Self Portrait in Red and Blue

Self Portrait in Red and Blue © 2006 Jeff Thomann, Media: Oil Painting
Self Portrait in Red and Blue © 2006 Jeff Thomann
Media: Oil Painting

I created this work back in 2006 as a way of keeping my oil painting hobby going. At the time that I created this work I didn’t have the best studio to work in. We had purchased a house with a large basement that I was trying to use as a studio, but it was dark, moldy, and had a lot of dust and mildew in it. I did light up the place with some hanging lamps, but it still was definitely not the best place in the world to be doing oil painting since there was not much ventilation. There was a small garage door that I put fans nearby but this was still a horribly ventilated area. I fondly remember smelling the chemicals from the studio one floor up in the main living room several days after I created this work… that was something Tekla and Genesis didn’t care for too much. After that incident I went to trying to do works that require less fumes such as acrylic, color pencils, etc.

I believe that this painting was exhibited at the Columbia Art League the year that it was created.

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David Thomann Memorial Painting

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David Thomann Memorial Painting
Oil on Wood Panel
© 1998, Jeff Thomann

This is a work that I created about a semester before I created David Thomann Memorial Installation

This work was created just before the time that Photomosaics really became popular. The painting was basically a bunch of photos that work together to create an portrait of my Uncle Dave. However, I painted the photos individually. The images are from a variety of sources.. family photos, and a variety of other scenes, some which were not actually derived from photos, but were scenes I had lived through in person or had some knowledge of… The inability to really tell the whole story that was behind my reasons for creating this work led me to create the Installation later. I might try to get a better photo of this painting later since there appears to be some glare on this one.

On the Road

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On the Road
Oil on Canvas
© 1999, Jeff Thomann

For a while in college I was fascinated by the idea of driving and the metaphor of how the car becomes a part of one’s self – an extension of the inner self in a variety of ways. Much of my art since that time has revolved around the idea of the journey, and seeing the landmarks on the road we see daily both in cars and outside of them. Roads that parallel highways and exit ramps and overpasses – tunnels to new places, and exits and entries on the highway of life fascinate me both visually, spiritually, and emotionally. We are all on journeys every day. Do we take the time to see what we are passing or just let it pass us by?

Self Portrait with Cabin in Background

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

Draped Figure Drawing

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Draped Figure Drawing
India Ink, Colored Ink, and Charcoal and Tea Stains on Paper
© 1999, Jeff Thomann

Pastel Figure Drawing

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Pastel Figure Drawing
Pastel and Charcoal on Paper
© 1999, Jeff Thomann

Reclining Figure Drawing

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Reclining Figure Drawing
Pastel and Charcoal on Paper
© 1999, Jeff Thomann

Reclining Figure Drawing

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Reclining Figure Drawing
Pastel and Charcoal on Paper
© 1999, Jeff Thomann

BHS

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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.

New goals…

I’ve been procrastinating on things a bit, but no more! I’ve decided that I want to start getting up at 4 AM instead of 5. Up til now I’ve been trying to get up at 5, but usually ended up going back to bed til 6 sometimes, or more often got up and just wasted time online on forums, etc. Going forwards, I want to change that… I have no idea if I’ll be able to do this or not but think if I can I’ll see some major improvement in my art, in my attitude, etc.

Goal is to do more art, do it in a way that suits me and gets things accomplished, and make time to live life a little too more than in the past. No more wasting time…

so… tentative schedule is…
Up at 4 AM. Do 3 pages of Morning Pages for The Artist’s Way/Journaling/diary type stuff… Then eat breakfast (probably a bowl of cereal, maybe fruit on occassion) In theory, that’ll take up til about 4:30 ish… maybe 4:40 or 4:20 sometimes?

4:30 AM – 5:00ish (maybe earlier depending on the above) do a 10-30 minute drawing… probably with ball point pen since it’s a speedy thing, but maybe other stuff like charcoal or color pencils sometimes?… maybe even graphite even though I hate the shine graphite produces. Number one reason I hate acrylic too unless lots of matte medium is used – also why I love oil paint and have decided on encaustic as painting medium of choice…

5:00 AM – 6:30ish = Work on 3d Modelling. I’ll probably do speed modeling for now… then go back and redo the fine details as needed later on. Maybe do a whole week of work without going back in to finish it up til the weekends?… I’ve been on Turbosquid for a very long time, so am at the level in there where you can get the keywords for free, so those keywords will be my subjects for these 3d models since that’s stuff that is known to sell, etc. I’ve been trying to copy/paste the keyword lists in to an open office file every morning, and will continue to do so and then will pick the subjects that interest me… I may sometimes stray from that and use my own ideas or keywords/topics, but there’s lots of ideas in there, so I think I’m going to focus on that a bit.

6:30 – Take a Shower, Make Lunch, Get ready for work, etc.

7:00ish – Head to work…

At work, walk with my Aunt on my morning and afternoon breaks (assuming I’m not on hold with blasted insurance companies when she takes a break)

11:00ish (my time for lunch varies) Eat Lunch and Read a page or two out of Drawing on the Right Side of the Brain or The Artist’s way… Maybe other books on kindle, etc. Possibly do a 5 minute doodle session at lunch, but probably not as there’s not really much time since I only have half an hour lunch.

After work – Start up the Encaustic heating up as soon as I get home… Maybe draw for a few minutes while it’s heating up and the wax is melting. Paint after it’s hot with the encaustic til Tekla gets home.

When Tekla gets home, we’ll head to the Arc to workout. This is something I’ve neglected doing way too long, and is really why my sugar’s not under better control at the moment, even if it’s not too hugely bad yet.

After that we’ll have supper, and enjoy the rest of whatever is left of the night spending time with one another and enjoying our time together.

Go to bed around 10 or so since that’ll give me 6 hours of sleep. If I can get myself off of caffeine, I think 6 hours of sleep is enough… Going to be hard to do, especially at work since it’s free there and they have a huge thing there that keeps 3 pots going all day every day… they usually have one pot of decaf, one of regular, and one double strong – I usually try to mix half decaf with regular but half of the time the decaf is gone… need to drink water more, coffee less… very difficult to do, but I think if I can and can excercise more, this crazy schedule might work…

Galveston Harbor

Galveston Harbor, © Jeff Thomann, 2011
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 #1 © August, 2011 Jeff Thomann

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

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

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

a few new drawings.

Jackie's Rose © 2011 Jeff Thomann
Jackie’s Rose © August, 2011 Jeff Thomann

Palm © 2011 Jeff ThomannPalm © June, 2011 Jeff Thomann

Palm 2 © 2011 Jeff ThomannPalm 2 © June, 2011 Jeff Thomann

Self Portait © 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.

Horse Head © 2011 Jeff Thomann

Horse Head © 2011 Jeff Thomann

Horse Head © 2011 Jeff Thomann

Horse Head © 2011 Jeff Thomann

This is a horse head I created in Lightwave tonight as a part of the speed model challenge over at http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=122&t=984188. It took about one hour and 45 minutes to create the 3d model. I may go back and add some hair to it in saslite eventually.

2 hour ear

2 hour ear © 2011 Jeff Thomann

2 hour ear © 2011 Jeff Thomann
2 hour ear © 2011 Jeff Thomann

This is a model of an ear that I attempted to create for the speed model challenge over at http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?f=122&t=984188. It was created in Lightwave 3D. I’m not too happy with the middle section that I was focused on towards the end yet, but it is a good start. The model was created in one hour and 57 minute using various reference photos found online. Setting up the cameras, lights, and rendering took approximately another 10 minutes after that.

Speed Model Challenge: Spear

Spear © 6/8/2011 Jeff Thomann

Spear © 6/8/2011 Jeff Thomann

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.

19 Minutes – 6/7/2011 © 2011 6/7/2011 Jeff Thomann

19 Minutes - 6/7/2011 © 2011 6/7/2011 Jeff Thomann

19 Minutes – 6/7/2011 © 2011 6/7/2011 Jeff Thomann
Media: Ballpoint Pen on Paper

This is a quick little still life sketch I did last night.

Ear Ring © 2011 Jeff Thomann

earring-meshearring-renderEar Ring © 2011 Jeff Thomann

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
© 2011 Jeff Thomann

© 2011 Jeff Thomann

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.

5/25/2011

5/25/2011
5/25/2011 © 5/25/2011 Jeff Thomann

20 Minute Sketch
Media: Ball Point Pen and China Marker on Paper

I’m not super happy about the results here. I got the proportion off a little on this and was a bit distracted too since the tv was on when I was drawing. I was going to skip tonight since I skipped working out tonight due to the weather (tornado watches and warnings earlier this afternoon) but really don’t want to do that. I really need to do at least one drawing a day to get in to the good habbits I need to develop. Ink is not a forgiving medium, but that makes me know that I need to work harder to get it right the first time.

a few more quick drawings.

I’ve been sketching after work for 30 minutes or less to just sort of work my way back in to drawing. I’m using ballpoint pen for these so far since they are easily scanned without a mess, and also are not messy. Here’s a few of the recent drawings. I’ll try to upload more of these as they are made in the future. I KNOW my skills can get better, and practice is the ONLY way to make that happen.

5/3/2011 – 5 minute drawing
5/3/2011 - 5 minute drawing

5/23/2011 – 25 minute drawing
5/23/2011

5/24/2011 – 25 minute drawing
5/24/2011

A couple of fast sketches.

I’ve started sketching again a bit. Here’s a couple from the last week.

Copyright © 2011 Jeff Thomann

I’m going to try to make it a point to do these 20-30 minute drawings daily after work, and then do more complex artwork after that. It’s sort of a fast way to retrain my art skills, transition from work life to art life, and try different things out to learn or relearn techniques, etc. I may upload more of these type of drawings in the future.

Egg

Egg Render

Egg model

Just a quick egg model I put together in the last half hour or so. Did this for the speed modeling challenge over at http://forums.cgsociety.org/showthread.php?p=6915314#post6915314