Amazing Street Painting

Check it out!

Just Because It’s Cool…

And to trigger your creativity. Art really can be made anywhere and using nearly anything, witness what this artist/photographer does with paint a camera and an electric drill.

Expand your thinking, look beyond the traditional for inspiration. What strange things could you use to do something really cool? You’re only limited by your imagination and exercises like this can push you one step closer to limitless creativity.

Go for it and let us know what you create in the comments.

Amazing Watercolor Technique Video

I can’t speak for anyone else so I will just speak for myself. I find watercolor painting mystifying. To me it’s probably the most difficult of all art media, so when I see someone who uses it very well, I am always impressed. Check out this video from artist, Agnes Cecile entitled Our Endless Abnegation…

The piece is stunning and the freedom in the piece is infectious. The challenge this week is to do a piece in the medium you find most challenging.

Technique Video Glazing and Washes

This video is a little lengthy, but it is a wonderful demonstration of techniques of washes and glazing. Artist Michael Lang takes you step by step to a fantastic final piece.
Check it out, then go try it yourself.

Experimenting…

One of the things of which I have become aware lately is that I don’t do a lot of art for art’s sake, preferring instead to create for the purpose of telling stories and spreading the Gospel. That being said, one of the truly great ways of maintaining your skills and creativity, not to mention learning new things is with experimentation. Working in different genres and different media.

One of the things I have been doing lately is working in the various aspects of modern and pop art. I’ve put together a little gallery over at deviantart.com (please note, I’m not sure shy they chose the name deviant for their site, but rest assured all of my content is G-rated). This isn’t my art ministry work. Most of it will not go beyond this point. It’s merely there to stretch my creative muscles. You can see my gallery at http://daveweissamericanpop.deviantart.com/gallery/

What have you done lately to build your skills and expand your creativity? Share some links here in the comments below.

The King of Perelandra

Over the holidays, I got a new video camera and so I had to do an experiment. The good news is, I am able to make art videos again! I have some learning to do on the new software, but this piece came out alright as an experiment.

I wanted to do a simple painting that I could finish quickly for the purpose of the experiment, and having just read Perelandra (Cosmic Trilogy)
by C.S. Lewis, I decided to do a sketch painting of one of the characters, the king of Perelandra. The book is what Lewis did best, an allegorical tale of life on Venus and what would have happened at the dawn of our world had sin never entered the picture. It’s a book well worth reading, the second book in Lewis’ Space Trilogy.

By the way, if anyone likes the painting and would like to purchase it, let me know. We have taken on an additional Compassion child (our church formerly sponsored him) and so proceeds from the sale of this painting will help toward his support. (More on this coming soon.) I’d like to get at least $40 plus shipping.

BewareofArtists.org Technique Tuesday Preview: Book Illustration with Drew Beam

This video takes a book illustration from Jonah Sach’s Winning the Story Wars from initial pencil sketch to final digital illustration. The work here is astounding and will be really helpful to any artist/illustrator working in or moving into the digital realm.

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BewareofArtists.org opens January 1, 2013. Go there and Subscribe today.

Great Portrait Painter Shares a Video of his Technique.

Artist David Gray is an amazing oil portrait painter. This video shows his technique in pretty nice detail. If you’ve ever wanted to try a portrait, you really need to watch this.

To see more of Gray’s work and videos go to http://dgoilpaintingtechniques.com and http://davidgrayart.com

I must do a piece of art like this very soon…

They’re called Anamorphic Illusions and they are amazing. Check out this video.

Here’s a basic tutorial!

Creative Training Day

My friend Clint Haley from Provoke Ministries posted a question today that really got me thinking:

What training methods do you use that are non-traditional? Sometimes, we need to get creative about our methods before we will achieve creative results.

I started to think about the things I have done that have really stretched me creatively and decided to share some of them here to get you thinking about ways you can stretch yourself creatively.

1. Make a video

One of the big things that stretched me was when I started making the painting videos, especially the animated pieces because now not only did I have to come up with a good finished project, it had to tell a story and it had to move. I had to think about the process rather than just the finished piece. I had to pick each shot and keep it cohesive.

2. Change it up

I’m predominantly a cartoonist/graphic guy so I decided to try my hands at what may be the opposite end of the spectrum, Abstract Art. Changing this up really made me think about composition, form and on and on. The video below shows the first two items working together.

3. Speed it up

When I went to performance painting and all of the sudden I had to be able to finish a piece in five to ten minutes everything had to be simplified and minimized and it still has to look good when it was done. This makes you break everything down into it’s simplest forms and really gives you “new eyes” toward what you’re doing.

4. Plagiarism

Okay not really, that would imply that you were claiming someone else’s work as your own. What I am talking about here is copying for the sake of learning. It makes you really look at a work of art and think about technique.  Sometimes it really helps to just look and see how a great master did a work that you love. The following video gives an example.

5. Do half a painting

One of the favorite art times I have ever had was with my friend John Brown. John is a brilliant abstract artist who works very slowly, and meticulously. Very much the opposite of the way I am used to working. We each sat down with an inexpensive canvas panel. We decided on abstract and each of us filled out canvas with a design in a single different color pallet. Then we switched. He had to “finish” or enhance mine and I had to do the same with his. It was really fun and while I am not entirely sure we came up with gallery worthy art, I do know it stretched me.

6. Challenge Yourself

There is no replacement for practice. In 2011 I challenged myself to create on complete work of art every day for the year. Some pieces were better than others but the sum total of the experience was I learned a lot of new things.

You can see the result of that challenge here.

How can you stretch yourself creatively?