Illustration Friday-Wilderness

Earlier this week my wife and I were at the local bookstore and I happened upon a Norman Rockwell book. While I was there, I thumbed through it again and again, but that wasn't enough; I ended up sitting down and pouring over all the pictures and information given in it. I learned something new and that is that Norman Rockwell (at least for the later part of his career) used photos and literally copied them. That boggled my mind! (course he was the one staging the characters and scenarios in the pictures...but that is beside the point.)

I thought to be an illustrator every single element of the human figure had to be either from a live model or memorized so that I could draw spontaneously...well I was wrong. Not only that, but the Illustration class I am taking is constantly pushing me towards "simplifying the creative process. It doesn't matter what you do as long as you get to the same end, and if that means cutting corners, than do it." Of course I am a die-hard and I think everything has to be chiseled into stone and sealed with blood. So doing this picture was a good activity for me.

I wanted the picture to be painterly while looking smooth and full of depth. I think I achieved my desires. (And notice I did not use heavy black outlines! ^_^ ) I used several pictures for reference (figure, colorscheme,etc) while of course taking alot of creative liberties on the way!

I don't know if anyone remembers this: http://monisawa.blogspot.com/2009/10/painting-study.html but consider this new picture as its followup! What a difference!!!