11 Inspirational Image Collections selected by the Digital Photography School

(Image by Rachel Sian)

Another attempt at using Colors on the iPhone. This is supposed to represent the profile of a cat. Fortunately, the cat who served as a model had nothing to say about the likeness of the painting.

About 45 minutes. Tilt controlled opacity is a major feature of Color.

From November 9th to 23rd 2009, the GNOMON School of Visual Effects will be holding two weeks of online classes, featuring artists such as Craig Mullins, Feng Zhu or Ian McCaig.

For more details and to register - GNOMON Master Classes

I just spent an afternoon of pouring rain and Art in New York City.

First stop was the 2nd Spectrum Exhibit hosted by the Society of Illustrators.

Two floors with 120 works from artists such as Rick Berry, James Gurney, Julie Bell, Brom, Michael Whelan just to name a few. It was very exciting to be able to see these pieces in their original format after seeing them in print only. The amount of tiny details in some of the oil works was spectacular.

Spending the rest of the afternoon in the Portraits gallery at the Metropolitan Museum of Art seemed like a natural extension. The contrast between recent and ancient Masters was very inspiring.

My first serious attempt at using Colors on the iPhone. Just playing around at this point. No model were used or harmed during this experiment.

About 35 minutes.

50 Clever Tutorials and Techniques on Traditional Drawing a collection of 50 tutorials and tips to improve certains aspects of traditional drawing - from drawing an eye to full portraits.

A lot of reading and practicing ahead...

(Image Tu-Anh Nguyen)

I got the occasion to experience an unexpected side effect of the workshops I recently took.

We are spending the weekend a little north of Philadelphia, near Longwood gardens, and on a whim, we decided to visit the Brandywine Museum. There, I had the occasion to appreciate the works of N.C.Wyeth (among others) with a different eye than I used to in museums before.

http://brandywine.doetech.net/pictsrch.cfm

Instead of paintings, I could see sharp/diffuse edges, value, colors, and so on I know it's not anything new if you had classical art education but I thought I would share that anyway.

A little more than a year since my last major update in the Vue forum at Renderosity, I just posted a note that I am no longer Moderator of the forum.

It was a difficult decision - one that I postponed for nearly a year. A busy offline schedule, new interest in digital painting and general forum moderation fatigue made me realize that I was just delaying the inevitable.

I had a good time as a moderator. During nearly five years, the forum went through a lot of changes, mostly good. It gave me the chance to meet and work with wonderful people and allowed me to get a peek at the development process of Vue as a beta tester.

I wish good luck to SGT2005 and GaryMiller in taking care of Vue related activities at Renderosity.

Now... back to making more pictures.

The Figure Painting workshop I just took got me thinking about motivation - how long it took me to decide myself to start painting and how I can be motivated to continue now that I started.

Here are a few resources I came across.

Put your money where your mouth is by Ben Mathis - a good reminder of how easy it is to slow yourself down and think about doing things to improve your situation instead of actually doing something about it.

Along the same line, this video of Digital Painting with Bobby Chiu is a good reminder that motivation starts within yourself. His other videos are great tutorials as well as thoughtful ramblings about creativity, motivation, and dreams.