In this painting of Natalie Portman from the movie Black Swan I wanted to get the mood I felt when I watched the movie. I had a lot of fun creating the texture of the feathers and painting in the veins throughout here cold transparent skin. I also wanted to play around with the strong light source, which created a silhouette around the backlight ballerina. I wanted to almost lose the figure were the lighting was strongest under her neck. I think the neutral grey tone added to the overall mood of the painting once I added in the saturated color around the eyes, cheeks, and other facial features. I also didn’t exaggerate like in most of my work except maybe a small amount in her neck.

I updated my portfolio with a new Obama Illustration which I hope shows my growth in the past year since my last Obama painting that you can find further back in this blog.

In addition to the painting I included the sketch and reference so you can see were I begin a new illustration. It is all about the drawing. Once I find a dynamic high quality reference pic I begin sketching. Once I decide on a sketch I do a final drawing. It’s important to answer all questions in the drawing because it is much harder to fix a problem while painting. This drawing answered most questions about what I was trying to do with this piece, but it lacks in tone and lighting. I should have taken the time to really put in the shadows and define the lighting. This drawing is a little lose and sketchy. That’s why I have been drawing so much lately because it will evolve my painting so I end up with a stronger end result. In the future I will post more of the steps that go into one of my paintings including the beginning sketches and the steps to the actual painting process.

Here is a painting of Hannible Lecture. I wanted to zoom way in and focus on his creepy expression as he stairs forward in the movie. I experimented with the different tones on the skin. I used a mixture of cool and warm colors. The cool neutral blues and greens make the red around his eyes really pop. I also worked with texture, which is extremely important when painting. The last thing I wanted was it to be smooth and boring. Just as I was about to call this painting finished I decided to spray the blood across his face and I’m glade, it took the piece to another level. I owe that to Anthony Hopkins because Silence of the Lambs is one of the greatest movies and Hannible is one of my favorite characters of all time.