D'Artiste Digital Painting 2

The new D'artiste has just been released. I am very honored to have been included in this year's issue by Don Seegmiller. His books on digital painting are what originally moved me to pursue digital painting. I, and many others, owe him a great debt for his wonderful contribution.

Prospero

Recently I have begun to dig my way through the absurdly beautiful sculptures of Bernini. He sculpted figures on several fountains that I was completely mesmerized by while I was in Rome. I could do a thousand studies on the Fountain of the Four Rivers and still not exhaust its genius. The above piece is a study of Bernini's St. Longinus, one of the dozens of staggeringly gorgeous sculptures in St. Peters in Rome. Nothing I have ever seen is as impressive as the stunning collection contained in that cathedral. I look at the sculptures, with their power, their sense of lasting permanence and their approach to perfection and I realize that I have been fumbling around with sticks and mud all these years. In the light of these works, modern sculpture looks like forgettable parades of junk yard tin and bailing wire. A pile of failures stacked on a shanty of mediocre ideas.

The greatest art in the world lies in Rome.

Helen of Spartanburg Auto Diesel Repair

"The face that launched a thousand Chevys."

Cory and I were thinking it might be the best idea ever to do a modern retelling of the classic epic of the fall of Troy. Instead of legendary Greek and Trojan warriors and the Mediterranean Sea, we would set it between irate rednecks and leathery bikers, and in a junkyard in Berea.

We'll be taking casting calls starting next week, so get your votes in!

Helen of Spartanburg Roughs

TS&TS Final

The Swashbuckler & the Sea

Watercolor and pencil. 4 x 8 on 500 series Strathmore bristol, vellum.

The Ace of Spades

This is an entry I am doing for Zach Franzen's forthcoming post on the Portland Studios Blog. You should check it out. He got most of the staff at Portland to submit an illustration on the theme of cowboys, rendered on a 4x6 card. There are some real gems there.

I love doing these little things. I'd like to put together a full set of these gunslinger playing cards at some point...