Bella Will Resist

I’m enjoying the Inky Leak Brush set I scooped up from GrutBrushes, I have an idea for a whole series of illustrations with them, but that’ll be for another time.  For now, I’m just experimenting and getting a feel for what each of them do.

When I sat down to create today, I initially started to make another series of thumbnail/paintover/explorations, but I got distracted by some of the earlier stages and just started having fun.  Before I knew it I had something that was really catching my eye and I just rolled with it.

A previous version had her blowing air bubbles out of each sides of her mouth apparatus, like deep sea divers might.  I’ll probably revisit the idea, putting her under water, with hair flowing and maybe some pipes/chains flowing out and around her.

Time will tell.
For now, it’s bedtime.

Journey before Destination

-Jesse

 

 

“Keep your face always toward the sunshine – and shadows will fall behind you.” – Walt Whitman

Creating Again :)

I’ve been wanting to get back into photo manipulation for awhile now.  Having leveled up my painting skills, I’m interested in seeing how the two will combine.

I guess we’ll see.

-Jesse

“We don’t make mistakes, just happy little accidents.” – Bob Ross

What Do You Wear To Battle?

Don’t forget your armor.
Important protection,
of unknown origin.
Battle Stance!

I had to do some quick sketches before I got to work today.  There was a deep need to create and I needed to satisfy it, else I go mad from deprivation.  I start my second week of work tomorrow, doing Tech Support for Xerox.  I’m enjoying the challenge of learning new things, and developing new skills sets.

The Journey

-Jesse

“You will never do anything in this world without courage. It is the greatest quality of the mind next to honour.” – Aristotle

When Things Made Less More Sense

Here’s a throw back if I’ve ever seen one.  Created somewhere between 2007-08, this gem was going to be my first comic strip in my webcomic Another Alternative.  The strip was to be a slice of life style comic with it’s main character based loosely off of me.

Man I got such a kick off of this.  I happened across it, while I was going through an old (really old) external hard-drive, it didn’t have what I was looking for, but I did find years of art experimentation, most of which was my first couple years playing in Photoshop back in 2007-2009.

2006-2007 Logo idea for my Brothers and I

Just celebrated my 32nd orbit last week and I’m fortunate to have just started a new job today.  To top it off, I just helped sent an earlier commission to get printed on T-Shirts and I’m about to start on another big commission to get it ready for print soon.  I’m super excited and it feels great to have all these pieces falling into place.  I’ll start sharing some stuff whenever I get the greenlight to.

I’m going to have to be really careful managing my time and ensuring everything stays in balance with each other, but I’m eager to learn more about the whole process of producing T-shirt designs.

Just some out loud forward thinking, but I want to have a collection of T-shirts available by 2017.

The Journey is Becoming very Interesting
-Jesse

“The very best thing you can do for the whole world is to make the most of yourself.” – Wallace Wattles

Renka

Not sure where this came from, but it was fun to create.
So, many colors!

-Jesse

 

“You are imperfect, permanently and inevitably flawed. And you are beautiful.”
–Amy Bloom

Gloria from Peach Dahlia

I decided to do things a bit differently this time around.

For starters I kept my brush at 100% Opacity.

Secondly, I only used one brush (the Horse Main brush from the Impasto Brushes from the GrutBrushes.com).

Thirdly, I choose my color palette prior to starting this painting, which felt weird, but I had already chosen the reference image and had some inspiration.  So, my color choices were based off of those feelings and ideas.

Lastly, I did my best to think before placing each brushstroke, focusing on if using a vertical or horizontal or diagonal stroke would be best then choosing the appropriate color, then making the stroke.

All in all, I didn’t waste as much time and energy fixing mistakes or changing things and I felt like the painting as a whole came together far smoother than previous paintings.  I can’t wait to use this technique again.

-Jesse

 

“Believe you can and you’re halfway there.” – Theodore Roosevelt

Tambourine

Big yawn and misspelled words informs me of my bedtime
Reaching my early middle years
A gentle reassurance that I still have time

-Jesse

 

“I haven’t failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work!” – Thomas Edison

Momentum

Dumbledore only has so much hair.

-Jesse

 

“There Are Far Better Things Ahead Than Any We Leave Behind.” –  C.S. Lewis

Rem·i·nisce

 

-Jesse

 

“I confess I do not know why, but looking at the stars always makes me dream.” – Vincent van Gogh

I Think I’m In Love

Janice Knows
I’ve only had these brushes for a couple of days, but already I’m in love.

Some of your might remember about a month ago me posting  a link to the GrutBrushes website, telling you about the free brush sampler set and the free brush of the week downloads.  Well the other day Nicolai from GrutBrushes stopped by the blog and he was generous enough to offer me the whole Impasto brush set for free.  :D

As you can imagine for someone who’s always experimenting with Photoshop and snatching up new brushes from the Internetz, I am super happy! I wanted to once again thank him for being so gracious and also for what I can only imagine is a lot of hard work and effort that he puts into making these brushes.

Thank You
I <3 these brushes.

Experimenting with the new Impasto brushes

I’ve downloaded my fair share of free Photoshop brushes off of Google searches trying to find brushes that offer that painterly feel of brush on canvas and honestly it’s a real hit or miss.  You hardly ever really know what you’re getting or how the brushes will paint off of just the little thumbnail images.  But that was one of the cool things I liked about GrutBrushes, the website actually has video and picture examples of how the brush strokes look and actually shows you examples of artwork that used the brushes to create them.

It completely removes the guess work from the process and allows you to actually choose the type of brush you’re really looking for.  Not to mention Nicolai is awesome enough to drop a free brush every week.  If you haven’t checked out GrutBrushes already, I highly recommend it!

These Impasto brushes are so jam packed full of texture and each one delivers something unique.  Some are rich with layers of texture, others are softer and offer a much smoother stroke

 

The other day, I had one of my most successful days on this blog; I hit a couple milestones for likes and views and then later I realized I had just reached over two and a half years on WordPress.  *Excited Face*  It was overwhelming thinking about how much I’ve accomplished, all the cool people I’ve met, all the inspiration, my personal growth during this journey as an artist, and all the ups and downs over the years.

This whole blog started from a prompt in one of my web design classes in December 2013 and it’s cool to look back over the years and see how much everything has grown since then.  I’ve been super nostalgic over the last couple days and it’s caused me to think about where I want to steer my artistic journey in the coming years.

This post has already got a bit long winded, so I won’t overload you with anymore late night ramblings, just know over the next six months I’ll probably be dropping some hints, adjusting schedules and making some tweeks and changes.  This is going to be fun.

If you’ve made it this far, first of all thanks for reading and secondly you’re totally in luck.
Nicolai hooked me up with another free Impasto Brush set for me to give away to one lucky follower.  If you’d like it, be the first to send me an email to jessevanwagner@gmail.com, with the subject line “Free Impasto Brush Set” and I’ll get you that set right away.

Again, a big THANK YOU goes out to Nicolai for being so generous and also for all the work he’s put into these brushes, they really are high quality and I appreciate all the time and effort he’s put into creating them.  Top notch stuff.

Until Next Time
Journey Before Destination

-Jesse

“In everything we do, our own thoughts can help us succeed, or they can help us fail. Maintain a positive attitude.” – Catherine Pulsifer