Here is a shot of a watercolor and ink painting I have been working on over the Holidays.
Merry Christmas You Guys!!
Wishing You all the best this holiday season!
From Annie and Justin and all of us here at Gallery Gerard.
New sketchbook cover: Philyra
Hey guys! I wanted to show you the cover I have been working on for my 2014 sketchbook. The sketchbook will features all of the preliminary drawing I have been working on for my Daughters of Oceanus series this past year. I hope to have it ready for preorder by the end of the year. More images to come soon!
Philyra
11x14
oil on board
December 2014
The sketchbook will features all of the preliminary drawing I have been working on for my Daughters of Oceanus series this past year. I hope to have it ready for preorder by the end of the year.
Beorne and Bolg at the Battle of Five Armies
This is the third post on Beorne and Bolg at the Battle of the Five Armies. We are about 95% Finished! Still a few odds and ends to tweak but it is getting to a nice stage of pleasant mayhem.
This time, instead of trying to explain how we went from here to here:
...I am attaching a GIF to show the stages that the painting goes through.
I like making GIFS. Sometimes when I paint I feel like I am actually going backwards, making the piece worse minute by minute. Seeing the actual progress of it can be really encouraging.
In the GIF you can see I am working values first before ever really getting into saturated colors. That is because saturated colors are evil.
They are like petting a cat....
Everyone is purring and having a nice time when suddenly he whips around and tries to bite your hand off.
That is what working with saturated colors is like.
I am still working on some of the fine details, and of course my signature. (Everyone knows that the quality of one's painting is directly proportional to the size and complexity of the signature.)
After it is finished we plan to make prints of it in time to be released alongside sketchbook 2014...
Stay tuned!
For previous posts on this painting check out:
The Battle of Five Armies: Tight Drawing
I've been busy penciling away on my tight drawing for the Battle of Five Armies. I am trying something new this time around and am working with graphite alongside the usual colored pencil.
Graphite has a tendency to muddy the delicate tones of a watercolor, to smudge, and to be too soluble, and so I usually prefer working without it. However, on the other hand it has the benefit of giving you more control, sharper detail and a better value range.
With so much area to cover and so many figures to work out I have opted to risk the muddiness this time around and utilized it to lay out my figures. I am finding that I really like how it blends with the Caran D'Ache Pablo pencils I have been using for the colored bits.
In the above image I have used the graphite to really isolate the characters from one another. This reinforcement of the major shapes will help a great deal later on when I begin to work on the lighting. It will help separate the characters from what's behind them, and thus keep the whole scene from merging into one blurry goblin quagmire.
"...with them came the bodyguard of Bolg, goblins of huge size with scimitars of steel."
A story note here: If you saw my last post you will notice that the giant goblins in the Bodyguard of Bolg have gotten their noses back.
In "The Hobbit", Tolkien calls the orcs 'goblins' and not 'orcs.' And though in his later writings he would use the terms interchangeably at times, he generally means orcs when describing the miscreant servants of the dark lord. (He would do this in part to give his creatures more distinction from their fairy tale interpretation of goblins.) Thus, there was only orcs of varying sizes really, and Peter Jackson it would seem, had it right all along.
However, that explanation is not good enough for me. The damage is done Professor Tolkien. It's too late and too bad and now no matter what, when I read the Hobbit, I will always see them as big-nosed goblins.
To add some justification for this: I still hold that The Hobbit is more a fairy tale and less a fantasy epic. Goblins fit better in this setting than orcs do. The orcs fit in the drama and epic glory of the later writings, but "The Hobbit" is a tall tale, told by a curious and sometimes dubious author in Bilbo Baggins.
So right or wrong, I have decided to go full goblin here.
Next Week: Watercoloring!
The Battle of Five Armies: Round 2
by Justin Gerard
As some of you may recall, a few years ago I took a stab at a battle scene which was inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien's Battle of Five Armies from "The Hobbit."
I had originally decided to do a version of "the Hobbit" for myself, both out of love of the story, and also so I could nail down my own ideas about it before Peter Jackson and the good folks over at Weta released theirs, (and risk having it possibly influence, or even replace, my own ideas).
Now it is several years later and Jackson and co. are about to release the third and final installment of their films based on "The Hobbit." This one will almost certainly feature a particular scene that I have always wanted to paint. One that Bilbo never even sees, but that nonetheless was one of the most interesting little side events from the story.
Beorne's final showdown with Bolg
It's only mentioned very briefly, but yet it always held my imagination. I've always wanted to paint it.
So now I am going about drawing all of my various heroes, villains, miscreants and warriors. There are so many interesting little moments to work with in a battle scene like this. Especially a battle scene where so much interesting development has occurred throughout the book leading up to this moment.
I'm hoping to have the painting finished long before the final installment hits... but after working out my rough sketches, I am realizing that I have more than 50 figures performing some kind of action in the scene. Maybe I've lost my mind... I mean, there comes a point when you have to ask, 'how many goblins is too many goblins?'
But I can't wait to jump in and start painting them.
The Battle of Five Armies 2014
BE PREPARED FOR MADNESS.
One last note for those wondering: We finally have our print store back up!
To follow the developmental work from my original series on "The Hobbit," visit the Hobbit posts on my old blog at quickhidehere.
IlluXCon 7
Hey guys! We are going to be in the main show at IlluXCon this year, September 17-21 in Allentown, PA. Here is a list of originals that will be for sale in the show!
Justin Gerard New Sketches For Sale
Annie Stegg Gerard Oil Paintings For Sale
"Klytie the Purple Flower"
"Ianthe the Nephelae Nymph"
"Kerberos"
"Flora the Fox"
"Bancroft the Badger"
"Ms. Field Mouse"
"The Toad"
Annie Stegg Gerard New Drawings For Sale
Klytie the Purple Flower
"Klytie the Purple Flower"
18x24
oil on panel
Klytie was a water-nymph and in love with Apollo, who made her no return. So she pined away, sitting all day long upon the cold ground, with her unbound tresses streaming over her shoulders. Nine days she sat and tasted neither food nor drink, her own tears and the chilly dew her only food. She gazed on the sun when he rose, and as he passed through his daily course to his setting; she saw no other object, her face turned constantly on him. At last, they say, her limbs rooted in the ground, her face became a sunflower, which turns on its stem so as always to face the sun throughout its daily course; for it retains to that extent the feeling of the nymph from whom it sprang.
- Mythology Guide http://www.online-mythology.com
Ianthe the Nephelae Nymph
The latest painting in my Daughters of Oceanus series. See her in person this coming week in the IlluXCon main show!
"Ianthe the Nephelae Nymph"
12x16
oil on board
September 2014
Kerberos
Another painting for my baby creatures in mythology. Meet, Kerberos, Hades' savage hellhound who guards the gates of the underworld! He might try to steal your slippers as well. Watch out!
Kerberos
8x10
oil on board
On the Easel Today
Some working shots of my latest Daughters of Oceanus piece for IlluXCon next week!
"Ianthe"
12x16
oil on panel
September 2014
Dragon*Con!
We are off to Dragoncon! Here is a map showing where Gallery Gerard will be displaying prints, originals, and have a booth. See you there!
The Revolution
"The Revolution"
18x24
oil on panel
In Good Company
In Good Company
18x24
oil on panel
On the Easel Today
18x24
oil on panel
The Canyon Cat and a Trip Out West
By Justin Gerard
AWOL 2014 : The Canyon Cat
12" x 16"
Oil on panel and Digital
Detail Close-up
Ye Oldte Coloure Comp
As you may know, earlier this summer Annie and I did a whirlwind tour of southern Utah, which I think has some of the absolute best national parks in America. (They're worth it! Go!)
Often after trips like this I come back and want to do something to try and capture the wonder I felt while I was there. It rarely ever works out, and often, like the photos you took out there, rarely captures how compelling the whole experience was.
This is one of those paintings that doesn't operate on a narrative like much of my other work; Instead it is a collection of the leftover feelings and impressions of the place.
These images are often really hard for me to explain.
Then again, maybe they don't need much explanation because they are images, and after all they deal in matters that words can't adequately describe, and that's why we tried to communicate them in a picture.
We saw jackrabbits one night. They fled into the brush upon seeing our bright yellow headlights. From the canyon's edge we watched a lightning storm gather in the moonlight. We drove through the desert all night in the starlight. And somehow I ended up here.
Bryce Canyon 2014
Draco Floris
Draco Floris
8x10
oil on board
August 2014
On the Easel Today
A working shot of a new commissioned piece debuting later this month!
18x24
oil on board
On the Easel Today
By Justin Gerard
12" x 16" watercolor on paper. I am about 70% finished here.
Come see the finished original at DragonCon at Atlanta later this month!
Imagine FX Workshop: Keto
Another image in my Daughters of Oceanus series has been completed for the August issue of ImagineFX magazine. She appears in the FXPosé Traditional art workshop section of the magazine.
"Keto"
16x20
Oil on mounted paper
May 2014
In the workshop I will be demonstrating techniques that I have used when studying the portrait artists from the Rococo period. I depict a portrait of one of the daughters of Oceanus, Keto, from greek mythology. She is a Naiad Nymph who's name means "sea monster" in ancient Greek. For this portrait I wanted to stay true to the classical portraits of the 18th century while adding a fantastic element, the baby sea dragon, as a twist.
You will learn how I create a fantasy portrait using these methods in one of my favorite mediums. While I will be working in traditional oils for this painting, keep in mind that many of the principles I will be showing here can also be applied to other mediums as well. Issues can be ordered here!
Issues can be ordered here!