Self Portrait with Cabin in Background

Self Portrait with Cabin in Background
Acrylic, Watercolor, Pastel, and Charcoal on Cardboard
© 1999, Jeff Thomann

Broken Mirror Self Portrait

Broken Mirror Self Portrait
Acrylic on Canvas Paper
© 1999, Jeff Thomann

Nude Self Portrait

Nude Self Portrait
Pastel on Paper
© 1999, Jeff Thomann

Nude Self Portrait

Nude Self Portrait
Acrylic, Charcoal and Pastel on Paper
© 1999, Jeff Thomann

Pastel Figure Drawing

Pastel Figure Drawing
Pastel on Paper
© 1999, Jeff Thomann

Study for Bottomless Self Portrait

Pastel Study for Bottomless Self Portrait
Pastel and Conte Crayon on Watercolor Paper
© 1999, Jeff Thomann

Triple Self Portrait

Triple Self Portrait
Pastel on Paper
© 1999, Jeff Thomann

This drawing was created in Missouri Hall at Truman State University in Kirksville, MO. It was done for a drawing class. I was in to ‘role playing’ a little at the time. The figures in the background were playing Dungeons and Dragons, and I was halfway playing that too.. Needless to say the gaming group was not too happy that I was drawing while they were actively sitting around the table, lol. That was about my extent in role playing D&D. I never could get too much in to it. I hated that all of their books were so expensive and usually hard back while Palliadium books were usually 20 bucks or less and soft back, so much cheaper. That, and I just liked the whole playing in modern environment vs the old medieval ideas in D&D…

as far as the cracked mirror/split mirror idea goes, it’s something that’s a theme in some of my self portraits. It’s a visual metaphor that has a lot of different meaning.

Self Portrait Collage

Self Portrait Collage
Pastel, Charcoal, and Collage
© 1999, Jeff Thomann

Bottomless Self Portrait

Bottomless Self Portrait
Acrylic on Canvas
© Y2K, Jeff Thomann

This was an acrylic painting that I created when I was entering my ‘bottomless paintings’ phase. I was really interested in trying to figure out ways to create compositions that had no one right side up. I still get on that kick sometimes.

BHS

BHS
Oil on Canvas
© 1999, Jeff Thomann
BHS is one image from a series of paintings I created for my BFA show back in College in 1999. It was based on a dream. BHS is the name of this since the background was sort of similar to a locker hallway in Boonville High School where I attended high school.

encaustic

I’m over on http://encausticart.ning.com/ now as I’ve started to take up encaustic painting a little. Bought a wood burner yesterday to help out with that a bit. http://www.walnuthollow.com/23906creativeversa-tool.aspx Got it at Michaels. There’s a lot to it, but I think I love encaustic because it’s possible to do lots of layering, lots of reworking, and it has potential to be just as complex if not more so then oil painting but the stuff drys instantly so much can be done in a short amount of time.

I like the creative versa tool (link above) because it does the same that the enkaustikos pens do with the temperature control, but for about 1/3 the costs, and a lot less on shipping since we only live a block away from Michaels.

(I will probably get the Encaustikos Flow Pen someday though since I’ve not seen anything else like it on the market yet… but maybe not since it costs so much if you add in the cost of the temperature regulator — why don’t they just add the regulator to the pens like Walnut Hollow did with the versa tool?)

Galveston Harbor

Galveston Harbor, © Jeff Thomann, 2011

Media: Watercolor Pencil, Color Pencil & China Marker

I still don’t think this image image is ‘done’ but it’s getting close to where I want it to be. I’ve reworked it many times. I’ve been technically working on it about 2 or 3 months, but most of that time I was just looking at it. Since I started The Artists Way again this week I’ve been working on it an hour or two every morning and night, every day.

I have no idea how many real working hours have been put in to it, but there’s been a lot. I’ll put multiple layers in, erase them out, scatch out highlights with a burnisher, add more color, erase out some with an electric eraser, add more color areas, rework, etc. The gesso in the foreground has probably lost most of it’s tooth, as has most of the ‘water’ area to the left, but I keep adding new marks to it all the time, so I may have another few hundred hours of work to put in to it before all is said and done?… I’ll probably move on to some other artwork for now so I don’t really overwork it beyond a point that I can’t fix it any further. The scan was taken without any fixative added. I hate how shiny color pencil glare causes an image to really get a lot darker looking in the scan then it is in reality. The image is based on a couple of photos that I’m putting together in to one image in the drawing. I’m trying to be careful to leave some of the white of the underlying gesso. Most of the cloud area is almost pure white from the gesso with very little color pencil. I probably need to rework the middle ground and the ship in the background a lot more, but maybe not since some atmospheric perspective isn’t necessarily a bad thing here.

a couple of quick little self portraits

8/3/2011 Self Portrait #1 © August, 2011 Jeff Thomann

8/3/2011 Self Portrait #2 © August, 2011 Jeff Thomann

8/2/2011 Rose Study #1 © August, 2011 Jeff Thomann

8/2/2011 Rose Study #2 © August, 2011 Jeff Thomann

a few new drawings.

Jackie’s Rose © August, 2011 Jeff Thomann

Palm © June, 2011 Jeff Thomann

Palm 2 © June, 2011 Jeff Thomann

Self Portait © 2011 Jeff Thomann

Self Portait © 2011 Jeff Thomann

This was created using an old car rearview mirror so I could only see half of the face without shifting location so it was a bit of a challenge. As you can probably tell, I was focusing primarily on the lower nose/chin/neck area more than the rest of the face.

It took me 29 minutes overall, and time flew by because I was so intently focused. Getting good greyscale gradation levels with a small drawing surface like a ball point pen is challenging, especially when on a timeline like I was with this. I did complete it in under a half hour though.

I can see some improvements already in the self portrait drawing skill vs the last self portrait like this I did. I use self portraits as sort of a checkup on my skills since the human face is a good indicator of art skills on a lot of levels. Drawing faces with glasses on is always a bit of a challenge too since it changes the lighting a lot and gives areas that need new details.

I did the glasses on though because I’m working on a color pencil drawing in the mornings that has Tekla with glasses on, and I wanted to study a little in these ballpoint pen drawings how the glasses affect the light and shadow on the face so I can do better in that and future drawings with glasses. The color pencil drawings are very tricky since I’m using a lot of different colors, layering techniques, and a lot of erasing and actual burnishing techniques – actually in some areas on those I’m using real print making etching tools to do scratcherboard type techniques in limited areas since I’m using gessoed hardboard. That is definitely something I would not be able to do if I was using paper for the color pencils. The color pencils are almost like mini-oil paintings. Now it’s after 6 Am so I better start on the color pencil as the time allocated to it is before 6:30 AM, lol.

Speed Model Challenge: Spear

Spear © 6/8/2011 Jeff Thomann

This is a 3d model I created tonight for the speed model challenge over at http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=122&t=984188.

The Model took me approximately an hour and a half to create, but I was a bit distracted since we were watching America’s Got Talent at the same time, and I was also using an internet browser to look at various spear reference images at the same time. I was originally intending to base this on the Hofburg Spear of Destiny that supposedly the spear that pierced the side of Christ according to some, but decided that since I was on a timeline in order to complete this in less than 2 hours, I was going to sort of go off in my own direction with it as a generic spear that just has the rough basic shape as that spear.

I probably spent about 45 minutes adjusting various settings in the procedural texture settings in Lightwave to get the texture I was aiming for. I didn’t focus too much on lighting the scene. It’s just using the generic default light from Lightwave. I didn’t do my usual 30 minute ball point pen drawing tonight, but that’s ok because we spent some time at the mall in Barnes and Noble tonight where I looked at several books and magazines related to 3d modeling and drawing. I’m going to consider that a part of my weekly ‘artist date’ for this week. The ‘artist date’ is a part of The Artist’s Way Process. It involves spending time ‘filling the well’ by doing various things your inner artists guides you to do.

Another part of my ‘artist date’ earlier this week was playing Grand Theft Auto, Vice City for a few hours over the weekend. It’s always a little fun to go and act like a crazy stuntman driver in that game causing all sorts of havoc. Neat way to blow off a little steam.

Ear Ring © 2011 Jeff Thomann

Ear Ring © 2011 Jeff Thomann
Media: 3d Model created in Lightwave 3d

This model was created as a part of the speed model challenge over at http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=122&t=984188

Total Time creating this model with both the modelling, surfacing, and rendering took approximately 2 hours. The modelling took up the biggest portion of that time.

17 Minute Drawing – 6/6/2011

17 Minute Drawing – 6/6/2011

17 Minute Drawing – 6/6/2011 © Jeff Thomann 5/26/2011
Media: Ball Point Pen

I almost skipped doing this drawing last night, but decided to stay up a little bit after doing the speed challenge in the last post to do it. I’m trying to work on color pencil drawing in the morning, and quick sketches like this along with the speed model stuff in the evening. Since I’m using ballpoint pen for these types of drawings, I really have zero excuses to not do one every day of the year!

Speed Model Challenge – Dumbbell

Speed Model Challenge – Dumbbell

The above is a quick ‘speed model’ I did tonight for the speed model challenge over at cgtalk http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=122&t=984188

I plan to do more of these speed model challenges in the future to get my 3d modeling skills up to a level where I want them to be. The above model took me a little over an hour to do, and the texture (which I’m not 100% too happy with at the moment) took about 20 or so minutes. The model was created in Lightwave 9.