traditional art
01
Kwakwaka’wakw Girl
For this charcoal drawing, I highlighted the moody
expression of the subject by keeping the entire composition in a darker key. The dark background
allows the subject to stand out in the composition. This drawing was rendered more loosely to pair well against the texture of the charcoal paper.
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I used white charcoal sparingly along the high points of the girl’s facial structure, as well as her earrings, to draw more attention to those areas. The white charcoal further rounded the form in her face and was a nice touch to completing this piece.
02
Under the Peach Tree
This is a painting of our family chicken,
Mr. Peeps. He was a particularly friendly chicken and would come up to our door to say “hello” almost everyday.
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Throughout the process of painting this, I wanted to emphasize the colors in his tail and face. I neutralized the colors in the rest of the painting to draw attention to the areas that need focus. I also used a limited palette to create unity among the colors in the piece.
03
Noah & the Ark
During this conte drawing, I focused on the form of Noah’s head wrap to emphasize the turning of the folds. The subject’s face has higher contrast from the rest of the composition to draw the viewer’s eyes to his expression. I also wanted to render the drawing loosely, working with the natural texture of the conte paper.
04
Michael
I wanted to focus on adding warmth into this portrait of Michael. By varying the transitions shades of pink to the center of the painting, I was able to draw attention to the subject’s eyes and add emphasis to the piece. To obtain a well-lit source photo, I took three photographs of Michael and stitched them together in Adobe Lightroom, creating an HDR photo. This allowed mw to see all of the lighting information in the photo as I was painting, and gave me a better source photo to work with.
05
Dapper Quail
This 10" sculpture of a California Quail was done in oil-based modeling clay. I spent a lot of time being particular with the intricacies of the texture in the bird's feathers. I plan to 3D print this sculpture to paint on a gold patina.
06
Acrylic Study Series
The goal of these smaller bird studies was to increase my confidence in painting quickly using acrylic. I was given a few weeks to paint several 8x10 studies. Because of the short amount of time alloted for the project, I could see noticeable improvement.
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07
The Crane Wife
This is an illustration to tell the story of "TSURU NO ONGAESHI" from Japanese folklore. In the story, a hunter saves a crane from his arrow. In return, the crane later becomes his wife (in human form) and returns the favor by creating an expensive quilt to sell from her feathers.