Dallas "Reverie" Workshop
Hey Everyone! This past week there was a fantastic workshop here in Dallas hosted by ConceptArt.org and Massive Black.
Reverie, the ConceptArt.org & Massive Black Internation Art and Design Workshop, was a multi-day training event, designed by professionals and educators in the fields of video games, toys, comic books, film, illustration, and Fine Art. These events draw students and professionals from around the globe and throughout the USA and Canada who attend with the purpose of improving key creative skills, sharing ideas, and learning together under the guidance of world renowned professional artists and designers.
For those of you who may not know I have been involved with conceptart.org for a long time. Actually at the bottom of this blog you can see a link to my "journey" that shows my progression from the first works of art I ever created (besides those I did as a kid) to my most recent professional work. Conceptart.org has provided me with help, information, and inspiration for a long time now. It was the professionals on that site who recommended that I seek out classical training in the early stages of my learning. Were it not for them I truly feel I would still be struggling with the basics.
So it was truly a joy for me to be invited to hang out with all my old friends and heros at conceptart.org and massive black. I was also able to meet up and paint with a friend and mentor of mine, William Whitaker while I was at the workshop. Bill encouraged and instructed me when I was fresh out of the atelier. I had no idea how to work as an artist and he gave me some valuable information that helped launch my career. He is a great friend and it is always fun to see him paint. You can check out more of his work at http://www.williamwhitaker.com/:
There were so many other friends and great artists that I saw at the workshop but these two were the ones that I hung out with the most. Perhaps I am a glutton for punishment because I wanted to paint next to them all day. We were all painting a fantastic Croatian model named, "Lipa". She was like a statue and I was able to paint her from a great spot.
The lighting scheme in that room was artificial light with a little bit of natural light. As the afternoon wore on the artificial light started to take over until everything was pretty orange in nature. As I expected, when I took my painting outside in natural light the colors looked much different! That's always something you want to watch out for when painting. Make sure the conditions you are painting under are going to be optimal viewing conditions for the individual who will be buying your work. At this workshop we had no choice and it was still a blast...but Bill and I were both glad to get back to our north light studios. Below you can see the finished version of the painting.
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Here are some other great painters and friends I was painting with at the workshop. It was awesome to hang out with all of them!:
Shawn Barber: http://www.sdbarber.com/All of these photos were taken at the workshop by Phil Holland. He is a phenomenal photographer among other things.