Busy Bumblebee - Process

Gotta new documented process of my traditional paintings. It was a quick demo I did this Fall quarter at SCAD. The students have to do some sort of "manimal" (part human part animal) This is what you get when Yaritza Burgos (AKA "Bumblebee Man" from the Simpsons) gets a "Bee Movie" body and finds a job.

Prismacolor Pencil transfer to Strathmore Illustration Board. 10" x 7.5" image area. Taped off with Blue Safe Release tape.

Acrylic and Ink base colors. Watercolor was used for the clouds that I don't have a picture for.

Oil wash made with Dioxane Purple and Permanent Green Light thinned with Gamsol.

Dried oil wash removed with kneaded eraser revealing highlights and unifying shadows.

Prismacolor pencil details. and color shifts in certain areas.

Final flatbed scan color corrected with touched off with digital signature.

Details reveal lots of great texture and variations in colors.

Whole process took about 8 hours, but not all at once.

Before Yours and Her Very Eyes

Before yours and her very eyes
Originally uploaded by jaymontgomery

Made this little video of one of my many painting methods. Painting was created with acrylic, watercolors, an oil wash, Prismacolor pencils, and gesso in about that order.

Video was created with iPhoto 11' slideshow. Limiting options but works OK. Real easy once you do it once right. This was my first time doing the slideshow.

"Drawing Inspiration" book is out and I'm in it!

I'm proud, humbled and honored to be apart of this wonderful collection of superstar artists from around the world. I met the author Michael Fleishman back in 2000 at a Graphic Artists Guild convention and what bundle of energy and knowledge he was even then. This is my 2nd Fleishman book that I have been in.

Look what's on my drawing board?

Page 145: On this page I discuss working out value at the pencil stage before color, among other things.

Chapter 13 - Drawing Is Provocative, page 212 is all mine! One of the things I discuss here is what I teach in some of my classes. Andrew Loomis discusses the importance of the five P's and the five C's. Look it up if you want to know or ask me or better yet buy this 368 page 500+ illustrations book and read all about it.

New Process video!

Just created this process video for my Materials and Techniques II class at SCAD. Enjoy!

Spiritual Connections

It's been a while since I was an official student of the arts. Since 2000 I have been a teacher of the arts. Well I started the journey of getting my MFA so that I could have the opportunity to teach full-time at a college level. The logical and most practical choice was to get my MFA from the place I teach, SCAD-Atlanta. I could teach and take classes at the same time all in the same place. Well this past quarter I did just that. I taught 2 classes (Getting Published, and Self Promotion for Illustrators) and took my first class with Illustration professor Julie Mueller-Brown. It was grueling financially, physically, and mentally! During the middle of the quarter I found a more flexible and faster way to get my MFA at Hartford Art School, Limited Residency MFA in Illustration. So I won't be continuing with SCAD for my MFA in Illustration. More on that later.

ILLU 714 Drawing for Illustrators was a great course to start off with and therapeutic in many ways. For the first time in a long time I had allotted time to draw for me. Well, I was drawing for my professor but it was much more wide open than any other paying freelance gig I have done in over 16 years. The 7 other students and I did TONS of drawing inside and outside of class. Part of it was to create 5 personal graphite drawings outside of class. Julie wanted us to just start scribbling on nice drawing paper and see what happened. Below is my journey of those drawings. She is going to use my series of drawings as an example of the process for when she gives this assignment again. I went from literal symbols and words to almost abstract expressionism. Very different from what I am used to and a breath of fresh air.

I would love to get any feedback on these good or bad.

Orangutans in watercolor and colored pencil

I can't believe I have not posted this yet. This was an illustration I did in Fall of 2007 as demo for my Materials and Techniques I class. The assignment was to pick and endangered species to be used for an existing Chocolate bar that features endangered animals and raises money to help support the species habitat and humanity. See more at www.chocolatebar.com. I, of course,
choose the Sumatran Orangutan, located in Southeast Asia. This layering process of watercolor and colored pencils lends it self well to renderings of animal textures and landscapes. 15" x 9"




Detail:


Comments welcome.

My process

Here is a demo I did for my Electronic Illustration class. The link to the web page not only describes my process of painting and modifying the same Photoshop image for 3 different looks of the same image. The web page itself was an actual assignment as well. The style was something really different for me and I had lots of fun illustrating it. Let me know what you think.



The students created 3 different tarot cards of their choice in a style of their choice using Photoshop and Painter and then they created a web page based on those cards talking about their process. They all worked very hard on these and a great job overall. Here are some links to the students web pages.

Mary Wall
Matt Kelly
Sarah Pettis
Fiona Handshin
Min Choi
Tanya Rodes-Colee
Alan Hawley
Jacob Smith

...more student links to come soon.