The Rescue - New Watercolour Painting

Here's a painting I just recently completed, it's my interpretation of the moment of rescue where The Little Mermaid rescues her prince, whether or not she is bringing him up to the surface or dragging him down under is up to your own interpretation ;)

I was inspired by a great contemporary artist Arantza Martinez who also painted this beautiful moment with the Little Mermaid and her prince which is also called The Rescue. If you haven't heard of Arantza before I highly recommend following her work you can see the image that inspired me at the end of this post :)

Below are images depicting the process from thumbnails to completed painting. Materials used include; cartridge paper, kraft brown paper, Arches 300gsm medium watercolour paper, coloured pencil, graphite, masking fluid, gummed tape, various sized brushes, white gouache, white ink, watercolour paint; Art Spectrum, Windsor & Newton, Cotmans.

Enjoy.

Concept

Thumbnail Sketch

Finished Drawing

WIP 1

WIP 2

WIP 3

WIP 4

Finished Painting

Framed Print

Prints are available of this painting. They come in 2 sizes 8 x 10" $15 and 11 x 17" $25. The prints are on Epson Lustre paper and are of a very high quality. They can be purchased through my Etsy store here
The original can also be purchase for $200 and it's size is 27.5 x 37.5cm it can also be purchased through my Etsy store here 

The painting that inspired me.

Tanked! Another Artorder Challenge and Supanova Perth 2013

I am really enjoying these Artorder Challenges despite the fact that some of the themes are not necessarily what I'd personally choose, but nevertheless they are fun! Plus it's nice to see how other people approach the same subject under the same time restraint. I also want to get my hair dyed the same colour pink/purple rocks!

The Artorder Tank Girl Challenge can be found here and other submissions to the competition can be found here 

*Lileinaya

I was going to have her winking but I think it just didn't quite look right

I was going to have ash clouds behind her (as if she has just bombed something) but I found that the clouds became too distracting so after a bit of web surfing to see how other artists solve this problem I changed the background to the matte turquoise colour it is now.

Since Tank Girl is supposed to be based in a post-apocalyptic Australia I have included some Australian motif's. They are the ANZAC badge on her beret, the Aboriginal flag on her shoulders (one of our greatest athletes Cathy Freeman famously displayed it on her shoulders after winning an event at the Commonwealth Games http://www.aboriginalflag.com.au/history.html), she is wearing the Australian flag in 2 parts - the blue part on the top (which shows the large white seven-pointed star known as the Federation Star and the Southern Cross constellation which can only be seen in the southern hemisphere) and the second part which is of course the British Union Jack. There is also the words "Sorry" with a smiley face on her missile this is to relate to the apology the Australian government offered to the Aboriginal people for the way they were treated (http://www.timeanddate.com/holidays/australia/national-sorry-day). The fact that it is painted on a missile is my comment on the handling of this "apology" by the Australian government. You can interpret that however you like... So... this picture has a bit more happening than I suppose you'd notice at first glance. 

I hope you guys like it.

I almost forgot! On the weekend I went to this great little convention that happens annually here in Western Australia it's called Supanova, it's like a mini ComicCon but it's getting bigger every year. I had the opportunity to talk to Mark Raats and pick his brains for about a half an hour when I missed his panel talk, he was kind enough to look at my portfolio and offer me some advice (this happened in the Green Room where I got to see David Hasselhoff, the twins from Harry Potter, some of the actors from the tv show Merlin. I was practically peeing in my pants!). Thankfully Mark is really down to earth and not fazed by either :) I also got to meet some of the guys from Weta and saw some of the concept art for the dwarfs from the Hobbit film. I was able to show them my work and received encouragement to keep up the good work, which was very nice. I'm a big fan of their Dr Grordbort ray guns and was encouraged to contact the artist for permission to use the guns as reference for an illustration idea I have in mind... And finally I met up with a local comic book publishing group called Gestalt Comics I showed them my portfolio and on the spot they asked if I'd be interested in possibly doing a pin up on one of their characters and/or doing a sequential piece for a story idea they have... AWESOME!! Of course I said... YES!! Waiting to hear back from them the exact details but it's pretty exciting...

Oh yeah I also won the Wacom Fan Art Competition with my Tank Girl painting :) Don't know what the prize is yet but I imagine it's something from Wacom - duh ;) Admittedly I was up against mostly 8 year olds and teenagers... but oh well a competition is a competition.

The winner is...

My friend Nat surprised me with going as Tank Girl - she was awesome fun to hang out with

My other friend Cara made her awesome Wonder Woman costume - and straight after this photo we lost her for the rest of the day (I feared she had been kidnapped by the nerds geeking out over her cosplay)

The crowds - oh and by the way this is the middle of winter... and it's sunny without a cloud in the sky... Global Warming is real kids

Zombies are all about brain health :)

Fantasy Art Portfolio

Techno Mermaid

Valkyrie of the Rock

Diving For Pearls Can Be Hazardous

 

Lini the Gnome

Lem the Halfling

Amiri the Warrior

Asterali the Star Nymph

The Water Thief

Dragon Tea

The Little Mermaid

Branwen Vanquishes Tollak

The Locust Plague

The Water Thief - Nymph Painting Process 2 of 3

The Water Thief

Process 1 - The Thumbnails
Process 2 - Experiment
Process 3 - Refinement of Ideas

To be honest I skipped these steps as I was inspired while working on the Little Mermaid

Process 4 - Rough

Process 5 - Cover Rough

Skip...

Process 6 - Detailed Pencil Drawing

Unfortunately I didn't have access to a scanner at this point so I had to make do with my cheap digital camera and bad lighting... plus I forgot to take a photo of the detailed sketch so this image is the earliest capture I could get. As you can see, I originally painted the nymph as only clad in a leather thong.

Here are some progress shots. 

Process 7 - The Finished Painting

Process 8 - With Text Treatment

This is what I ended up submitting to the Artorder Challenge. The text submission divided the juror's opinions;

hmm i guess i am the voice of dissension on this topic, but i disagree, i don't think you should put type on pieces unless you want to be judged on the type as well as the art. in this case it would be fine to have done the blue framing because it is important to the layout of the bubbles, and have left it at that. 
Lauren Panepinto

I think it really helps sell the image as a book cover when you take the time to mock it up.

Jeremy Cranford

I particularly like the effort made for the cover layout. It makes for a very interesting graphic design.

Daren Bader

Next week - Asteria Nymph of the Stars.

Nymph Artorder Challenge

"Take this challenge and turn it into something useful for you. Strive to create a piece that fits into your portfolio. Take on the challenge, such that you learn some great lessons and propel your work to a new level. Don’t be meek. Take risks!" 

http://theartorder.com/nymph-artorder-challenge/

With this statement I was challenged to tackle illustrating a nymph. And so I researched nymphs, finding nymphs everywhere, from the Faroe Islands where they were called Selkies to Japan where tree nymphs were called Kodama. After traveling around the world a few times I decided to return to Greece were the term "nymph" was originated. The following illustrates 3 different types of nymph; Oceanid - nymph of seas and oceans, ‪Eleionomae‬ - marsh naiad and the Asteriai - nymph of the stars. All three are watercolour and gouache on A3 sized 300gsm watercolour paper. Over the next couple of weeks I'll post the process it took to create these three images.