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Well, there's a whole list of reasons why it's fun to make Matte paintings. It's not just that they look cool but, for me, it opens up a whole new world of dialogue as an artist. Matte painting is something that's used for creating environments for TV, Film, and Gaming. It's an exercise in creating stories and that's what appeals to me the most. I just started learning about it and so far I've been having an interesting time getting my feet wet. I'm generally teaching myself the ins and outs of it with the help of some dvd instruction from the amazing artist's over at The gnomon workshop. I am in no way affiliated with them, just a very happy customer of about 5 tutorial dvds. I've learned a lot from them and I'm using that knowledge to move my self along as an artist. Here are a couple of quick black and white environmental design comps that I did. After I had a few compositional sketches completed I opened up a cool image that I had in my image library of Scotland and decided to try my hand at making a matte painting. Check out the results below. I'm personally very happy with where this is taking me…

Here's one of the first environment sketches I did in photoshop. Very loose, just trying to sell some depth in the image and an interesting composition. This took about 10 minutes to do.

Here's the second one I did. Again this was quick, about 15 minutes. Just working on creating an environment with some decent scale to it…

Here's my first matte painting. My intention was to incorporate the Asian buildings into this Scottish landscape. Please understand that I am just beginning with this. I realize this would not be suitable for an actual Matte painting but one day through practice I'll create something that will be.. I find this process interesting because your starting out with some kind of mood or feeling and then your allowed to build whatever world you want right into that landscape. It might be too early to tell but I think I'm hooked..

MATTE PAINTING, I call this "The BonnieLand"

This is a 12 foot tall by 240 foot wide collaborative mural accomplished in the summer of 2010 by the following artists:

Peter Bragino
John Bragino
Kevin Corcoran
Lisa Distefano
Christine Kane
Jeff Slack
Jennifer Quinn
Sonia Vera-Leon

I designed this mural as a 4 seasons cyclical theme starting in winter on the South wall and ending again in winter on the North wall. It's painted inside a 120' tunnel and both walls were painted to complete the cycle of the seasons. I gathered some of the best artists I knew to come down and join me in the creation of this mural. My brother John shot a documentary while we painted this.

Here are two versions to view. The top one is a wider format so you can see more of the mural at one time. The bottom is for checking out details. Enjoy!!

This image has been through many stages to get it to this point. Here's a list and a good reason to embrace technology as a tool for art…

Reve > is French for "Dream"

I often speak to other artists about naming of their pieces and it's not uncommon for it to be a tough subject for some. For me it seems like a simple process and this illustration was no different.

The look on the woman's face I had drawn seemed to have a longing for something different than her current situation, half removed from the person who's face was looking back at her in the mirror, a longing, dreaming of another life. Through word searching on the internet I came about the word Reve. I liked the look of the word and it seemed to fit the illustration style plus the meaning fit as well. Just like that a name is born. I've always been under the belief that no matter how much intention you have for a piece of art and what you'd like it to be you must always leave room for what it wants to be as well.

Here are some of my favorite studies from September..

I chose this one because it's something I'm working on, which is just painting while working from the model. That is no mediums that are generally used for drawing, ie: markers, pens, oil pastels etc……Just acrylic paint and a few brushes. This page was prepared before painting this image with a solid green background. "Killing the white of the background like that helps you to work with paint a little better. It basically creates a mood that you can then place your figure into.

I really love the way this one came out. It reminds me of an old USO poster, or something that would have promoted Coney Island. It just has that 40's/50's feel to it mostly I suspect because of the color.

In this image, as opposed to the last two, I'm using drawing as well as painting. There are many things that I like about this but mainly the distortion through the page and the complexity of the angles in which body parts are moving. The stockings might have caught my attention as well.

Here's some more paintings using the brushes app on my iPhone

Soul searcher 2

Study for an underwater scene, there will soon be seahorses in this image..

A made up portrait study, working with color here and still getting a feel for the brushes app

It's official, I'm obsessed with the Brushes App on the iphone. It's basically a painting program on the phone which is amazing.
It's so convenient to have a full blown painting program in your pocket at all times. I can now do 30 minute painting studies anywhere
without lugging around a bunch of equipment.
If you check out the left sidebar of this blog you'll see that I'm also uploading all my images that I create with this app to flickr. The other
amazing thing about this app is that it records everything you do so you can export a movie of each painting being brush stroke by brush stroke..
Check out my flickr page for some videos…..

Here's what I've done so far..

My first painting…"Firefly Sentinels"

Here's another awesome function of the program…..The background of this is a photograph that I took. I painted the character and rain on top. Yes the app has support for creating multiple layers as well…..

Cherry tomatos at my mothers house. 30 minute study…

1 hour study of the support that holds up the Pulaski bridge in Greenpoint Brooklyn..

I created this custom painted guitar for my friend Jenna using Sharpie markers. You might or might not be surprised how well Sharpies adhere to the body of a guitar. I drew right on top of the clear coat without making any modifications to the surface of the guitar. No sanding was needed here but the trick was to use the Industrial strength Sharpie. It's almost like using paint or stain…..The guitar is an Ibanez….

Here are the drawing / paintings for this week…….My thought process for this week was to push my images and keep adding to them. To explore layering and building up the images. I didn't want to settle for just a good drawing and that basically brought me into a more painterly attitude with these images……

 Image 1: I like this image for the exploration of different sized marks or paint strokes on the page. The figure is barely emerging from within them but the variation of the marks makes for an interesting image despite the figure.

Image 2: I like this image for the thought process of painting and the adding of light to allow the figure to emerge from the page. There was an underlying abstract painting here initially. I created a line drawing of the figure on top and began painting in the volume of the body on top of that……

Image3: This image is a little on the rough side compared to some of the things that I usually do but that's what I like about it the most. I think that with the combination of colors, the primitive types of marks running throughout the figure and the composition of the page the image works. Detail could be added but I'm not sure if that would help or hurt what’s going on here……

Image 4: What I like mostly here is the way that the colors pop off of the grayed out background. Nothing seems to make colors sing more than juxtaposing them against a color that has little to no hue in it. If the background were white the colors would still sing but they'd be competing with the white background. Here the colors are left to perform on their own…

Image 5: I included this image because of it's simplicity. It amazes me how a simple wash can describe the form of the body. After that wash lays out the terrain it's always fun to come in and draw around and on top of that form.

Image 6: I like this final image for a bunch of reasons……I like the line drawing that runs throughout, the distortion of the figure to push space on the page, the way that the feet and hands came out, the abstraction in the background, and the patterning in the pillow. It's generally my taste for design and drawing that attracts me to this image. I hope you enjoyed the images for this week. More on the way soon…..