Latest Posts by andreakalfas - Page 8

Continuing on a theme.

Here's a little preview of a new assignment I'm working on, which is very vague, but I'm having fun with it, and will hopefully be able to show you the final product soon.  Pulling together some reference for this one, I discovered that the white ermine moth might be one of the prettiest insects I've ever seen.

Helllo! I just want to say you inspire me so much! I found you a while back on the book report. I just thought I would let you know and I haven't asked anything on here yet. I'm really trying to get back to drawing, I've neglected it far too long. I usually lean towards print design :)Soo question! Do you use a tablet to draw digitally sometimes? Or is it always scanning in and adjusting the levels? If you ever draw with a tablet do you have any tips? I'm discovering lots of neat tricks for photoshop with line work but i was just curious if there was anything you wish you would have known starting out with the tablet!Okay! I'm just being long winded now, thank you :)

Hi! Thank you! Great to hear that I've inspired a designer :) I ALWAYS use a tablet to draw digitally! Daniel Krall put it in the best way for me: if working with a tablet is like working with a pencil, then working with a mouse is like trying to draw with a block of wood with a point of graphite sticking out the bottom of it. The tablet was a little awkward at first, but I just spent a day messing around with it until I was used to it and now I can't go back. Just take a bit to get the hang of it, and pair it with key commands in Photoshop, and drawing digitally will seem much more ergonomic. You'll love it.

hello! i'm a new follower of your lovely work. i noticed that you illustrate/paint using gouache but do you also work digitally? i find it hard to tell, even your illustration for meg hunt's art for japan could have passed for a digital piece with all the neat brushes out there. and i thought that your recent post might be digital but i'm not too sure anymore hehe. either way, i very much admire your work. it's truly inspirational.

Hello! I love new followers (just love you guys!), and thanks very much! Yes, you were on the right track, my most recent post is all digital. I work both with gouache and digitally pretty evenly most of the time, though if the frequency were to lean towards one or the other it would be digital actually. It's neat to know that that's not terribly apparent!

There are lots of things to love about springtime.  One being buttercups, which may be the cutest flower.  One thing not to love about springtime, is the explosion in the stink bug population.  I used to not mind them.  They don't do anything, they're slow and catch-able so you can banish them from your house.  No big deal!  But in the building I work at they are taking over!  To the point that one found its way onto my head, and now I mind them a little more.  Meanwhile, a coffee cup full of buttercups picked for me by one of my bosses' kids sits on my desk, and I just wished that if anything was going to be in my hair, why couldn't it be those little flowers instead of an imposing stink bug...

Gouache Process

There have been a lot of very kind responses to my gouache paintings recently, as well as a few requests for tips, and so I've decided to do up a little process post.  I'm very flattered, and a little intimidated!  So, please bear with me as I expose all my clumsy painting techniques.  I should say that though I was taught the basics of gouache painting and dry-brushing, I took those and sorta ran off with my own methods, and they may not be the best way of working!  Like any artist, I'm always adjusting my process.  No doubt my next painting will be created completely differently, but at this point, this is what I do:

So here are my gouache tubes, disposable palettes, and palette knife (and juice!).  I don't know if many people use a palette knife when mixing gouache, but I like to so that I can preserve my brushes just a little more.  I also save all my palettes throughout each piece, and I've found that I can reuse the gouache pretty easily even on these disposable ones so long as you're patient enough to scrape and break up the dried bits with your knife and water.  I've never liked using porcelain or ceramic plates for my palettes, even though they are easier for reusing your dried gouache, only because I run out of space too quickly when I'm mixing and I can't save my colors.

Starting from the beginning!  I always try to preserve as much of the energy of my sketches as I can when I pencil out my piece so I'll usually blow them up and light-table them.  Our light table has become a hugely valuable tool when I paint.  It's homemade!  I hate to pencil directly onto the nice paper I'll be painting on, so I'll usually work over the pencils on the light table, like so:

If you think about it digitally, I typically treat this part like it's all about laying in the flats.  I'm going to have a relatively dark background, so I'll paint that in last so my lighter colors don't pick it up and get all blotchy from the retouching that would have been required in that case.

I can't ever leave that light table on and step away! Doesn't that look scary with that jar of water, and the table a little askew, and my laptop right there..........? 

No harm done!  My cat is dainty, and I'm lucky. 

So I've gotten most of my girl painted in and I've already started dry-brushing on parts.  Usually most of that detail work I'll save till the end, but in some cases it helps to do it before hand.  For instance, layering her dress over the dry-brushing I did on her arm (as you can see in the last photo) helps keep things crisp.

Starting on the background, I'm using this as an opportunity to smooth her shape out a bit and clean up any wayward brushstrokes.

It's almost there!  Now I get to dry brush!  The absolute best part.  Plus! I can abandon the light table now and just go to town adding details and cleaning things up.  This is where I go back to my palettes and reuse a lot of my gouache.  I've made the mistake of mixing too little at the beginning and only realizing it at this step and that is no fun!  Gouache can be finicky with color matching, so I try to avoid remixing a color from scratch at this point because of that.  Also, different colors may dry darker or lighter than when they're wet, which may depend on the brand you're buying.  I use Winsor & Newton and Daler Rowney (cheaper!).  Some colors work better per brand in my experience.  For instance, I hate Daler Rowney's yellow ocher.  It always dries in the tube on me and has a weird semigloss, whereas Winsor & Newton's is great.  Conversely, I've found Winsor & Newton's turquoise blue to be super oily, like, oil with some blue in it.

Anyway, heading towards the finish...

There she is!  All done.  I've added my line work for the little firework sparks, and dry-brushing the light and shadow has carried it home.  I hope this has been neat and informative.  If you want to talk more gouache techniques or what not with me, feel free to ask!  Thanks again for all the encouragement, guys!

I did this piece for the magnanimous Meg Hunt's new endeavor Art For Japan, an auction she organized with her sister that will send proceeds to help relief efforts in Japan.  Keep an eye on their blog for updates as to when the auctions will take place and check out all the other great work people have donated! 

Now then...process post?  Coming right up!

Hello little guy.  Amidst the stress of filing taxes, a cruelly indecisive springtime, and car insurance payments, this little robin was born.  Sometimes you just need to make something pretty and meaningless.

The smog monster

It's Hedorah!  A glow-in-the-dark blue and pink color way Hedorah, which is one of mine from our collection.  There are so many great variations for Hedorah figures.  It's definitely one of my favorites and its respective film is real wacky.

Here's some more little slobs!

This is one of my rejected sketches for how to go about drawing Edward.  It didn't make the cut, but I just love looking at it!  It's hilarious to me.

Sebastian Mesnard kindly invited me to take part in Gallery Nucleus' upcoming show Edward Scissorhands 20th Anniversary Tribute, and above is a little preview of the piece I did for it.  I chose to illustrate the scene where Edward is rushed by the suburban housewives and all their ambrosia salads.  One of my favorite scenes among tons in this movie, which made it hard to choose!  It'd been years since I'd seen Edward Scissorhands so it was great to rewatch it, and I remembered just how lovely this movie is.  It stands the test of time pretty well too!  It's not as dated as you might expect it to be. 

If you want to see my full piece, check out the Scissorhands 20th blog.  There are so many great pieces by great artists in the show and it's absolutely worth a look!  Thanks again, Seb!

kaiju!

My boyfriend Jimmy and I (much more rarely on my part) collect kaiju figures, and as you can see, we have a good amount (though not compared to the hard core collectors). So, since I see these every time I enter my door, and because they're really a lot of fun and have some wild designs, I decided to do a little painting of Kittyfire. She's one of the few female giant monsters and you can see her there in the right corner of the photo. So many of them have such awesome color variations and this figure has one of my favorites: red-orange on a glow-in-the-dark base. Very nice.

Next I definitely want to paint some Hedorahs once I clear my plate a little! And Agasukeron! Heck yes.

Wow! You're work is so good! I really like it. Ho do you get such great digital images of your stuff? So good!

Thanks so much! I scan things at really high res and then adjust the levels in photoshop to match the originals as best I can. It can be a obsessive task!

It's official!  I've flip flopped a lot, but Tumblr is now the new home for my illustration blog.  Just the fact that I feel more inclined to update this baby tells me that this is probably the way to go.  It's good timing because I've been feeling really excited about working lately, getting new things started, keeping a proper sketchbook, and being overall less precious about my art.  Not everything needs to be perfect, but it's worth it to just put things down, and draw and draw and draw.  And after all perfection is subjective.  That's going to be my outlook for this year, and I'm hoping that fun new work will result, so keep checking back! 

burrows

This is a repeat post from my other blog, but I thought this little guy could show off over here!  I think this may be my favorite thing I've ever drawn, ever.  Sometimes the simplest things just sing to me.  I made it into a pattern and am picturing a community of fox burrows under the snow.  That's a little too sweet, kinda sugary...but maybe that's appropriate?  I would love to print this on fabric!  Wouldn't it look great on a set of kids' sheets or a kids' throw blanket?  Now who wants to sponsor that project...

gouache painting I did as a demo for high school students

A little Peruvian spice gourd I have hanging in my kitchen.  A woven net goes through the holes and inside it you put spices and aromatic things to keep the room smelling nice!

objects and face