Sketch-a-day 1/9/14: Small Acrylic Paintings

I took some time last evening when work was done to jump into acrylic painting for the first time. I have a potential show for the First Friday Art Walk in a couple months and I figured I'd start exploring my physical medium options.

 These two landscapes were painted on 5.5" x 8.5" 136 lb. canvas paper with a super-cheap knock-off acrylic set and some beat-up kids' brushes, took about 30-45 minutes apiece, and were a total blast. Hopefully I can crank out some more of these when I get some down time in the next couple of weeks.

This first is roughly from memory from the train ride this past holiday:

This second is an attempt at some land near Augusta:

If you have any solid subject ideas for some natural or not-so-natural mini-paintings in this vein, hit me up. I'd love some input for this experiment!

Bang! You're dead, 2014!

Another WIP for +Andreas Walters , fitting for the end of the year:

Onward and upward.

Sketch-A-Day: Fantasy Factory Town

Here's a ramshackle town sketch I jammed out on the road this holiday season, and I thought I'd clean it up a bit for the blog. I think it would make a solid mini-town or factory compound for a mid- to high-fantasy setting.

This site is waiting to be labeled like a map and put into play. Feel free to use it for such, and if you do, please post a comment or send an email about it.

Sketch-a-day: Client work for 12/26/14

Here's a rough sketch for +Andreas Walters ' upcoming gaming book involving the Cold War and time travel. Cheers!

Set up your fresh Elementary OS install to kick ass for art!

I recently fell in love with Elementary OS when I was looking around for a way to spice up my computing and workflow. After several hours of tinkering and having fun, I decided to write a fairly complete script for installing all the stuff that I need as an artist. Perhaps another artist out there will want to use this on a fresh Elementary OS install as well. If that's the case, go to the link above, download the .iso file, use unetbootin to make a live stick for testing Elementary OS and installing, and then use the script provided below. Here goes!

Copy and paste this script into an empty text file in your home folder, my good Linux user, and then save the file as 'elemosautoinstall.sh'.

 #!/bin/bash  
 sudo software-properties-gtk &&  
 sudo apt-add-repository ppa:versable/elementary-update -y &&  
 sudo add-apt-repository ppa:otto-kesselgulasch/gimp &&  
 sudo apt-get update &&  
 sudo apt-get install elementary-tweaks elementary-wallpaper-collection wingpanel-slim super-wingpanel elementary-.*-theme elementary-.*-icons indicator-synapse firefox adobe-flashplugin vlc ubuntu-restricted-extras libavcodec-extra-53 libdvdread4 unace rar unrar p7zip-rar p7zip sharutils uudeview mpack lha arj cabextract lzip lunzip icedtea-plugin scribus inkscape gimp krita mypaint gimp-gmic audacity openshot -y &&  
 sudo apt-get update &&  
 sudo apt-get upgrade &&  
 sudo apt-get dist-upgrade &&  
 sudo apt-get autoremove &&  
 sudo reboot  
 done  

Now, in terminal, navigate to your home folder, and the type:

 ./elemosautoinstall.sh  

This is going to do a few things:

1) Run the software sources configuration app so you can choose your additional software sources.
2) Add PPA's so you can get some custom stuff for Elementary OS as well as GIMP.
3) Install additional Elementary OS components, some archive management components, and pretty things to customize the look of your desktop.
4) Install some key programs: GIMP, G-mic (GIMP add-ons), MyPaint, Krita, Inkscape, Scribus, Audacity (audio editing), and Openshot (because you wanna make videos of your art process for youtube, right?).
5) Update and upgrade your OS.
6) Reboot.

After all this is done, you can start kicking ass with your Elementary OS install, and start kicking ass with your art!

Merry Grav-Mass!

Sketch-a-day: 12/23/14 - Speedpaints on a Train in the North

Today I found it difficult to draw accurate lines while riding 14 hours on a bumpy train. However, I was able to crank out some rough speed paintings of the highline as viewed from the Empire Builder.

Each illo is a single layer painting done in Krita in 20 minutes or less. First, pre-dawn:

About 2 hours later:

Around 1pm:

Around 5pm, cusp of sunset:

I was happy to make use of some time that otherwise would have been a wash, and I hope you enjoy them. Happy Festivus, y'all!

Slumbering Ursine Dunes - cover sketch!

Backdated sketch - approved pencils for the cover of Slumbering Ursine Dunes, published by the Hydra Co-op.