Random

I work the front desk at the museum from 5-10 in the evenings now. With all that time leftover and nothing to do except for the occasional classroom change, I use this time to draw. Tonight I flipped thru an issue of Aperture, found a really intriguing photo by Sybille Bergemann and proceeded to copy it into my sketchbook. This drawing is the kind of drawing I do that makes me sad I can't paint as well as I draw. Sometimes I want to take a break from drawing, so that my painting ability can catch up. I know its silly, and considering how much I have learned about painting in the 10 months since graduating, but I still get down on myself for that. But whenever I feel like this, a renewed vigor takes over me and I want nothing more than to prove myself wrong, which is what usually ends up happening. I have been a huuuuge slacker for the past month and change, I haven't accomplished much art, haven't been able to come up with any ideas. I'm kind of dry now, but I'm slowly coming out of it. Looking thru old sketchbooks I found a couple pages that had some interesting ideas that really drew me into reconsidering making them actual pieces. So we'll see. That phoenix piece I have in mind will definitely be completed. It looks sweet in my mind's eye. Without more ranting, here's the drawing of the photo :)

Moleskins

These are a few of the better pages in my moleskin that I started a couple months ago. Some hands and random poses montaged on top of each other, some figure drawing, portrait, armor design and my first good phoenix. The phoenix has like 6 pages devoted to it, sketch after sketch, study after study. This is final working design #1 that I am happy with.

News

So i uploaded my newly designed web page to the web. Its a bit boring and kinda conservative, but at least it looks professional in comparison to the color fiesta I had before. Its the same name as before, tejeraillustration.com i have to fix one link, the apollo and dionysus painting, as it is a bit on the non-working side. In paint related news, I spent about 4 hours working on the dragonflower painting, the bulk of which was spent on the head. Although i spent a tad longer than usual on one, small 2 inch area, I think I've come across my paint application style. Donato is probably my favorite painter and illustrator alive. I look at his work constantly and wish I could see it in person again and more often. Bouguereau is my second favorite "master" namely for his finesse and modeling of the flesh. I don't want to paint like either, don't want to be a Donato/Boug clone. And I think I've succeeded. Because even though I have Bouguereau paintings as well as Donato paintings around my easel/studio to look at for technique's purpose my own paint application has turned out to be much more painterly and loose, but handled with precision. I'm very happy! I think the next several paintings will be very crucial to the development of my technique (not to be confused with my style, i'm a realist). Expect a Lord of the Rings painting within the next couple months. Can't wait. Weeeeeeeee