Fairgrounds Cloud

Studio View Quickie

I've been having a blast painting these digital color studies of clouds. The simple matter and the medium has helped me immensely in my traditional painting. Thank Goodness for ctrl+z and unlimited art supplies :-P

 

Cold Morning, Placentia Ave.

 

Still Alive

These past months have been ultra hectic at work leaving me with very little time to draw. I did manage to doodle a bit during Thanksgiving break... 

Inktober 6-10

Inktober 1-5

Ventana 6:18 - 2nd Proof

... Still working on getting a decent delicate gradient. I need to invest on a bigger brayer and make registers for the blocks to align better.

Sketchbook Cover

Gerundio Perpetuo / Perpetual Gerund

Graphite and digital painting

18x24

Monster Doodles!

I have so much fun trying to give personality to random marks I make on the paper...

Police Blotter

5/12/15

Disturbance 1:38 p.m. Jeronimo Road.

The caller reported 10-15 men drinking in the bushes.

Cloud Study III

Cloud Study II

Cloud Study I

Mixed Media

I've always enjoyed the drawing stage of a piece. To me, it has a special quality that I sometimes want to keep in the final illustration. Drawings can have a looseness and gestural quality that can give a lot of life to the piece. The variations between thinner and thicker lines and the smoothness of graphite or charcoal adds an almost dreamlike quality.

Cloud Study, Mixed Media

When I first started learning about mixed media, I read about Jessie Willcox Smith’s technique. She studied under Howard Pyle and made gorgeous illustrations for Good Housekeeping. She drew with charcoal and applied a coat of fixative to then apply layers of oil glazes. Her work was absolutely beautiful. Illustrator Peter De Seve also uses mixed media on his illustrations. He builds the drawing with color pencil and then applies watercolor washes to build up tones, finishing details with color pencil and gouache.

Borrego Hills, Mixed Media

I like keeping my original black and white graphite, charcoal or ink drawings. That way I can see all the possibilities and by mixing traditional with digital techniques can have an advantage. It also gives me room for experimentation. I like taking my time finding the right palette and I do lots of digital color studies with the final piece without damaging the original. This way, I can carefully plan the right lighting, temperature and mood of any piece.

Borrego Hill

OVERCOMING THE WHOLE DIGITAL VS TRADITIONAL ART DILEMMA: MAKING THE SHIFT INTO DIGITAL ART

Lately I've been playing around a lot with digital art, and I’ve been enjoying it a lot too. However, I’ve always struggled to feel comfortable and confident when making digital art. Even though I learned photoshop, Illustrator and Corel in school,  I always felt the medium never translated my ideas very well.

Winter Garden, 2012
Photoshop

There's a lot of stigma to digital art still. Like with any new medium, the art community seems to be reluctant to adapt to the changes and the new tools, deeming them as trends, toys, you name it. It happened when oil paints started to become popular in the 15th century. Tempera used to be the medium of choice, and artists looked down on painters who would use oils, as they were originally used for crafts and decoration.

During my art school years, I had a handful of art instructors who would either completely dismiss digital for final assignments, or if allowed, would berate it at critiques. That affected the way I looked at digital art for a long time. But I also had professors that encouraged it as the main medium for the class; they saw the potential and practicality that digital art offers.

Blue Beard Environment, 2011
Photoshop

So, why am I trying digital again? We live in a small apartment where there’s not much room for me to spread out my works in progress and leave my supplies out ready for me to jump to work whenever I please. My studio is a corner of a bedroom. I can only work on one project at a time and must put everything away each time to have room on my table for other tasks. Digital has given me the option to have all my palettes, textures, references and brushes in one place where they can be accessed from my computer,iphone or ipad - - magical. Also, I don’t have to worry about running out of supplies and even save some money towards repaying student loans.

Domingo, 2015
Procreate

Using the right tools makes a huge difference in your art experience. In my last semester at art school, I took a digital figure drawing course. I was using a six year old small Bamboo drawing tablet from 2006 and thought I was doing “great.” One day my professor wanted to do some corrections on a pose I was having trouble with. After making a couple of strokes with my tablet, he suggested that I replace it because of its accuracy and drawing area. I saved some money and reluctantly purchased a medium size Wacom Intuos 3. The difference was astounding.

     

Head Study I, 2015
Procreate

Head Study II, 2015
Procreate

Head Study III, 2015
Procreate

If you own an ipad or similar type of tablet, I recommend their Creative Stylus; it’s the closest thing you can get to a Cintiq if you cannot afford one. I recently purchased one and use it along with the Sensu brush and the accuracy with traditional media is pretty incredible.

2 Minute Gestures, 2015
Procreate

There’s one thing I think is important to understand though; you cannot compensate for any lack of artistic skill by using digital art. You need to have an understanding of the fundamentals and traditional media to have your ideas translate well. I believe this is why some of my professors were annoyed with its use in the classroom.

Robo-Bert Digidoodle

Brain Puke Sketch II

Brain Puke Sketch

Last week was hardcore... 

Ventana 6:18 WIP

Pedrito

Pablo has a cousin, his name is Pedro. 

He loves ghost stories and solving puzzles! 

30 Minute Study - Tree

30 Min Study

30 Minute Studies

Quick ink doodle during lunch break.

I've been trying to get into the habit of practicing the fundamentals everyday for 30 mins because I really REALLY want to be able to draw from imagination. 

Everyday is a struggle, with work, juggling commissions and other art projects... finding the time to do this is hard sometimes, but I've created a little schedule to follow (I know, so OCD) to practice in strengthening other skills too like figure drawing, perspective and anatomy.

I'll be sharing my studies here and any other material I find helpful to develop/strengthen these skills :)

Now Shipping Worldwide!

Hi everyone!!! My prints are available for international shipping now! come to my etsy store www.etsy.com/shop/lillmartinez for prints like the ones below and much more!

Girl in Bikini Woodcut

TGIF

... seriously. 

Sketchbook Doodles