Hey there everybody! So this will make my third update in August! I did it! Three posts in one month! That's pretty exciting, right? I'm sure it'd be more exciting if I actually showed you what I was working on, so let's get to that then. Here are some sketches I did at work the other day.

These were inspired by some music I was listening to, I plan on on painting each one digitally - I'm gonna try to do one-ish a week next month and post them up when they're done! That's all for this month! Stay tuned for more updates!

Hey everyone! It's time for another blog post. I've decided recently to go back to school and get a degree that encompasses a lot of my interests (digital photography, drawing, painting, web design, programming), and I'm super excited about it. I start school in about a week and I can't wait! While I was looking through one of my books on design for one of the classes I'm about to take I stumbled upon this picture.

(The above image was saved from wikipedia, I do not claim ownership of this image. It was posted as a reference.)

I had just recently made a custom brush set in Photoshop that looked similar to the strokes Monet used for the image so I thought it would be pretty fun to try my hand at painting my own version.

I started off with a super big canvas, didn't sketch or plot anything out, just painted. It was a really fun exercise. It's easy to get caught up in producing "Art." Something that has to look a certain way, or appeal to a person, or be something worthy of selling, but this was something I wanted to do to remind myself that the first reason why I do this sort of thing is because I enjoy it. So after about an hour this is what I came up with!

It's narrower, everything isn't quite aligned right, but it was a blast to do. The thing that really sticks with me anytime I do a study of a master work like this is how much color is used. There are so many different hues, tints, and values in this and the original painting it's crazy! It was really fun to create.

That's all for this update! I still want to do at least one more this month so look out for that one. Till next time!

Hey there, it's time for another blog update!

There was a sudden rainstorm that rolled over my house so I thought it might be fun to take some pictures. My objective was to try and catch the rain in motion. I wasn't entirely successful but it still lead to me getting some really cool photos (with a little creative editing)! Without further ado, here they are!

This was a small branch that broke off a nearby bush, the little white dots you see sparkling against the black background (which is the grass) are raindrops. It kinda looks to me like a constellation you might see in the night sky.

This photo was actually the reason the other shots look the way that they do. Because it was rather dark out and I was shooting at a very fast shutter speed to capture falling rain I had to photograph this image at a very high ISO. This can make a picture really grainy and lose detail, which is exactly what happened here. So while it wasn't really much to look at in it's unedited state, I thought there still might be some hope yet for me to showcase what I was originally trying to capture - the falling rain. By darkening the image, converting it to black and white, then inverting it, and adjusting the color balance channel by channel, I came up with this. If you look closely you can see little black flecks peppered throughout the image, that's the rain frozen in motion. I also really liked the way the edges of the leaves popped out against the sky (which is black in the photo).

This final shot was framed to capture water flowing out of the drain connected to the gutters on the roof. You can see the water up in the right hand corner of the image. The bonus for shooting stuff when it's wet is that you get a neat reflection of the water sitting on any surface. It made what's normally a boring grey sidewalk a little more interesting.

Well, that's all for this week! Doing something different was pretty fun. I'm also really glad I didn't get electrocuted, that would have been kind of a bummer.

I'm gonna try to do at least a few more posts this month, my goal is three, so look forward to some more new stuff soon. See you next post!