Things have really come a long way. Just finished hooking up my printer, almost finished all the drawings for my Sailor Moon Character trading card art, completed two angel paintings which I will post to Ebay this comming week, and most of all, have about ten pages of the first issue of my comic book drawn out!
So what's the story on my comic book anyway? Well it's a science fiction and girl superhero story about four girls from Earth who have willingly volunteered to fight in the biggest battle yet to save our galaxy from formidable outside forces. Given power so advanced it may very well be magic, they must travel together to train and learn the deepest and most devastating truths about the origins of the people they have joined, the Celestials, in order to unlock a hidden artifact with power that could either save the Universe-or doom it.
(Story Copyrighted Arwen de Lyon 2012)
Friday, October 5, 2012
Friday, September 28, 2012
The past several months have been a whirlwind and now I am happy to say I have several projects under way, and it is so exciting! Number one, I will begin my painting campaign on Ebay soon, I already have a few lovely angel paintings done and will be posting them soon! They are small and colorful keepsake watercolors. They are really fun to do, and I imagine they would make lovely gifts for someone special.
My studio has fresh new equipment to help me prepare my art, and keep things organized. I've even got my new printer all set up, and I can only imagine all the possibilities this can hold for me. Posters.. greeting cards...perhaps even stickers or art trading cards!
My studio has fresh new equipment to help me prepare my art, and keep things organized. I've even got my new printer all set up, and I can only imagine all the possibilities this can hold for me. Posters.. greeting cards...perhaps even stickers or art trading cards!
Thursday, February 23, 2012
Fantasy Art: A Random Creation
Although most of my paintings are planned from beginning to end, with very deliberate origins, there are a few paintings of mine that started out more unexpectedly. One of these painting is "Fantasy City".
I had just moved and was in the process of unpacking, going through my old schetches and papers, deciding what to keep and what to recycle. That's when I found it. It was a finished, fully shaded and tight pencil drawing I had done just a few years back. It was of a city inside an orb, floating in the night sky like a giant moon, with stars and galaxies all around. It looked awesome, but I had forgotten all about it until that moment. I had originally done it as a fun excersise in using drawing pencils and to get my creative juices flowing, but seeing it in a more objective view, I realized the true potential of this little drawing.
I decided to use this drawing as the basis for a large fantasy art watercolor painting. Although I changed certain elements to make the piece more unified, most elements remained unchanged. Smoother hills and a more springy landscape gave the piece a fresher feel, and kept the interest on the sky. Now it was time to choose a color scheme.
I don't know if you've ever tried to add color to an awesome black and white (And yes, coloring books count too!) but it can be really hard! When you look at a black and white, you intuitively decide what colors everything is, and in your mind it makes sense. But what makes sense in your mind doesn't always work in the real wold! A dusty reddish-orange landscape against a dark purple sky suddenly look gaudy, and the effect of the pink against green is just all wrong. Well, that's exactly what happened to me on my first attempt to paint the watercolor I now titled, "Fantasy City".
See, I decided on the first attempt to go with a triadic color scheme. Since I was going for early spring, I chose yellow-green along with blue-violet and red-orange. The result was a disaster. The grass was much too bright and looked all wrong, and all my efforts to tone down the grass with glazes of other colors only made things muddy. Worse still, red-orange by itself for the stars made things burning hot to look at. I muddled through my headache and scrapped my first attempt.
I started all over, and examined my color options in greater detail. My decision? Stick with cool and quiet natural darks for the sky and landscape, and a variety of warm but mostly pale colors for the highlights. The dark colors would be richer, but the light warmer colors would be subtle accents. Blue-violet and blue-green melting together in midtones and the shadows against pale starry highlights in pale red-orange and yellow-orange turned out to be the perfect solution.
Pretty soon the painting took form. I put on the finishing touches, using an exacto knife to scrape out paint for the brightest spots and highlights. I removed the gum tape and admired one of my most intuitive paintings ever.
Arwen's Website
I had just moved and was in the process of unpacking, going through my old schetches and papers, deciding what to keep and what to recycle. That's when I found it. It was a finished, fully shaded and tight pencil drawing I had done just a few years back. It was of a city inside an orb, floating in the night sky like a giant moon, with stars and galaxies all around. It looked awesome, but I had forgotten all about it until that moment. I had originally done it as a fun excersise in using drawing pencils and to get my creative juices flowing, but seeing it in a more objective view, I realized the true potential of this little drawing.
I decided to use this drawing as the basis for a large fantasy art watercolor painting. Although I changed certain elements to make the piece more unified, most elements remained unchanged. Smoother hills and a more springy landscape gave the piece a fresher feel, and kept the interest on the sky. Now it was time to choose a color scheme.
I don't know if you've ever tried to add color to an awesome black and white (And yes, coloring books count too!) but it can be really hard! When you look at a black and white, you intuitively decide what colors everything is, and in your mind it makes sense. But what makes sense in your mind doesn't always work in the real wold! A dusty reddish-orange landscape against a dark purple sky suddenly look gaudy, and the effect of the pink against green is just all wrong. Well, that's exactly what happened to me on my first attempt to paint the watercolor I now titled, "Fantasy City".
See, I decided on the first attempt to go with a triadic color scheme. Since I was going for early spring, I chose yellow-green along with blue-violet and red-orange. The result was a disaster. The grass was much too bright and looked all wrong, and all my efforts to tone down the grass with glazes of other colors only made things muddy. Worse still, red-orange by itself for the stars made things burning hot to look at. I muddled through my headache and scrapped my first attempt.
I started all over, and examined my color options in greater detail. My decision? Stick with cool and quiet natural darks for the sky and landscape, and a variety of warm but mostly pale colors for the highlights. The dark colors would be richer, but the light warmer colors would be subtle accents. Blue-violet and blue-green melting together in midtones and the shadows against pale starry highlights in pale red-orange and yellow-orange turned out to be the perfect solution.
Pretty soon the painting took form. I put on the finishing touches, using an exacto knife to scrape out paint for the brightest spots and highlights. I removed the gum tape and admired one of my most intuitive paintings ever.
Monday, January 16, 2012
Space Art..In WATERCOLOR?!
I love doing watercolor. I love astronomy, too. Why not put the two together? Some people would say that watercolor is simply not the medium for space art. Digital art, yes. Oil painting, sure. Acrylics, ok maybe if you really know what you're doing. But who ever heard of watercolor space art? I'm glad I didn't know about this way of thinking when I started my space art series.
One thing I have always taken pride in is pushing the boundaries of an artistic medium beyond its perceived potential, to create something exciting. When I started painting nebulas and galaxies in watercolor, it was my intention to do exactly that. But HOW did I do it???
I had done two small space art watercolors already, but I wanted to do something larger, with a high level of detail. At first I was going to paint the galaxy Andromeda. I had practiced with a few finished schetches to catch on to the galaxy's nuances. (After all, if you're not accurate with a galaxy, it will just look like a swirly blob.) But Andromeda was a rather nondescript galaxy, and I wanted my painting to have an impact.
Looking through my old astronomy calendars, I found a few favorite NASA images. One spiral galaxy in particular caught my eye, a barred-spiral galaxy with a good structure and nice coloring. I painted it once, layering out the paint. But the colors looked far to muddy, the bright spots didn't look light enough, the spots where I dotted masking fluid looked all wrong, and I wanted a much higher level of detail.
I started again, laying down only the brightest and lightest yellows and pinks, which I could add darker details to later. I gradually and carefully built up layers of darker and cooler colors over the brighter and warmer ones to define the brightest parts of the galaxy, and the darker glow blending into the surrounding abyss. Once the form of the galaxy solidified, I worked in detail of streaks of reddish-brown for dust clouds, and tiny stippled dots of color for the stars. Bright stars were defined by scraping away paint with an exacto knife.
In the end, I was very pleased with the results of the barred spiral galaxy painting. It led me to do a second, of a planet and star system with the Antennae Galaxies. This is only the beginning of space art for me, and I am excited over the possibilities for other watercolor paintings to create in the future.
See More on My Website!
One thing I have always taken pride in is pushing the boundaries of an artistic medium beyond its perceived potential, to create something exciting. When I started painting nebulas and galaxies in watercolor, it was my intention to do exactly that. But HOW did I do it???
I had done two small space art watercolors already, but I wanted to do something larger, with a high level of detail. At first I was going to paint the galaxy Andromeda. I had practiced with a few finished schetches to catch on to the galaxy's nuances. (After all, if you're not accurate with a galaxy, it will just look like a swirly blob.) But Andromeda was a rather nondescript galaxy, and I wanted my painting to have an impact.
Looking through my old astronomy calendars, I found a few favorite NASA images. One spiral galaxy in particular caught my eye, a barred-spiral galaxy with a good structure and nice coloring. I painted it once, layering out the paint. But the colors looked far to muddy, the bright spots didn't look light enough, the spots where I dotted masking fluid looked all wrong, and I wanted a much higher level of detail.
I started again, laying down only the brightest and lightest yellows and pinks, which I could add darker details to later. I gradually and carefully built up layers of darker and cooler colors over the brighter and warmer ones to define the brightest parts of the galaxy, and the darker glow blending into the surrounding abyss. Once the form of the galaxy solidified, I worked in detail of streaks of reddish-brown for dust clouds, and tiny stippled dots of color for the stars. Bright stars were defined by scraping away paint with an exacto knife.
Monday, January 2, 2012
Angel Pictures-How I Paint Them and Why
After college, with my multitude of projects complete, I hit a sudden wake up call. Artwork needed to be done, and after completing my zodiac series, I had no idea where to start. My hands itched to draw something, but I didn't know what.
Interestingly enough this was also a point in my life where I was also rediscovering myself and my heritage. I was interested in angels, and in the peaceful warmth of early Summer I happily read some hard-to-find treasures from the library. After a few months, it hit me; I could explore learning about angels and retell their story through actually painting angels!
Little did I know this was the beginning of a very long journey through the creation of angel pictures. Though the concepts for my angel paintings began simply enough...an angel pouring water, an angel with doves, an angel holding the holy grail, for instance, as my style and use of symbolism evolved, so did my art. Eventually I was painting angel art in fine detail, with background environments which related to each angel just as much as their clothes or the objects the held.
My latest angel paintings are the most complex. My most recent painting, "Metatron" , shows where I see my angel art headed.
I found many descriptions of the angel Metatron, which inspired my modern interpretation.I show his thirty-six pairs of wings in fluid motion behind and around him, with his "many eyes" as feather designs. His throne is simple and modern, floating in space. As one of the Seraphim, red is a significant color for this angel, the color which I chose to tie all the others together.
This unique way of portraying an angel came from a lot of practice and hard work, but it has really paid off. The thought of what angel paintings I may come up with in the future is an exciting one!
Interestingly enough this was also a point in my life where I was also rediscovering myself and my heritage. I was interested in angels, and in the peaceful warmth of early Summer I happily read some hard-to-find treasures from the library. After a few months, it hit me; I could explore learning about angels and retell their story through actually painting angels!
Little did I know this was the beginning of a very long journey through the creation of angel pictures. Though the concepts for my angel paintings began simply enough...an angel pouring water, an angel with doves, an angel holding the holy grail, for instance, as my style and use of symbolism evolved, so did my art. Eventually I was painting angel art in fine detail, with background environments which related to each angel just as much as their clothes or the objects the held.
My latest angel paintings are the most complex. My most recent painting, "Metatron" , shows where I see my angel art headed.
This unique way of portraying an angel came from a lot of practice and hard work, but it has really paid off. The thought of what angel paintings I may come up with in the future is an exciting one!
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