Sunday, September 29, 2013

The Evolving Artist / Breakthroughs etc.,

There is a small part of me that has always envied those illustrators and fine artists who seemed to have found their signature style early on and stuck with it throughout their entire careers. I have experimented with many approaches over the years, some successful, some not so successful.
Switching styles and not having one signature style can be pure hell when it comes to marketing.
Yet there are many advantages to being able to bend this way or that in order to bring in a steady stream of work. After all, one must pay the bills.

Over the past few years I have been trying to nail down an honest feel to my work which would allow me to meld my love of both color and line. I enjoy the loose feel of a brush and have been taking this same approach to my drawing, particularly over the past couple years.
Many times a breakthrough can happen by mistake but more often than not, it is the result of hard work, failures, hard work, a little success, more hard work and failures....trial and error if you get my drift.

Shown here is a small piece I did which I am very happy with and it came so easily and effortlessly that I had it made me smile.  It is shown here, first as a b&w wash and ink, then colored digitally in a couple different ways. It's a little breakthrough I feel and a nice way to start the week.



Monday, September 23, 2013

Busy Sunday

I spent much of Sunday working on an assignment and playing with my watercolors.
As far as the assignment goes, I need to finish it up today and will post it when able.
In the meantime, here are three watercolor sketches I did. I paint pretty much everything in full color
and then save it in color and in grayscale. I also experimented with coloring the Paris Street scene
digitally. I am no photoshop guru and really don't care to be. But, I do enjoy playing with the "screen" option which you can find under the Layer tool box. An example of this coloring tool can be seen in the last version of the Paris Street scene.






Please click on the images to enlarge.

Friday, September 13, 2013

Dis n Dat

It's been quite awhile since I have posted anything. I have been fairly busy with the comic work
as well as some video and social media work, illustrating images for both.
It's funny how things come and go in waves. My work with digital color is still popular but I have been getting more and more requests for the traditional watercolor work and I really enjoy the chance
to branch out more. Shown here is a variety of work that I have done over the last month. Some of it is comic based, some digitally colored and also as mentioned,  the watercolor work.
Hope to be posting more soon. Other work can be viewed at www.altpick.com/markweber

Please click on images to enlarge.