Midnight Madness skeleton

As anyone who has ever attended the Toronto International Film Festival will attest, you end up spending a lot of time waiting in lines (at least if you want decent seats). Some people read, some chat, smoke, etc.; I draw. Since I had time to kill (no pun intended) I thought, what better time than while waiting in line for a screening at TIFF's Midnight Madness? There's a nice long, concrete bench-like wall that rings the property to sit on while you wait outside the theatre. This is where I began finger-painting this dapper-looking skeleton below—appropriate subject matter for the genre of movies shown although I think it may be missing some blood and a hatchet. For this painting I used Sketchbook Pro for the iPad which I had almost given up. I would be stymied by different physical hurdles that would come up while trying to paint: accidentally laying my palm on the touch screen, inaccurate control even thought I tried various styluses, and occasional lag drove me a little nuts. Luckily, time and practice tend to bring about improvement. While it won't win over paper and pencil for me, it's certainly a good starting point for roughing out ideas. Maybe.

Dog portrait: step

While taking some time off to attend the Toronto International Film Festival, I had some time to work on the dog portrait and thought I'd share a close-up of the face. At this stage, I've started to add in the details and once I'm satisfied with the general direction and shape of the fur, I will soften some areas while leaving some with higher detail.

On another note, I've been painting a skeleton while waiting in line for the movies using Sketchbook Pro (iPad version).  I'll post it when it's finished.

Dog portrait: step 1

I've been commissioned to paint another dog portrait and this time the breed is a Collie-Samoyed mix. As I have a short time frame to complete the portrait, I've decided to try something I've read some artists employ in their process, and that is to create a model (yes, I know it sucks ) for the purpose of determining the best lighting and for my reference.  I've begun the rough underpainting in greyscale.

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