Picture Diary

Art dumps, ahoy! Join me on my art journey. my site: thedoorkicker.com

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Vikings Study #5

Approx 5 hrs.

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A doodle I got a little carried away with over the weekend.

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Portrait practice! Paying homage to William-Adolphe Bouguereau’s  “Irène”. I tried to put my own spin on it though. Learned a lot from this! :d

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“Xena: Warrior Princess” is my #1 guilty pleasure. 

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Vikings Studies #4

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Vikings Studies #3

These two are my favorites so far. I went a little more cartoony with this batch. I’ve been really looking forward to working on the first one, since I adore the colors and lighting from the original screenshot. The second one was an exaggeration of a screenshot taken at just the right time. I had fun bringing out King Ecbert’s inner creep.

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Vikings Studies #2

More studies! I had a lot of fun playing with the depth in these. The first study was really challenging. The face was hard to get just right, and I’m still not sure I nailed the skin tones. I’m still pretty happy with it though.

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Vikings Studies #1

"Vikings” is by no means a flawless show, but I still like it. I also love the imagery, costumes and lighting, so get ready for a bunch of Vikings studies for the next week or so. I have so many screenshots to study from, ohmigod excited.

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A weird doodle from yesterday. (4/29/15)

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Some studies I did today with water soluble pencil and white marker/chalk.

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J.C. LEYENDECKER STUDIES — Day XIV

The Crimson Conquest. 1907. (printed book cover) This post marks the end of my “Two Weeks of Leyendecker”! This image is one of my favorites of his, but I hesitated to do it because it’s so different than most of his other works. Whatever, it’s awesome. I started with the left image first, but felt grayscale really didn’t do it justice. After scanning it in, I painted over it in Photoshop and fixed a few minor issues. I absolutely love the odd color combo, and the composition is striking. All the colors are evenly distributed throughout the piece, and the silhouettes are strong and compelling. I can only hope to incorporate this kind of stuff into my future work as successfully as he did.

Before I move on to other stuff, I also want to give a shout-out to kinokosaur and artfulhermes for their encouragement and support throughout this project (and of course, all the other super people who “liked” my studies). Thank you, guys! Y’all are awesome! :D

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J.C. LEYENDECKER STUDIES — Day XII & XIII

Couple on Raft. 1909.  I had a busy weekend, so I didn't get to work on art as much as I’d've liked. The above study was done on Saturday, and believe it or not, I spent hours on it. The whole time, I was thinking: "Something doesn't feel right. What is going on with that left shoulder? Can a thumb even do that?" I was definitely unsatisfied with the final piece, so I decided to study the source material further today. My conclusion: Leyendecker done fucked up.

First of all, I want to say that I am by no means an expert on anatomy, and regardless of whether Leyendecker did this intentionally or not, it looks tonally and compositionally great to me. For some reason, I just became obsessed with this and had to figure this shit out for myself.

Yesterday, I had my boyfriend take a derpy photo of me trying to recreate the extremely uncomfortable pose below. The weird thing I noticed was the man's shoulders are both facing towards the viewer, but the chest is facing the woman diving. The thumb on the right hand is also bent at a weird angle, which I found physically impossible to recreate.

Below, I did a quick study trying to fix the anatomical issues with the piece. I don't know if I was 100% successful, but I really enjoyed the process. I’ll definitely be looking more critically at what I study from now on.

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J.C. LEYENDECKER STUDIES — Day XI

Bellhop with Hyacinths. 1914. A quick morning study. I should really make my studies bigger. It’s really hard to capture detail with my gigantic markers. :/

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I needed a pick-me-up yesterday, so I decided to redo a study I did almost exactly a year ago. I limited the time to 2 hours like the original study. 

WOOOOAH! IMPROVEMENT! 8D

To see the original, Rembrandt painting these are based on, click here.

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J.C. LEYENDECKER STUDIES — Day X

Football Hero. 1933. More hunky men. Since the beginning, I’ve been wondering... was Leyendecker gay? From J.C. Leyendecker by Laurence S. Cutler and Judy Goffman Cutler:

For the Leyendecker brothers, painting young males was a priority interest, so they focused on male characters in their advertising work. Neighboring artists shared models with the brothers, which meant a seemingly endless train of attractive Greenwich Village lads parading through their chilly studio in the buff. One momentous day in 1903, a particularly striking young man appeared at their door, having just arrived in the United States from Europe, where he had lived for the past year. His name was Charles A. Beach, and Frank immediately hired him in Joe’s absence. When Joe returned, he could not believe his eyes: his dreams had been realized... Charles Beach was not only Joe’s idea of the perfect man. Leyendecker’s advertisements for Arrow Collars and Arrow shirts made him the paradigm for a nation. He was, in fact, the first American “culture hero.” Few, if any fans ever realized that their lofty ideal man was not only a homosexual but a kept man, the live-in lover of the famed artist who thrust himself into such an exalted status. Charles Beach followed J.C. Leyendecker in death as he did in life. He passed away a year after Joe, in 1952.

Saucy!!!

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J.C. LEYENDECKER STUDIES — Day IX

The Politician (Campaign Orator). 1916. GET OFF MY LAWN!

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J.C. LEYENDECKER STUDIES — Day VIII (part 2)

Man with Seated Lady. 1929. Had a lot of fun doing this. I especially loved the blue rim lighting. :)