Digital Elvis painting

Amazing what you can do by copying an old picture of Elvis Presley.  He was such a colourful entertainer with loads and loads of charisma.  I gave him a deep pink suit and added a contrasting yellow to his tie.  In fact, the name that I chose for this work was 'The Yellow Necktie'.

Group caricature commission

Latest commission is a digital painting, which I am doing more and more often.  This image was printed and presented to the client in an A3 frame.  The client then bought the original file, which I hear is being used to make unique T-shirts for their holiday get-together.  

Adam and Eve

It has been a long time since I have posted anything on this blog.  Here is a little light-hearted digital painting that I created last year titled The first wind.  If you look closely you will probably see that it carries a double meaning.  I enjoyed creating this image.  As with all my other digital works, it was painted using the Brushes app on my iPad.
I have a printed copy framed in my local art gallery.  The beauty of working digitally is that, if that painting sells, I can replace it with an exact replica.

Life of Brian: Samuel L Jackson

Life of Brian: Samuel L Jackson: I always begin new projects with the most difficult of subjects.  Portraiture must be the hardest discipline to get right in digital art.  I...

Samuel L Jackson

I always begin new projects with the most difficult of subjects.  Portraiture must be the hardest discipline to get right in digital art.  I loaded up my iPad with the Brushes app over a year ago, but I ignored it for a long time.  I have only really specialised in portraits of some form or another, so it was only natural that I was drawn to painting the human face when I began to use the app seriously.

I am learning new things all the time, although the "layer" thing still confuses me a little.  I did try and paint in multi-layers for a few portraits, but I got frustrated when I forgot which layer has which.  If you try and paint in an area on the wrong layer, it doesn't work very well.  My last few portraits have been done on a single layer only.
The two images below show an early stage and completed stage of a Samuel L Jackson portrait that I completed recently.  I 'borrowed' the colour tones from the original little thumbnail that was copied into the picture canvas.  I then had a palette to work from.

Only three brushes were used.  I favour a rough brush that simulates  brushstrokes that an oil painting filbert would make.  This was used right down to one pixel size.  The other brushes were a blending tool to smooth out areas and a special brushes that creates dots across the painting.  I used this for painting fhe skin pores.

Hopefully, if you look close enough, you will see the result of all three of these brushes in both the pictures below.

 

 

 

 

And her is a youtube video of the final stages . . .

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kiy57cpO_JM

 

 

Painting the digital way

 

 

A digital painting of Gerard Butler.  Painted using my finger on the iPad.

 

 

 

 

The above photos show my process of working on a typical portrait on the Brushes App on my iPad.  It doesn't really differ from painting in oils or acrylics.  The main difference is that there is no mud created when applying one colour on top of another.  The app provides a wonderful chance to create transparent glazes, although I haven't quite mastered the 'layering' technique that this app offers.  The painting above was complete on only one layer.  A second layer was added after all the painting was completed.  This was just used to enhance the colour. 

My comedy novel is on Amazon

It's been a great month so far.  BLISTER my comedy novel has finally been published and is available to buy on Amazon and to download as an ebook for your kindle device or app, again from Amazon.

 

It has lots of action and humour in the story.  It is a dark comedy, (two murders) but plenty of laughs along the way.  Downloading the book is just a click away.  Please have a look and see if you like it.

 

Here is the direct link.  Click on the word BLISTER to take you direct to the Kindle section. BLISTER  Enjoy!

 

I have also been doing some loose watercolours recently.  My local art club is having an exhibition at the beginning of August.  These two paintings just might be in contention as submissions.

 

The guitarist

 

 

Tango