slow hand ~ Andrew Ken's sketchbook

[aks9]

Thanks Cyprinus! Very kind words. I like to meditate and I became interested in drawing after I started to try drawing while meditating, so thats an interesting comment of yours. I am sometimes quite explicit about getting into meditative states before I begin working on a painting.

I'm thinking of getting serious again about doing concept art and studies. I discovered I really miss it, and it's a shame that I haven't kept it up during the pat year because at the rate I was improving, I'd be in a better position today. But life does its thing. I don't have a plan yet but maybe it'll pan out. I did some figures today which aren't really worth posting, and I worked on this thing a bit to get the ball rolling:

[LaleAnn]

Freakin' crazy posts e.e You have such a sense of detail!! I really enjoy your thumbnails and your figure studies.. They look great! Not much more to say except that you have something pretty personal going on, hold on to that!

[aks9]

Thanks LaleAnn! Very kind of you
I'm out of my rut so lets see where I can take this art stuff again.

Update on the thing from last post



Bits on personal pic I'm working on.

[Vornag]

This is just incredible stuff

[Zearthus]

Never let go of what you started. See it through. Play it through. That little fire that keeps you going, hold on to it. Keep creating, and feeding your soul. After all, that's what art is for you. The fire that keeps you going.

I immediately thought of spirituality when I saw some of your works, I assume, you're into meditation and yoga and all of those stuffs? I'm nowhere near the desired level for art yet, but I'm enjoying the learning phase. But one thing that's always in the back of my mind, what direction do I want to go? Maybe, just experiment and see what you like.

Let it be illustration, concept art, character design whatever it's. Experiment. Eventually you will hit the nail, and continue marching onward.

I look forward, to see more of your post, I immediately felt I was look at something else when I see your art works. Its not the same, lets draw orcs, lets draw an army with weapons, rather for me, it gives me the feeling of, a different world.

A stage, where it takes the viewer to a different reality. Alright, lets not make this message too long. Keep going, keep drawing, keep arting, don't let go of it.

-Z

[aks9]

Vornag: Thanks :)
Zearthus: Thank you ! 
I do meditate, and it does play a role in painting, its how I got started, I would get into the altered states/processes from meditation and follow that process with a pencil on paper and let it take me somewhere
Thanks for your kind words
Soul feeding it is it
Pour your heart into the learning phase it is a challenge and also so rewarding

more bits n bobs

pencil work in progress:





update on IYI:





some symmetry stuff




samurai spore spirit

[aks9]

Hello old sketchbook. Been about 5 months since I last posted here........
Quick summary post of some of the stuff I've been working on. These are all screenshots of large digital pics that I've been working on this year, some started in 2014, intended to be large scale digital prints. Don't get much time to work on them. Have taken up traditional painting again, in the mische technique, currently have a total of 6-8 pieces in progress

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Bird-knight sketch





Pics wippage of "psythrone" (im making full painting based on: psyreal8.jpg )











More of Nesizen








More of IYI

[aks9]

wip playing in symmetry mode

[aks9]

bit more on that last piece

[aks9]

abandoned section of IYI, feel like it could work as a finished piece on its own though. have the urge to work on it

[Lyraina]

Definitely works as a finished piece!

Your paintings always make me feel like I could get lost in them. Just.. zoom in, and zoom in some more, and each time I'll discover *more* swirls and shapes and colors and feelings.

[aks9]

Thanks Lyraina! I get lost too while painting them ~ .............................

Have been completely out of practicing any draftmanship stuff... studies etc.. my head is mainly filled with all sorts of colourful and elaborate compositions i want to paint, and also struggling to finish the larger pieces I keep posting wips of. Have been taking classes with www.davidheskin.com and www.aloriaweaver.com who are teaching in Vienna right now and learning a lot of fascinating stuff about painting materials, and the history and practice of it all.


Some bits from the past few weeks

Blocking / pencil study of a young Salvador Dali






Pencil sketch of imaginal living rock island (has some ill-defined cave-like eyes that are glowing from within if you can see that)





Update on something I'm painting, egg tempera on black canvas

[Adam Lina]

Woah, egg tempera? Glad to see you post again. Your sketchbook is probably my favorite to look at.

[aks9]

Thanks a lot Adam! I don't update this sketchbook often enough at all so it's nice to know someone is still watching


Recently took a trip to Prague with school, some sketches I did of a statue of King Karlos and an old man from Alfons Mucha's "Slav Epic". Didn't do as many studies as I'd have liked







Also a little pic of another small painting panel that I started





Also continuing to work on IYI slowly when I get the time...

[aks9]

more of this! 

[aks9]

Have so many drawings and paintings that I've lost the will to work on, they pile up and take up space in my mind. I think there might be some discipline here in learning to let go of them and allow new creative energy to come in, instead of being "disciplined" and not letting these pictures slide, or maybe I just need to find a more productive and less laborious way to speed up the work on certain sections. A lot of these pieces are ones that I enjoy working on and see potential in but they usually start on very shakey, "stream of consciousness" type compositions, which end up not being all that interesting (although I do believe there is a certain charm that comes from compositions that aren't too highly pre-planned and thought out).

Might start posting some of these abstract pieces in the crit section. I know I'm somewhat of an oddball here in that I'm not into concept-art or entertainment design, but I want my work to still be rooted in fundamental techniques and good draftsmanship, so the same crit logic could possibly apply.

I welcome any crits, especially of this last sketch, thanks :)

[ZandraDragon]

Your work reminds me a lot of android jones . Is he one of your influences? I love how unique and weird your designs are. What are some of your inspirations for them or are they just random things from your head?

I do that too.. I start studies or just have ideas and put them aside. I highly recommend doing composition studies of artist you like. Andrew loomis has some great guides on composition. It also helps to have a purpose for why everything is there. It helps develop a point of interest. in your more abstract work, I feel that the viewers eyes travel everywhere because there is no focal point. That's not necessarily a bad thing. When you add things like eyes that becomes the focal point because it's a human feature or an actual thing within the abstract space.

I really love your style! Hope that helps. keep up the good work I can't wait to see more!

[Artloader]

Dude your work is strange and mysterious - in an awesome way! Some of your pieces are too abstract for my small brain to understand but I love the ones where you've encapsulated your imagination into some recognizable form eg. the alien humanoids and knights etc ...

I tried to interpret that last sketch - it feels like some kind of flying island I think.

Keep going man - looking forward to more.

[Adam Lina]

It'd be cool if you could work more depth into your paintings. Like more over lapping forms and also maybe a clear light direction. The psychedelic style is awesome, though. I wish I could do that kind of stuff. Are you a fan of Alex Grey?

[aks9]

ZandraDragon: Yeah, Android Jones is one of my influences. Back in 2010-13 I used to look at a lot of his art, a big inspiration. I don't look at other artist's artwork as often as I should, most of the stuff I make lately comes from my head. Artist's caution against that, but I'm ok with that right now. I have a few pieces that I want to finish, when they are done then I'll get deeper into studying the masters. I still observe nature of course - reality is the main inspiration!
The other is meditative stillness - there is a quality of mental focus and image generation that occurs in those states that is a big source of inspiration for imagery. I'm glad you like the work, thanks a lot for your comment!




Artloader: Thanks! As for being "too abstract" - I am actually really interested in making all the abstract pieces resemble things - I think the reason some of them look too unrecognizable to you is because they are detail pictures taken out of a larger image. You'd probably see more interesting things in the larger ones, which I won't post until they're complete. 
Yes, last one is a type of floating island. There is an alien face in it - its also a floating head - but most people I've shown it too haven't grasped that yet, so I want to keep working at it to make it a bit clearer. If you look at the two white spots, in the left and center, those are supposed to be "tunnels" that are lit from within, which are also like "eyes", and the larger dripping stalagmite-esque form is where the nose would go.



Adam Lina: Yeah that's a crit I can agree with (re: depth). Thanks for that. More overlapping forms is something I want to do in the larger compositional sense as well. There is a bit more of that going on in the floating island pic, it still has to be rendered properly value-wise though. Thanks for your feedback and praise. I don't get enough critical feedback on my work, please keep it coming.
Yeah I am a huge fan of Alex Grey. Got to attend a 2 day workshop he did in february, met him briefly but I didn't really have a convo with him, he just told me a bit about the Entheon project. His work had a huge influence on me - just in the sense that it made me happy to look at and I like the positive message it has.



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Going to post a bunch of sketches I've been doing over the past month or so. Most of these are drawn from the statues around Vienna. Between 20-60 minutes each. Got no scanner so these are all photos.


































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And update on the floating island. Next steps for this:

• work really define separate layers in the image, value-wise. They're there in line but not in value.
  
• bring in more depth
  
• more consistent lighting 
  
• balance out the energy which is too left-leaning
  

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future art goals:

- get a pouchade box and get into plein air painting
- learn more about oils, pigments, mediums - continue down the learning path opened up to me by www.AloriaWeaver.com and www.DavidHeskin.com whom I've been studying with the past three months.
- study and develop my skills in figurative realism

current projects:
- finish the 4 large digital paintings that I've been working on. This is mostly clean-up. But also the culmination of some paintings that have brought me immense joy and interest while making them. Big openings and breakthrough pieces for me - they express some of the deeper spiritual views and experiences I've had. I want to finish them at last. Also so I can let them go and finally say goodbye to digital, so I can fully embrace physical oil painting. Don't feel interested in digital art at all anymore. No idea where I will get the time to finish these to be honest. Sometimes I things just take on their own longer process of their own.
I also have UFIV and UFV to finish as well as the floating island, and the 3 oil paintings that I started in the past 6 months that I've been posting pics of. Lots to do ~