Daily Drawing 55

Daily Drawing 55, a photo by BryanACollins on Flickr.

I've been hearing so much nonsense lately, I needed to draw some. Daily drawing 55 - 5"x7" watercolor, ink, marker, and pencil on watercolor paper.

You can purchase daily drawings at www.bryancollins.etsy.com

God bless,
Bryan

Daily Drawing 45

Daily Drawing 45, a photo by BryanACollins on Flickr.

I'm really enjoying drawing on watercolored paper. It's a fun challenge to let the predominate colors be the background. I think it makes me concentrate more on the contrast of the subject.

See available daily drawings at www.bryancollins.etsy.com

God bless,
Bryan

Daily Drawing 44

Daily Drawing 44, a photo by BryanACollins on Flickr.

This daily drawing is another exploration into these visions I've been having of women and marine life in symbiotic relationships.

5"x7" watercolor, ink, marker, and pencil on watercolor paper.

See available daily drawings at www.bryancollins.etsy.com

God bless,
Bryan

Daily Drawing 41

Polar Bear (daily drawing 41) - 5"x7" acrylic, ink, and colored pencil on bristol.

Purchase daily drawings at www.bryancollins.etsy.com

God bless,
Bryan

Daily Drawing 40

Daily drawing 40, a photo by BryanACollins on Flickr.

Baby Emperor Penguin (daily drawing 40) - 5"x7" ink and acrylic on bristol.

Purchase daily drawings at http://www.bryancollins.etsy.com

God bless,
Bryan

Daily drawing 39

Daily drawing 39, a photo by BryanACollins on Flickr.

Hobo (daily drawing 39) 5"x7" watercolor, ink, marker and pencil on bristol.

Inspired by this poem:

Hobo
along the tracks
waiting
for a ride
enjoys the stars

See the author's blog at http://redpicnictable.tumblr.com/

God bless,

Bryan

Daily Drawing 30

‎"Feel" (daily drawing 30) - watercolor, ink, and pencil on 5"x7" bristol.


I am really enjoying working on these watercolored papers. Making the watercolor backgrounds is fun and a different kind of expressiveness than I am used to employing in my work. I feel I am learning a great deal from these mixed media techniques.

God bless,

Bryan

Purchase available daily drawings at http://www.bryancollins.etsy.com

Daily Drawing 29

Working again with this idea and theme that I started on yesterday's daily drawing. I want to see where this goes when I get ready to move these brainstorms to full-blown paintings.

"Lost Thought" - 5"x7" watercolor, ink, and pencil on bristol

Purchase daily drawings at www.bryancollins.etsy.com

God bless,
Bryan

Daily Drawing 28

Working with some new ideas I have for upcoming paintings and just having fun with drip techniques. Watercolor, pencil, ball point pen, and permanent marker on 5"x7" bristol.

Purchase available daily drawings HERE.

God bless,
Bryan

www.bacstudio.com
Twitter - @useeverycolor
Facebook - www.facebook.com/bryancollinsart
Shop for art at www.bryancollins.etsy.com

Daily Drawing 8

Daily drawing 8 is a CB Radio girl. 5"x7" ball point pen, acrylic paint, and permanent marker on bristol.

God bless,
Bryan

www.bacstudio.com
Twitter - @useeverycolor
Facebook - www.facebook.com/bryancollinsart
Shop for art at www.bryancollins.etsy.com

Daily Drawing 7

I realize I am not flexing my imagination muscles with these daily drawings at the moment, just trying to form the habit of them right now. Daily Drawing 7 - ball point pen, acrylic paint, and permanent marker on 5"x7" bristol.

God bless,
Bryan

www.bacstudio.com
Twitter - @useeverycolor
Facebook - www.facebook.com/bryancollinsart
Shop for art at www.bryancollins.etsy.com

Daily Drawing 5

For today's daily drawing I decided to go with a panda. Created with ball point pen, acrylic paint, and permanent marker on 5"x7" bristol.

God bless,
Bryan

www.bacstudio.com
Twitter - @useeverycolor
Facebook - www.facebook.com/bryancollinsart
Shop for art at www.bryancollins.etsy.com

Daily Drawing 3

This little round owl is ball point pen, acrylic paint, and permanent marker on 5"x7" bristol.

God bless,
Bryan

www.bacstudio.com
Twitter - @useeverycolor
Facebook - www.facebook.com/bryancollinsart
Shop for art at www.bryancollins.etsy.com

Daily Drawing 1

I have been debating whether or not to start the daily drawing challenge of creating one illustration each day. I tried it a while back and didn't last a week. I made up excuses about why I couldn't do it, but they were all excuses. Now I am committing to the challenge and have a few artist friends who are doing it with me to keep each other accountable to the commitment. Here is my first daily drawing. It is ball point pen, acrylic paint, and Sharpie marker on 5"x7" bristol.

If you are a determined artist who would like to join the daily drawing group on Facebook, please send a membership request here - http://www.facebook.com/groups/256798767715309/


God bless,

Bryan

www.bacstudio.com

Twitter - @useeverycolor

Facebook - www.facebook.com/bryancollinsart

Shop for art at www.bryancollins.etsy.com

Skeleton Boy with Eggs

I just finished this painting for a collector who requested a unique version of the "Skeleton with Bird" piece I made for the "It's ALIVE!!!" exhibit at Rendition Gallery. It's has been painted on pine, cut from the same board that I salvaged from a home improvement project. (My dad and I turned a window into a door in my house, the pine was for exterior trim.) I've actually been enjoying painting on the wood so much that I will most likely purchase more when I run out of what I have.

To prep the wood I cut a piece in the desired length. The width of the board is 3.5". This painting measures 6" top to bottom. I then use 150 grit sand paper to round the corners and soften the edges by hand. The surface to be painted gets a coat of gesso which dries for twenty-four hours, then a second coat to dry another twenty-four. After painting the piece with acrylics I gave it two coats of archival gloss varnish.

If you would like to add a Skeleton Boy painting to your collection, please reach out to me at bryan@bacstudio.com

God bless,

Bryan

www.bacstudio.com

Twitter - @useeverycolor

Facebook - www.facebook.com/bryancollinsart

Shop for art at www.bryancollins.etsy.com

Caffeine Illustration in Progress

It was so much fun sharing the progress of my last painting with you here on the blog I thought I'd do it again with this colored pencil illustration. This piece is one that I am doing for the "Caffeine" exhibit at Rendition. The illustration board I am working on measures 11"x14". I began by drawing out the girl with her to-go cup of coffee, tea, hot cocoa, or whatever. The next phase was writing out a list of coffee-related words and printing them from the computer. The next step was to trace them all with pencil and tracing paper, and do a reverse rubbing on the illustration board so the font would be how I wanted.

Once this tedious part was over I moved on to color. Worried about the light pencil rub fading as I worked, I started by coloring the lettering first. In this photo there is already about 7 hours of color work. This one is going to be a time monster!

Now with the background finished I am able to move on to working with the main form in the piece which is the girl holding her to-go cup of coffee. This is where the artistic challenge comes in. Since the background is so colorful, I have to make sure that she does not get washed into a psychedelic ocean of confusion. I have a color scheme planned out for her, but I won't mention it here because I want the freedom to adapt or manipulate the plan if the piece needs me to do so.

Now the roses in her hair are finished, and the hair is getting all colored up. I'm down to crunch-time now and this piece really needs to be finished today, which means all the unfinished work you see here needs to be completed in one sitting. That will probably be about 10-12 hours of work. I better get back to it.

Here is the poster for the "Caffeine" exhibit at Rendition Gallery -

I will update this same post with more progress soon. Stay tuned.


God bless,
Bryan

www.bacstudio.com
Twitter - @useeverycolor
Facebook - www.facebook.com/bryancollinsart
Shop for art at www.bryancollins.etsy.com

Mad Scientist

This is an older watercolor piece I did in 2007 when I first started painting. It has been hanging in my house for a while because I wasn't sure how it would exhibit with any of my newer work. I showed it in my studio at the Gallery Underground in Fort Collins and then sent it out to Art Whino in Washington DC for a bit. Now, for the first time, it is available online in a custom made frame, and available as a production skateboard deck.



The original piece is 11"x14" watercolor and ink on archival watercolor paper. The plain black  frame is made here in Fort Collins at Colorado Frame Manufacturers. It is mounted under non-glare, museum quality glass which displays very well and allows all the detail to be seen without reflections. The original is priced at $275 framed and I will ship for FREE anywhere in the world. More photos and purchase info HERE


 

 These production skateboards are the best quality on the market. I have personally ordered a few with some of my other designs and they are just outstanding. They are made of rock hard Canadian maple and are competition sizes and pop. These decks look great hanging on a wall, too! You can order one through Artsprojekt for just $59.95 or if you want one signed, send me an email (bryan@bacstudio.com) and I will have it shipped to me first, then I will sign and ship it to you. I do ask that you cover shipping from me to you. Please don't hesitate with any questions!

God bless,

Bryan

Stages of a Painting

Since I just started this painting and it has a deadline of November 11th, I figure it's a good opportunity to share the entire process. I utilize many approaches to creating a painting, so this is just one of them. I will keep updating this same blog post with pics and descriptions as the stages progress. Feel free to engage in conversation with me through Twitter @useeverycolor

This painting has been commissioned to celebrate an engagement of marriage. The client gave me a few elements she wanted in the piece: Mountains in the distance, trees around the engaged couple holding hands, with a faint rainbow to symbolize eternal promise. I began with a very rough sketch to map out the elements requested by the client. At this point I already know of a few things I will change for the painting, but this is enough to get started.

The next step for me is just to get some paint on the canvas. A blank one is exhilarating, but can be intimidating as well, so getting some color down gets me started in the right direction. I painted the whole canvas black and then blended some dark browns, chromium oxide green, and transparent sienna to get my mind focused on outdoorsy colors. Some or none of this may be seen in the finished piece but that's okay. The point isn't to begin the images, but to begin the painting.

I now have most of the base colors in for the sky, mountains, and grassy areas. It's all still pretty rough at this point, but I will start forming out shapes next, starting with the mountains and then some signature Colorado aspen trees. (The clients live in Denver.)

Now we have some aspen tree trunks and about half of the rainbow. I am doing the rainbow in a bunch of highly diluted layers so it will have some transparency to it, like a real rainbow would. I've also defined some of the mountains on the right side. Next I will finish the mountains on the left and add some snow all the way across. Leaves will be on the trees next, too.

Leaves are on the trees now and more will probably be added later. I've also added more detail and tones to the bark of the trees. The rest of the details will come at the end. The focus now is on the couple, who are obviously the center of this painting. I have penciled them both in with a white (and purple over the light blue sky) Prismacolor pencil. The waxy colored pencil erases from the acrylic paint better than graphite so I am able to play around with the arm positions and such. The next step of course is to fill in the people with paint!

So here you can see the couple looking a little like Jim Henson's Muppets. The hands/arms are in different positions that on the original pencil sketch, since in the original it looked too much like they were giving a high-five. The man's shirt and woman's skirt will be plaid, but these base tones give me a bit of a map for shadows, highlights, and textures.

The man is now starting to have some detail and little-by-little I am getting things shaped out and shaded how I like them. Once all the plaid lines in his shirt are in, I can highlight areas of the stripes to give the shirt a more flowing look. His jeans will be given some wrinkles, too. The "blockyness" of the people will begin to relax as these features are completed.

Now come the most tedious part of the painting: Getting all the little details in and polishing up the loose places that need more contrast and definition. The man's plaid shirt still needs a lighter blue strip pattern added, and the female's skirt has a lot more plaid work to do as well. The progress made since the last photo is the highlights in the man's jeans, the base skin tones in the female, as well has her glasses. I've also added highlights to the man's hair and started making the female's hair to look wavy. Small grassy details are now in the area between the couple and more will come in around them. The next photo will be of the finished piece.



Here we have the final painting.
"Engagement"
8"x10" acrylic on canvas

Comments welcomed.

Bryan

No More Custom Toys (sort of)

I've been thinking for a long time about all of the comments, questions, and suggestions I regularly receive from fellow artists, fans, and gallery curators. After chewing on a great deal of information I began to feel that I needed to abandon either my fine art or my toy art. Although they are both forms of art, the genres carry different vibes and often attract the adoration of different people. I know that a great number of people who like my custom toys really aren't much into my paintings and illustrations. On the other side, most of the collectors whom I've worked with for years just don't connect with the custom toy realm.


(Toy Art) "Qee to the Moon" :: acrylic on 4" tall Mini Qee


(Fine Art) "Play Some Purple For Me" :: 16"x20" acrylic on linen

After putting both the fine art and toy customizing worlds on the chopping block, I felt a little like Abraham with the knife hovering in my hands over Issac, hating what I felt I had to do but willing to do it anyway. Then, like the angel that provided Abraham with another sacrifice, I had a vision of one river that flows to a fork where it parts ways with itself. The one river then has two different names but both are fed from the same source. This gave me the notion that it is time to divide my arts, rather than kill one.

Now you will have a choice to follow what I am doing with paintings and illustrations or with custom toys, or both. Those of you who only want to see my 2D and fine art work may continue to follow me here and you will no longer see posts regarding my custom toys. Those of you wishing to follow my toy customizing adventures will need to jump over to www.facebook.com/colorchemist3d where I am now working under the name Color Chemist. You may also want to follow on Twitter at @ColorChemist3D where I will be posting links to news, shows, and custom toy photos.

Thank you all, both friends of my 2D and 3D art, for the encouragement and support. I love both realms of work and I am excited to continue each by traveling both rivers!

God bless,
Bryan A. Collins (a.k.a. Color Chemist)

LAST PRINT of Journey Lost

We are down to the very last print in a limited edition of "Journey Lost". There were only five of these prints made, so 5/5 is waiting for the last savvy collector to give it a place to hang. These prints are 5"x7" overall, with a 4"x6" print area to match the exact size of the original illustration. More information is at the listing in my Etsy shop.

Just $10 plus shipping. Purchase HERE

Please let me know if you have any questions.


God bless,
Bryan A. Collins

www.bacstudio.com
Twitter - @useeverycolor
Facebook - www.facebook.com/bryancollinsart
Shop for art at www.bryancollins.etsy.com