The portfolio site…

Posted on June 23, 2014 by Jeff Thomann

The portfolio site is not complete yet, but it is slowly coming together. I’m sort of doing a combination of revising and adding new content to this blog while working on the site so some of the links over there may very well not work as they should, etc. That’s because I don’t have the full content on the site live yet, or even created locally in some cases. However, over the next few months (or possibly even years?) I’ll be adding more and editing more both here on this blog and at the site… I plan to get it all put together strategically and working well cohesively as my next ‘big project’ that I’m working on an hour or three every day as I find the free time to work on it.

In the not-too-distant future that free time will start going down a bit as our new baby is on the way. However, I’m sure that I’ll still have some time for this ‘hobby’ to finally come together the way that I’m wanting it to. It’s been something that’s sort of been on the backburner since 1999 that I always wanted to do, but never took the full time to actually do til now, at least not as completely as I plan to do this thing… The artfolio part of the new site is the part that is most put together thus far, and only a few pages of the oil painting is really up so far… That is at http://jeffthomann.cwahi.net/artfolio/index.shtml.

Most of the other sections are not up yet…

The ‘old’ portfolio site at http://jeffthomann.cwahi.net/ is still up and running for the here and now… but over time it’ll be phased out and replaced with the new site… It’s just going to take some time, and I don’t want to completely delete the old one all the way until the new one is at least fully working.

I plan ultimately to have a cross link from every blog post with the artwork to the page on the site with the artwork, and use the blog to sort of have an ongoing commentary about each work of art on the site that is probably a bit more lengthy and more of a dialogue than really needs to be on the ‘official’ site… but is still related, so there will be the cross linking to make it all easily accessible…

As time goes by, I’ll probably edit the blog heavily on past posts so that stuff that is really ‘portfolio’ quality is all that’s in the portfolio category, etc.

As I do this, I’m also starting to keep a spreadsheet of all the links, titles, copyright dates, etc. of everything much more complete and in depth than I ever have before. I may publish some portions of that spreadsheet in the future so that it’ll help any viewers or collectors out there find things just as it’ll eventually help myself find things as sometimes finding stuff you are looking for in a blog is not the easiest thing in the world to do… As I create new works of art in the future, they will get added to this ongoing project… so it’s really sort of just establishing a groundwork to eventually build my art career from at a level that I haven’t taken the time to do yet for a variety of reasons.

Remember, the ‘artfolio’ is more about all of my artwork, including works in progress, works never completed etc. as well as more thoroughly completed works that I’d consider ‘portfolio’ quality. The ‘portfolio’ is just that – completed ‘portfolio’ quality works, i.e. top notch stuff, at least in my opinion. To get to the ‘artfolio’ portion of the blog you can use the artfolio category tag, and to get to the portfolio part of the blog you can use the portfolio category tag.

Happy viewing! 🙂

Kirksville by Night © 1996 Jeff Thomann

Posted on July 8, 2013 by Jeff Thomann

Kirksville by Night © 1996 Jeff Thomann
Media: Oil Painting
Artists Statement: http://jeffs.faith/artfolio/kirksville.shtml

New goals…

Posted on November 19, 2011 by Jeff Thomann

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

Posted on August 4, 2011 by Jeff Thomann

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

Posted on August 3, 2011 by Jeff Thomann

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

Self Portait © 2011 Jeff Thomann

Posted on June 14, 2011 by 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.

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

Posted on June 8, 2011 by 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.

17 Minute Drawing – 6/6/2011

Posted on June 7, 2011 by Jeff Thomann

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! 🙂

5/26/2011 – 22 Minute Self Portrait

Image

5/26/2011 – 22 Minute Self Portrait © Jeff Thomann 5/26/2011
Media: Ballpoint Pen on Paper

I’m not too keen on the that big right eye and super dark area right below the chin in the neck, but that’s the sort of stuff that happens when you are doing a self portait. Actually, the eye kind of adds to that expression I think. I probably went in to too dark and harsh lines too quickly about 20 minutes in — easy to do in this type of drawing. Also, working near the edge of the paper is always a tricky thing to do, but an important thing to do.

Emotions play a big part in drawing. I had a pretty rough/stressful day at work, so I think that played in to this a little in the expressionism gestures in the line quality, etc.

I stopped it at 22 minutes instead of half an hour because I felt that if I kept going I was really going to overwork it way too much. Getting fine details in a quick sketch is always a tricky thing to do. How far is going to far. How much time is left. The clock starts to not matter much but I want to keep these below 30 minutes for now.

I ultimately want to do one quick sketch like this daily and then one longer work that takes a long time on the side after that. This is a transition in to that. Currently I’m working on some color pencil drawings for the longer drawing, but didn’t work on it yesterday or today. I want to make the quick sketches be done every single day regardless of how I feel or if I want to or don’t want to draw that day. If I keep them below half an hour, that’s a lot more possible and realistic then trying to do a masterpiece that takes hours daily, etc. Time management is an important and difficult thing to master.

Sunrise @ Galveston Bay © 2011 Jeff Thomann

Posted on February 23, 2011 by Jeff Thomann

Sunrise @ Galveston Bay © 2011 Jeff Thomann
Media: Pastel, Watercolor Pencil, & Color Pencil on Gessoed Hardboard
Original Size: 5″ x 7″

Halfway to 70

Posted on February 12, 2011 by Jeff Thomann

Halfway to 70 (Self Portrait)
Halfway to 70, Copyright 2011, Jeff Thomann
© 2011, Jeff Thomann
Media: Ball Point Pen

“Halfway to 70” is the name of this one. It was a self portrait I did the other day on my birthday (yes, I’m 35 now). I’m not super happy with it, but considering it’s a self portrait done in about an about an hour or so it’s not half bad. Did it with ballpoint pen. Lots of artists do self portraits on their birthdays, and that’s something I have not done much of in the past, but figure it’s a descent time as any to start this annual project.

I quit when I did because I was making the shading too funky and could feel myself “overworking” it… Hard to stay with a fresh drawing feel and look if you go after too much realism in the shading/tones

I Really don’t think it “looks like” me totally. It’s hard to do self portraits since you are constantly moving as you draw, so your reference is always changing. I used china marker on the bathroom mirror to keep basic shape in the roughly right location through most of it. I’m going to probably do more freehand drawing things like this now and then to get my skills back in shape.

…

Posted on January 18, 2011 by Jeff Thomann

…

new website…

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Jeff Thomann

https://jeffthomann.artstation.com/

z

Posted on January 7, 2011 by Jeff Thomann

98 Cloud Photos

Posted on January 3, 2011 by Jeff Thomann

I uploaded 98 photos of clouds in a zip file to Turbosquid that you can find at http://www.turbosquid.com/FullPreview/Index.cfm/ID/578229?referral=mastermesh

Here’s a small small slideshow preview of the images in the zip file.

Redbud and Maple leaves in Fall

Posted on January 3, 2011 by Jeff Thomann

I uploaded a few scans of maple and red bud leaves that I took this fall, just before the first heavy snowfall. I just did not get them in a product in Turbosquid until last night/this morning.

Here’s a small summary image that shows what part of the bundle looks like:
scans of leaves

Jeff’s Turbosquid Shops

Posted on December 3, 2010 by Jeff Thomann

Jeff’s Turbosquid Shops are at http://www.turbosquid.com/Search/Artists/mastermesh?referral=mastermesh

Jeff’s Zazzle Shops.

Posted on December 3, 2010 by Jeff Thomann

My Zazzle Shops can be found at http://www.zazzle.com/jeffthomann. Like the Cafe Press Shops, I have not put a lot of new stuff out there as I’m in the process of digitizing a lot of various old works before starting working on a lot of newer stuff. However, over time, I’ll be adding more as it’s created.

http://jeffthomann.t35.com – Jeff Thomann’s Online Portfolio

Posted on November 22, 2010 by Jeff Thomann

no longer use this t35 place since some idiot scammer ruined it for everyone else that was using the place for free hosting, so now scammer alerts show up an avast, etc. anytime t35 url is spotted anywhere online 😦

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I’ve started working a bit more on http://jeffthomann.t35.com over the last few days. It is starting to come together nicely. There are still several images on there that I probably will remove, and several more that I will add eventually, but it’s a nice framework that’s starting to come together a lot better then it was before now. I like being able to click on the images to make them take up the full width of the browser, even if the bigger image is just a resized copy of the smaller images. With today’s high resolution digital photos and scans, it’s sort of nice to be able to zoom in and see fine details individual brush strokes and things in paintings and drawings that our predecessors could have only dreamed about. The resume is finally starting to go online over there. I’m still not 100% comfortable putting that much personal information online, but since this blog is here along with facebook, most anyone could figure out all of that information anyways I suppose, so it’s a mute point to try to keep information from being free. I will probably not put a phone number over there or a real world address anytime soon, but the email link from the name on the resume should do a pretty good substitute. Would love to have someone give me some feedback on what I need to do to make it better…

working on folio

Posted on September 13, 2010 by Jeff Thomann

Slowly working on portfolio website (see link on right). This weekend I put together a few of the pages over there. So far the Charcoal and Ball Point Pen sections are starting to shape up.

I have not put together the other sections yet completely since those require shooting digital photos of my works. Not being the greatest photographer in the world doesn’t make getting the quality that I like out of the camera the easiest thing in the world. Also, it does not help much that I’m shooting outside when I do the shots, and it’s been fairly windy the last several days. The other day I shot some of my brother’s old artwork from highschool and the tripod fell over with the wind while I was swapping drawings with others in the house. The part of the camera that attaches to the tripod flew off of the camera when it hit the pavement. I luckily got it back together, but have not tried to attach it back to the tripod since then. Note to self – add weights of some sort to tripod the next time I try to use it.

The ball point pen drawings are mostly some of the mall small scans I took. I tried to limit it to about 30 or so images for each section. That way a nice little navigation bar table fits well in most browsers. It’s still a little too wide for the smallest screen settings, but I really don’t think most folks use the smallest screen settings usually. If so, sorry folks… I am trying to get this thing looking good, not optimized for your super low res screens… It’s tricky using the floating navigation bars I’m using because Internet Explorer is tricky. If you don’t put the dtd type up at the top of the html, it doesn’t float the css navbars where they belong, and just sticks them at the top of the page where they scroll with the rest of it.

It’s slowly coming together. I’ve been doing some cleaning around the house this weekend since we’ll likely be moving before too long… found a bunch of ol floppy disks and that reminded me that the last time I tried to put together an online web portfolio like this I was doing it on floppy and zip disks on Campus because it was like the year 2002 and I was using the free modem pool that the University of Missouri had back then… a whopping speed of 28k! No wonder I got frustrated and quit putting together the website last time, lol.

This time, things are coming together a lot smoother, and hopefully this blog will help make things work out a little better. I’ll add more to the website as I get more images put together and organized. I really like this click the image to get a bigger copy of it idea. I also like the floating nav bars with transparent backgrounds that makes it nice, clean, and easy to maneuver around in.

Got any pointers, tips, or ideas on how I can improve portfolio? Shoot away and give me some comments. I like listening to what people have to say. 🙂 😉

2740 Turbosquid Links Left

Posted on September 5, 2010 by Jeff Thomann

I have posted quite a few Tubosquid Links over the last 24 hours, but still have quite a few more to post to get the
“comprehensive” list of all the links I have over there so far in to this blog.

Only 2740 more links to go to get every blasted asset I have over there linked to from here. Lots of copying and pasting from excel file I created from their database to do this. My right pointing finger hurts from clicking the mouse so much lately, lol.

Again, I just want to re-iterate here that this is NOT spam. It’s a list of art links that I’m creating to later use for commentary purposes here in this blog. What I want to do is give some examples of various trends my artworks have been going the last few years, expound on where those trends will lead me in the future, and also use this link list to make this blog more comprehensive and complete in showing my various forms of artwork.

This is both a reference for those that enjoy my artwork as well as for myself, both for visual viewing purposes as well as for historical and documentation purposes. I am trying to more or less account for all my artwork online up to this point in time so that going forward it’ll be easier for anyone reading this blog as well as myself and any art historians to see where I’ve been, where I am, and where I’m headed in my art, its themes, its purposes, its concepts, in various relations between art that I have created and am working on now or in future projects, etc.

This entire blog is sort of an auto-biography from me, by me, and to me, Jeff Thomann, aka Mastermesh, aka Maria Mastermesh Mesh… and it’s also something intended for you dear reader, and you, fellow art lovers and art historians as well. This is me and my story. Come along with me on the ride, if you dare. 😉 🙂