I never would have put the number this high, and I'm not too sure about the method that they use to get their numbers, but it was fun anyway.

It has nothing to do with the fact that it made me feel like someone's paying attention. Nothing at all...

Wow. Rough morning. I was up way too late with xtingu to be up this damn early. At least it was for the right reasons - we created artwork last night. As much as I illustrate, I'm no pro when it comes to traditional media painting, and I decided yesterday morning that I needed to fix that. xtingu agreed when I said that she should try her hand at it too.

We had some fun tromping around Michaels and gathering supplies. We noted that there's a very clear reason why we're known as 'starving artists' (just check out the prices on paint - let alone all the tools you need to paint with - brushes, knives, pallets, canvasses, etc. etc. etc.). There's an excitement to it though. Maybe I'm just an art geek, but when you're there at that store - with all those supplies - all you can think about is the potential held in that place. What's possible with the stuff in that store? It's a great feeling.

We brought the car load of supplies back to her place (along with a ton of crap that I already had at my place) and got to work. I don't want to spill the beans on her painting - I'll let her do that in her own time, but I will say this - I love it. She's very good at what she does, and I would love to have one of her images in my house. You should all consider commissioning her.

As to my own image? Well, I had one hell of a time getting used to the idea that I couldn't just hit cntrl+z to 'undo' something once I had done it. That's a very frustrating thing if I may say so. I wasted a lot of paint. I learned tons in a very short span of time (relatively speaking). My original intent had been to paint a photo-realism male torso, with the right hand touching the sternum with it's extended fingers. Spiraling out from the touch would be tribal tattoo designs - seemingly 'growing' into the skin.

Okay, so I was a bit ambitious for my first time out - sue me.

Getting the technical bits figured out proved to be a little too much for me to do the image I had in mind, so I simplified. I did away with the hand and tattoos and dropped it back to a simple male torso. I think that the image turned out ok, even if it's not what I was really looking to do.

I'll post pictures of both what I originally intended and a snapshot of the finished painting later.

Click here if you would like to go to the first post re: this experiment.

Okay, I've finished the raw sketchwork stage. Found it extremely difficult to keep myself to the 15 minute limit. Found myself thinking "but I don't have enough fleshed out for the inking stage" in reference to a wide range of parts to the image. This is all about time however, so I'm sticking to it. This is the result of the first stage. I will post a link to the WPE once the project is completed.