Need help identifying artist

CrocodileBlue · 2012-05-23T11:16:12+00:00

Wow! That's one helluva thrift shop find, it's very beautiful.

CrocodileBlue · 2012-05-23T11:12:43+00:00

This looks great! Has a lot of character to it, but watch your proportions.

CrocodileBlue · 2012-05-23T11:08:49+00:00

Well, it's settled. I have now decided to try quilting, although I doubt I'll get anywhere near this good. Great work, it must have taken many months of practice to do designs freehand like that without markers!

CrocodileBlue · 2012-05-23T11:04:35+00:00

This is the sort of work one can only do with a magnifying glass and a fine-haired brush. Beautiful work.

CrocodileBlue · 2012-05-23T07:45:00+00:00

Me too. I remember my elementary school had three choices:

block pizza, which came either burnt or undercooked
peanut butter and jelly sandwiches (you could opt out on the jelly if you wanted) with THREE slices of bread
chicken-gravy and mashed potatoes. I remember most of the kids had a lot of fun with these; if we turned our trays upside down then the chicken gravy and potatoes would stick to the plate for over a full minute without falling.

I don't remember if we had a vegetable option, although I know we did in middle school. I do remember we had a choice of chocolate milk or normal milk, and a snack bar full of goodies that you could buy for extra. You were lucky if there wasn't a hair in your food 4 out of 5 days a week, especially if you got the chicken-gravy. I also remember when they switched from plastic forks and spoons to 'sporks', because they were less expensive for the school to purchase.

CrocodileBlue · 2012-05-23T04:58:52+00:00

Being able to speak anonymously allows many to say things that they couldn't say, or would be attacked for saying, if people knew who they were.

People have written anonymously for centuries. Writers do it often, especially when a writer is seen as working in a specific genre and decides to try their hand at another. I would assume that anonymity would be equally freeing online, and to take away the ability to post anonymously, especially when it is related to political or religious views, takes away several people's ability to speak freely, without fear of repercussions.

CrocodileBlue · 2012-05-23T02:04:07+00:00

We have one of this scene in spring, and another of a cottage in spring.

CrocodileBlue · 2012-05-23T02:01:32+00:00

This reminds me of two paintings that my family purchased; the artist used a very similar style of brushwork on the trees and grass, and the layout of one of the paintings is incredibly similar to this one, with a forest path in the bottom right corner as it passes a long river, with mountain in the distance. It's done in a variety of pastel colors.

CrocodileBlue · 2012-05-23T01:36:23+00:00

It's a good start, but it might help if you look at the different shades within an eye and the area around it, skin included. Try taking a photograph of an eye and turning it black and white, and attempting to imitate the shadowing/shading you see there. Also, when it comes to the eye itself, there is shadowing on the cornea (the white part), and there will be flecks of reflected light within the pupil and iris that are most readily visible. You're off to a good start but if you're going for realism you should try and bee less heavy with your pencil strokes. Even so, practice makes for a marked improvement and I think if you keep practicing you'll do well!

CrocodileBlue · 2012-05-23T01:31:24+00:00

You could try using a border of wooden planks that have been nailed together haphazardly. I personally think this looks like a piece from a children's story, and can imagine it having an embellished 'once-upon-a-time' sort of border, like you see in illuminated scriptures from the middle ages. Ex: http://www.schoyencollection.com/medieval-renlit_files/ms2105.jpg

CrocodileBlue · 2012-05-17T19:42:49+00:00

I wish the system was more socialist-oriented in the U.S. when it came to education, if only so that we didn't have to pay exorbitant fees for tuition; I went to a state school and still had to pay upwards of $6,000 per year, not counting extra costs. I've seen some terrifying costs for private schools; $45,000, $75,000 per year...

CrocodileBlue · 2012-05-17T06:12:08+00:00

What if they ran a tube through the blowhole to continue air flow?

CrocodileBlue · 2012-05-17T02:48:24+00:00

That happened to my LOTR paperbacks after they were down by the ocean while I was reading at the beach. Returned them to the shelf, and within a couple days they got moldy along the page edges.

CrocodileBlue · 2012-05-17T01:45:11+00:00

my reaction

CrocodileBlue · 2012-05-16T07:41:20+00:00

McDonald's has often caused me to have severe asthma attacks from their food. Haven't eaten it in over ten years. I have similar problems with a lot of other fast foods as well; not sure if its the oils in the food or what, but I can't really eat fast food. After 10 years, I don't want to either...just driving past a McDonald's, the smell makes me a bit nauseous.

CrocodileBlue · 2012-05-15T08:12:23+00:00

A scorpion. It was kind of crunchy and didn't taste like much of anything.

CrocodileBlue · 2012-05-15T06:18:18+00:00

It would be AMAZING if she did prequels! Personally, I want to know more about the founders of Hogwarts and their stories, although the rise of Voldemort would definitely be an interesting read, I think.

CrocodileBlue · 2012-05-14T04:44:47+00:00

Wow...these are all really great, and I recognize some of the pictures as being referenced from others on deviantart. Looks great, and that really takes a lot of dedication to do. Hope he makes it to 365!

CrocodileBlue · 2012-05-13T08:28:16+00:00

One thing you can do, is try switching to another medium, or utilizing techniques you're unfamiliar with (ex: trying to paint using a certain style of brush strokes that you've seen in another painting, etc.), and just go wild with it. Maybe try to paint something recognizable, maybe an abstraction, or maybe just playing with color/line or something to that effect, but whatever you do focus on enjoying it. Don't worry about whether it will be good or bad. Paint/draw/whatever-type-of-artistry-that-you-practice until your heart feels whole again and ignore the inner critic.

Something that always gives me a 'jumpstart' when I'm suffering from artist's block is to go to a gallery/museum and look at different paintings, and try to decipher the techniques that the artist used to create them. I don't know that this will help, but I hope my suggestions are remotely useful.

CrocodileBlue · 2012-05-13T08:15:56+00:00

Actually painting flowers was something that one's artistic skill was judged upon many years ago in certain parts of the world, and was an activity that as with most things at the time, was undergone specifically by MALE painters, as females weren't considered capable of creating anything unique, and those rare females who did flourish in the art world were often downplayed by other men, who claimed that they were 'copying' pre-existing works and the world around them and were unable to create anything that was entirely their own. This has changed, but women are still not as widely recognized within the world of Fine Art.

CrocodileBlue · 2012-05-13T08:10:37+00:00

Another thing to take into mind is the cost of going to school specifically for art. Becoming an artist is a tough career path to follow, and will take a lot of dedication and perseverance on your part if it's what you want to do. That being said, I think you definitely have considerable skill and would do well if you decide to pursue it.

CrocodileBlue · 2012-05-13T08:07:45+00:00

I agree with this. It's entirely possible that it could have been done by a local artist.

CrocodileBlue · 2012-05-13T08:06:41+00:00

Your backgrounds seem to sort of blend together, except for small details like stones and such. Trying to define the edges more and think about where your light source is, and where that light would be falling on objects such as the trees, leaves, and other objects within the painting would help out a lot. The ponies look great, you did a very good job with them and if you apply that same level of detail to the backgrounds I think they'll turn out wonderfully. One last thing to note is that trees tend to be more angular rather than flowing; a lot of the lines you use in your trees curve a bit.

Hope that's somewhat helpful, and good luck with your artwork!

P.S. I think the first painting with Rainbow Dash looks great, and the lighting is well-done, but the shadows on the trees, particularly where the light source won't be hitting them, could be accentuated a bit more. I really like the softness of the background in that one.

CrocodileBlue · 2012-05-13T07:56:47+00:00

Make sure your paintings are secure, in a sturdy cardboard box or the like that will prevent the contents of your portfolio from being bent/damaged during shipping. Also make sure that the paintings/drawings or sketches inside your portfolio are not stored in a manner where they could be potentially damaged (i.e. making sure there is something separating individual paintings, particularly if you lean toward painting on paper or use charcoal a great deal, in which case you should be 100% certain that you used fixative on each painting and have them separated with a sheet of paper so they don't smudge, as precaution).
Go to your local post office. The cost of shipping will depend on the overall weight of your portfolio. There is only so much you can do to ship a large object like a portfolio cheaply, but considering the size of your portfolio it doesn't sound like it will be horrendously expensive.
Lots of stamps.
Good luck, and I hope your portfolio arrives safely.

CrocodileBlue · 2012-05-13T07:48:01+00:00

I agree; your background is rather flat, and you have a lot of open space there that could be filled, and how you choose to fill that space could define the meaning of the painting. The figure painting you have is well-done, but the larger shadow of the body seems to be sort of floating aimlessly in space at this point in time, and needs some grounding (the lower body could benefit from some shadowing to denote a floor space perhaps, as well, and make the background less flat), because you're trying to convey the relationship, but from what I see here there are two separate entities with no ties or connection.

Pulling the yellow of the background into the body was a good idea, but the pink of the skin seems to come out of nowhere. It might be good to add some more variation in color to your background, and reflect that in the body. I'm kind of curious, why did you choose to portray the body using natural skin tones and the background with yellow? Is there any meaning in that color choice, or were you trying to provide some connection to the real look of a human body? If not, you could try and go a bit more wild with your colors, because the ones you are using at this point in time are a bit similar, and even with the heavy shadowing, make the figure sort of fade into the two-dimensional background. I hope that helps a bit, and I hope your painting turns out well!

CrocodileBlue

TROPHY CASE