Saturday, March 1, 2014

Artwork emerging

In the last month, I've made good progress on cover art for Ghosts of Innocence.

Here's how things looked mid-February...

And at the end of the month...

The white lines in the first picture are where I stuck masking tape to mark the cruciform shape of the hovering ship. That way I could paint the background in without faffing around trying to paint up to an outline.

The two pictures together give an idea of my painting process. A lot of people will cover the entire canvas with broad blocks of color and light and shade, then add successively finer layers of detail. I'm more of a background-to-foreground kind of a person, working on sections at a time and detailing as I go. Once I've finished a section I rarely go back over it. You can see this approach in the steady march of detail into the foreground.

And here is my painting space...

One of these days I might be able to set up a proper studio!

10 comments:

Unknown said...

Looks great! You are brave to place your easel on the carpet! lol

Teresa Cypher said...

Wow! I didn't know you did your own artwork, Ian! Wonderful! I've admired it so many times and never realized you were the artist! :-)

Anonymous said...

I am so impressed...a writer and an artist....

Botanist said...

Diane, never thought of it like that. I use gouache, which is water-based so any spills will be easy to clean up - unlike oils! Also, I tend to be a careful painter anyway so I rarely make a mess in the first place. Yeah, not your typical artist :)

Teresa, yes, the artwork on this site is all mine.

Delores, oddly enough that is exactly how I refer to myself on my other site :)

Alex J. Cavanaugh said...

That is really impressive!

David Batista said...

Really nice work, Ian. Wow, impressive! I love the detailing in the background at ground level. And the shading of the clouds and light is awesome! You have a very distinctive look.

Hilary Melton-Butcher said...

Hi Ian .. talented chap - it's one thing I'd love to be able to do is create my own art work .. but yours looks like it is really coming together .. so pleased for you - cheers Hilary

Botanist said...

Alex, thanks!

David, I like the idea of a distinctive look. I always admired artists like Chris Foss - he has his own style that for years I wanted to emulate. But I figure it's better to establish your own style and have others want to emulate you! I wish :)

Hilary, this is my first attempt at something for a book cover. Here's hoping it works as well as a cover as it does as a painting. The two are not the same!

Valerie said...

Wow! That's pretty amazing. I can barely do stick figures!

Hugs!

Valerie

Botanist said...

Valerie, but you have a talent for pant-wettingly funny blog posts so who cares about stick figures?

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