Norwescon Artist Workshop

One of the great things at Norwescon is in recent years is the addition of an artist workshop, or otherwise a critique of your work by both other artists and folks in the art field such as art directors, collectors, et cetera.

I participated last year for the first time, not entirely knowing what to expect. I found it sufficiently valuable that I wanted to do it again this year. Whereas last year I brought my work on my iPad, this year I had physical copies of my work. First and foremost, I’m now a believer of physical copies, especially given I was honestly a bit skeptical at first. But today I found that having physical copies all laid out on the table really allows for a much more comprehensive view of your work. To boot, I was able to lay out my work in chronological order, allowing us to find subtle shifts in my technique or approach that had encroached over time, but might otherwise lay undiscovered if viewed serially.

The critique, in no particular order, included the following major themes, or:

  • Push Contrast – over time my work has lost its depth due to a flattening of my values. I will admit this was intentional, but that is not to say it was the right decision. One person noted that my earliest piece is the strongest in terms of contrast, and likely a reason many people like it more than others. For what its worth, its the piece I like the least in terms of technique and rendering, so I will definitely go back and re-do, albeit I will try not to lose some of the things that make it stand out for so many others.
  • Know Your Profiles – this is a bit of a corollary to comments on contrast. While I know the value of 3-value thumbnails, I’m not as disciplined as I ought to be with it. The use of this technique early in the creation process can help ensure that my primary subjects can be read at a distance, and also help solve some of the muted contrasting that has crept into my work in the past year or so.
  • Warm vs Cool – My use of warm versus cool colors is, at times, fighting with the primary focal points. One recommendation is to use cooler colors to help knock back parts of the composition so it better recedes into the background, and use warmer colors to draw the viewer to the primary focal point. Interestingly, my own self-portrait suffers from this where the armor is the place where the viewer’s eye is drawn toward, and not my face itself. Someone asked if this was intentional or otherwise a subconscious decision; honestly, I think I just got carried away as it was the last thing I added and it being the first time I had rendered armor I got a bit carried away.
  • Careful of Lighting – In at least one instance, the lighting of my subject was inconsistent. In particular, I rather abused rim lighting to outline the subject. I will readily admit, I recall that at the time of producing that particular piece I had just learned of various forms of lighting, and had become enamored in particular with rim lighting. I’m still enamored; but, hopefully I apply it a bit more logically in the proceeding year since I learned of it.

While not a critique in and of itself, there was at least one compliment that particularly pleased me as an artist. I’ve always been in love with the textures of oils on canvas, and even though I avoid analog approaches, I’ve always wanted my pieces to exist in both worlds. At least one of the persons thought my work was analog (e.g. oils or acrylics) when in fact all my pieces are almost entirely if not entirely digital. As noted, I’ve been striving to achieve a more painterly style, so to have someone note with some surprise that my pieces were indeed digital really tickled me delighted.

From the critiques, there was some solid suggestions and questions that arose. One question is what my goals were as an artist, especially as I have pieces that are both a bit whimsical and other pieces that are more realistically rendered. Especially in context to professional pursuits, I’d really love to eventually illustrate books both as inserts and covers. My whimsical pieces would be appropriate for children’s or YA (young adult) books, whereas some of my other pieces would more appropriate for maturer audiences. In reality, I aspire to do both.

In that context of my goals, a suggestion given was to take one of my pieces and re-interpret for a different audience; I love the idea! It’s a great project, and an opportunity for me to show myself and possible clients my ability to approach a subject that is appropriate to the intended audience.

Another great suggestion is to revisit some of my recent pieces where I’ve dampened my range of contrasts, and push the values to help pull and push the fore- and backgrounds, respectively.

Here is the work reviewed, and presented in general chronological order.

This is a piece I did rather early on when I was just learning how to render digitally. It’s one of the pieces I love to hate, even though a lot of people love it. I showed at both this year’s and last year’s workshop, and I think I have a much better triangulation of the elements of the piece that work well. Last year it was pretty clear that narrative trumped technique, which as time has passed I have myself come to discover as a truism for myself. I love a lot of artists’ for their technique, but after seeing the 10th render of basically the exact same composition with only a slight variation in theme or subject I’ve grown weary of them as inspiration. That all said, I fully recognize the narrative elements of this piece as being something I do not want to lose. And I’ve gleaned from this year is that this is a stronger piece due to its greater range of contrast, something that really helps the composition and ensure viewers stay in the scene and explore.
One of the critiques of this piece is that lack of coherent lighting; in particular, note the use of rim lighting EVERYWHERE. Yep, I was in my rim lighting phase as an artist. This is one of my more whimsical pieces, and it was suggested that I do a re-interpretation of this piece in a more realistic style as a way to compare and contrast my different styles; again, an idea I absolutely love! I cannot wait to sit down with this piece and try my hand at it again, but with an entirely different lens.
One of the strongest critiques of this was the lack of contrast between the foreground and background, along with the fact that reds do not at all carry when underwater. Yes, this was meant to be a sea dragon submerged underwater after attacking a boat that is left off scene.
This piece was where I was delighted to learn that someone thought it was analog, not digital. As noted above, its something I’m actually striving to achieve in many (most?) of my pieces. And again, the lack of strong contrast was brought up as something I want to return to in this piece to see how I help punch up the subject, as it were. But I might note I do not recommend punching any dragons of any size; its rather hazardous to your health.
Generally speaking I think the largest critiques again lay with the lack of strong contrast to help bring the subjects into better focus. Additionally, there are things about the landscape that should be reconsidered. They did see it as a strong piece for a book cover wrap, a comment that pleased me since it was partly an attempt of use an aspect ratio uncommon to me that might work for a book cover. Maybe someday I will write a novel worthy of it as its book cover.
As a self-portrait, I’m still pleased with this piece. It was noted that the armor is actually the focal point of the piece as it holds the highest contrast. It’s definitely that I want to go back and remedy now that it has been called out.
This is my latest piece, and I’m still quite happy with it. Albeit, just give me time and I’m sure I will start to only see all its faults. But I think its one of my stronger pieces in terms of cohesive style, and where I leveraged my references to their best effect. That all said, it still suffers from low contrast.

In summary, even if you did nothing but attend these workshops, they are well worth the price of admission to Norwescon. I really appreciate people taking the time to constructively provide feedback; I always leave these feeling greatly inspired and re-invigorated to develop my technical and narrative skills so I continue to grow as an artists.

And to all my critiquers, thank you!

Norwescon 42 Artshow

I made it (again) to the Norwescon artshow; but barely, by the skin of my teeth. I have no idea why my teeth have skin on them; note to self: look that up.

It’s maybe not too surprising that I’m pretty euphoric at the moment. It’s a pretty strong show this year, certainly the strongest I recall since starting my annual pilgrimage to Norwescon about 4 years ago. But according to at least one very accomplished artist, a certain Mark Ferrari with whom I’ve developed a full-on artist crush for since he’s just awesome, it may be the strongest he has seen in the past decade or more. Which makes it an even greater treat and privilege to hang my work aside so many other very, very talented artists.

If you are at Norwescon this year – and let’s be honest, who is not – then do stop by my humble booth at panel number 10. I forgot some things given I did not expect to make it off the waitlist this year, but hopefully that will detract from the display.

That all said, as I reflect on the past twelve months since Norwescon 41, I do wish I had accomplished a bit more in the past year in terms of output. I mean Mark Ferrari did 56 pieces in the same of 12-18 months … he’s a beast! I had a pretty strong middle of the year, but sadly toward the end of the year my right should got pretty bonked up which caused me quite a bit of pain, throwing me a bit off my game. Yes, excuses! But one of the great things about shows like this is the amount of inspiration and new, higher bars you find for yourself by seeing art and talking to the artists themselves.

If you’re interested, you can also see all the artwork on display at my other site: Ward’s Pics. You can even purchase your own prints from the site, if that’s yer kinda thang. 😉