#art processes

YouTube Channel and Lunar New Year Papercut Art

Hey y’all! Happy year of the Boar and a belated happy Lunar New Year! I made some Papercut Art to celebrate the holiday (and the Western New year) that wound up in my planner and I wanted to talk a little about my process.

Last week I posted my first ever video over on my YouTube channel.

It was a huge milestone for me in a lot of ways.  It was the first video I published on this…

Aaaah, thank you so much for your kind words, this really made my day aaaa. ;; Also, I’m so sorry for taking so long on replying. I was going to actually paint an entire pic to answer this post (I have no files that show good processes) but I haven’t had the time to draw. Here’s the best I can do with some old work!

A lot of my painting techniques I get from painting traditionally (oil/acrylic) so I tend to only paint on one layer and merge constantly.  Here’s a process of the Knights of Ren post, it’s the best one I can find without making the file one completely merged layer lol.

I basically sketch out the entire thing first and throw down the color scheme. I have a file on my computer which a ton of pictures with kickass colorschemes. Sometimes I just toss colors myself, sometimes I pick accents from these files. Depends on how I feel. I’m a huge fan of unsaturated scenes with flicks of bright accents.

Put your base color layer under the sketch/lineart and when you go in to paint, paint ON TOP of the sketch. You get rid of the lines that way and you don’t get attached to your sketch. Sometimes when you draw something and you fall in love with the sketch it’s hard to change it, but painting ontop of it helps you actually get details in hehe.

After you get the colors down, just fill in shapes. If you use photoshop, hold down “alt+click” to color pick directly from your painting. I’m not sure what advice to give on this since I pretty much just draw blocks of color and go in and detail it. Here’s some more early process pics from other work. 

Refine until you like the result. Here’s a big tip though: Edit your colors! On Photoshop, my best friend is: “image” > “adjustments” > “color balance”. You can make a fairly dull painting so much more vibrant with just some basic adjustments. You can also use an airbrush, paint over it and set the layer to “overlay” or “soft light” or “hardlight” or whatever looks good. Adjust the opacity as well if it’s too intense.

Answering the Call or Finding the Courage to Create?

“The Entertainer” 2014 24″ x 48″ $3000.00

“Blessed is he that has found his work! Let him ask no other blessedness.”—Thomas Carlye

For one reason or another most people are generally afraid to become that which they glimpse in their most perfect dreams. In those quite moments when we envision ourselves living up to our fullest potential we experience happiness, joy and excitement. Yet the…

“LaBega’s Carousel” : the Fine Art of the Double Entendre

“LaBega’s Carousel” 2014, 40″ x 60″,Acrylic, enamel and oil sticks $ 5000.00

The above painting is entitled “LaBega’s Carousel”. The inspiration for this painting is rooted in my admiration for the late great musician and U.S. Virgin Culture bearer James “Jamesie” Brewster. Mr. Brewster was a master at his craft and worked tirelessly to make Quelbe synonymous with Virgin Islands culture.

  Quelbe…