Untitled. collaboration with Kathryn Wilson. oil on panel.
I think its about time I uploaded these set of pictures from the last painting I finished. This was back in March 2013 and its a collaboration with Kathryn Wilson. The abstract background is hers and I did the portrait. We are working on a series of collaborative paintings and this is the first one completed. I’ve long admired her fluid and organic style of painting, and I love how her patterns make me feel. I am honored to be working with this talented painter, and I feel that I’ve been given an opportunity to “grow” my style. Im going to be more experimental with future paintings to come and it remains to be seen where that will take me.
teaser of what im working on. #oilonwood #painting #artistsontumblr #prettymonkey26
The Imp
The Imp
All the illustration and portrait work I’ve done for March has been for MEFCC (Middle East Comic and Film Convention).
Aside from Breaking Bad, I am also a huge ass fan of Game of Thrones. I’ve read ALL the books and I’ve seen the tv show of course. My favorite character is The Imp and it was such brilliant casting to get Peter Dinklage for the role of Tyrion Lannister. He is exactly how I imagined the Halfman to look like. I dont really care much for the other characters from Game of Thrones, except for Arya and John Snow. George Martin can kill off the other characters for all I care. ha!
Here’s the work process for my Tyrion tribute:
Started with his eyes. I used Derwent and Prismacolor Pencils.
The hair was a day long chore to draw! It didnt help that Tyrion hasmessy blonde hair which is tricky to draw realistically. My hand hurt from drawing all the detail.
I added the background and other finishing touches in Photoshop. All in all it took two days to do. I ended up selling out of my limited edition prints of this one. Apparently Tyrion is quite a popular character with other folks and Im not surprised.
Breaking Bad Season 4
The Heisenberg
Breaking Bad Tribute
Lately I’ve put my personal art on hold to work on some illustrations for MEFCC (or MIddle East Film and Comic Convention). Most of March went towards working on these portraits based on my most favorite show of all time, Breaking Bad (!!!!!), the most badass show on television ever! Most of the portraits are characters from Season 4, which is my personal favorite of all the seasons.
All portraits started out as pen and ink drawings or graphite pencil, and I later composed them digitally in photoshop.
Walter White
Social Media Vacayshun
I have been on “switch off” mode from tumblr, facebook, twitter, instagram, art blogs, etc. for so long that I feel a little bit lost somehow.
It would not be an exaggeration for me to say that I rather feel like a hermit who went into a cave for ten years and emerged bewildered by everything going on.
I am quite tempted to go back into hibernation, honestly.
I think that I had planned to be away for only a week or so, and a week turned to four months.
For the past three years, I was always screaming inside about not having enough time to do what I want, because there was always the day job, there was a painting to finish, a website to update, an image to ‘like’, another tv show to watch, another movie to download, a ton of laundry to do, I could go on and on. I wasnt taking care of myself anymore. I was shutting down. I was stretching myself too thin. So I switched off.
I have not touched the paintbrushes in a month. I have drawing here and there, actually managed to finish a collaboration painting with an artist friend, but so far I have not been this unproductive in two years. I FEEL SO GUILTY.
I don’t know whether writing all this down will help me get out of this rut. Or if I will just acknowledge this year as a LOST year.
The making of : Harajuku Kamikaze
It’s almost the end of November and this will probably be last major painting I will do for this year. Im off for a much deserved holiday to the Philippines this December so I’ll be away for three weeks and that means I wont be doing much painting or drawing while Im there. I always have some ideas for future paintings floating about my head anyways, but they all can wait till next year.
I started painting the face first, with an acrylic underpainting using three primary colors, blue, yellow and red. It created a sort of a cool skin undertone. The subsequent layers were oil, and it took about 4 or 5 layers before I decided I could live with it.
Tip: I use Liquin as my only medium for painting in oil. It speeds up the drying time considerably. Its touch dry after a day, so I can get back to the painting right away considering that Im very impatient and only work on one painting at a time. Also doesn’t smell as nasty as turp and linseed oil.
Next, the skull. I dry painted the skull with very rough strokes. Layering it up again took 3 layers of oil.
I researched some Ukiyo-e or Japanese woodblock prints online as reference for the element on the painting’s background. I tweaked the color to make it appear as if the elements were floating on an overlay layer.
I did the tiny little toy soldiers on the bottom of the painting last. Details, details!
I finished it over the weekend after three weeks of painting 2 to 3 hours everyday. Now to explain the painting:
The painting is of a portrait of purple haired female Japanese pilot. Back in World War 2, kamikaze pilots used to tie bandanas on their heads that depicted the Japanese sun. I suppose when one if flying from the air, everyone on the ground seems toy-like, houses and people. Hence the toy soldiers.
I get questions all the time why my favorite subject is always the woman in the warrior mode. Its simple. What if World War 2 happened now, like right now. I imagine that my modern girl-warrior would go to battle would like this, colored hair, tunnel earring and all.
