member of Art Matters Co-op and Gallery. A non-profit organization committed to promoting art and artists wherever they may be, Art Matters was founded on May 2012. It has already brought works from internationally shown artists to East Texas. You can also find her work at Charlie Bullock Studio and Gallery and at Art Matters Building in the quaint town of Athens, TX.

Art Matters Co-op and Gallery
211 N. Palestine St.
Athens, TX 75751














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