Artomatic opens tomorrow!

Every year or two, a collective of 1000+ artists takes over a local building that's slated to be torn down, and turns it into a temporary art gallery, with everything from paintings to sculptures, installation art, photography, fabric, jewelry, and more. It's called Artomatic, "DC's largest creative event," and I'm very excited to be participating for the first time this year.

This year's event will be held at 1851 S. Bell Street, Arlington, VA 22202, directly opposite the Crystal City metro station. The show officially opens tomorrow, Friday, May 18 @ 6 p.m. Check here for all visiting hours. I'll be there for the opening, and on various nights throughout the show, including Meet the Artist Night from 7-9 p.m. on June 2nd.

It's near impossible to see the whole show in a single day, so you might want to plan on coming more than once. If you want to find my exhibit space, here's a map. I'm on the 8th floor near the men's room:

(click to enlarge)

And here's a photo of what my section of wall looked like during setup, so you know you've found the right spot:


If you're in or around DC, come check it out!

Random beauty in the studio

I spend most of my time in my studio, but sometimes fail to notice some of the little uncontrolled things that make it feel like home to me. Little things like these old mason jars that I've been using for oil mediums:


I caught a quick glimpse of this old turp jar on my windowsill in the sunlight.


Ah, my most often-used medium jar. I actually try not to dab my paint on the edge of this one and contaminate it too much, but habit gets the better of me.


This jar of linseed oil is so old that it's taken on a life of its own. Believe it or not it's still perfectly good medium, once you bust through that dried layer.

Sketching at the Museum of Natural History

I had a chance to travel down to the Museum of Natural History in Washington, DC and do a little sketching today.


Panthera pardus (Leopard), *note: it was super crowded, so I didn't draw all the spots.


Plesippus shoshonensis (Prehistoric Horse)


Newspaperus readerus (Guy on the metro reading a paper)

Magic Card Art: Rush of Blood

Card Name: Rush of Blood
© 2012 Wizards of the Coast

Gatherer Link: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=240183

Medium: Oil
Original Art Available? Painting SOLD | Drawing SOLD
Artist Proofs Available? Yes

Artist Notes: This was the first (and as of this entry, only) card I finished fully in oils. Another sort of breakthrough card for me, in terms of how I work and approach characters. I'm fairly certain that during this painting I realized I love painting hands. It was one of the better things I accomplished altogether in 2012, but unfortunately the card itself wasn't very interesting or powerful. Rats.


Preliminary drawing (sold)

Magic Card Art: Exquisite Blood

Card Name: Exquisite Blood
© 2012 Wizards of the Coast

Gatherer Link: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=240134

Medium: Digital
Original Art Available? No
Artist Proofs Available? SOLD OUT

Artist Notes: This card was one of those where I could see a tiny glimmer of a breakthrough in the evolution of my art style. Not that all of my previous cards were "bad" per se, but this was the first one where I'd taken more time and exercised patience, instead of taking shortcuts and rushing to meet the deadline. During all of these early cards I was still working a full-time job as a web designer while freelancing as an illustrator for a handful of companies, so finding time was always a major obstacle.



Here's a link to the step-by-step post I made on digitally-painting the hand: http://sheppard-arts.blogspot.com/2012/04/new-magic-card-exquisite-blood.html

Magic Card Art: Archangel

Card Name: Archangel
© 2012 Wizards of the Coast

Gatherer Link: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=240205

Medium: Oil/Digital
Original Art Available? No
Artist Proofs Available? SOLD OUT

Artist Notes: This was the first card I attempted to paint in oils, but fell short on time, and had to finish digitally.

Archangel was also used on some of the booster packaging for the Avacyn Restored set. On June 9, 2012, I was with a group of artists attending the Illustration Master Class in Amherst, MA. We stopped at a WalMart to buy toiletries on our way back to campus. Lo and behold, Pete Mohrbacher and I found some of our illustrations side by side in the checkout line, and took a photo to commemorate the occasion:


^^ My "supremely chuffed" face.

Magic Card Art: Trusted Forcemage

Card Name: Trusted Forcemage
© 2012 Wizards of the Coast

Gatherer Link: http://gatherer.wizards.com/Pages/Card/Details.aspx?multiverseid=240064

Medium: Digital
Original Art Available? No
Artist Proofs Available? Yes

Artomatic Show Prep: Framing

In preparation for Artomatic (a really cool art show in DC, opening May 18th), I'm in the middle of framing some new pieces. Thrift stores are a great place to pick up frames at a decent price- I picked this one up yesterday for my new Magic card painting, Rush of Blood:

Exquisite Blood: Digital Painting Process of the Hand

Here's a vignette from "Exquisite Blood," my first card from the upcoming Avacyn Restored release:

I always cherish the opportunity to do close-ups. They let me get really detailed with a body part or two, and it brings me back to that calm peaceful state of mind I always had in art school figure drawing classes. The art direction for this card called for a close-up of a vampire sucking blood from a wrist. As I often do when a female hand is needed in a painting, I used my own arm and hand as a reference for the victim's:


1. Added a Color layer over the black and white rough sketch.


2. Started painting over the sketch, using smooth hard round brush at high opacity.


3. Continued adding detail, and smoothing the dark edges left over from the sketch.


4. Used grunge overlays and texture brushes to give the skin some roughness. Used Dodge and Overlay to enhance the highlights and color.

New painting: "Blue Flame"

New painting!


"Blue Flame" 2012 | Oil on illustration board, 16x22


the original drawing didn't have all of the swooping fabric that I painted in the final. Without it I thought the composition felt too rigid.


I took my time with this one, working up a lot of layers of color. The one place this really worked is in the skin- by painting cool over warm, it created just a little dissonance that you can see in the live painting. It gave the flesh a lot of life.

Something else slightly unrelated I learned with this piece: Blue is not a very photo-friendly color! I had to shoot this twice to get it even this close to "true" color, compared with the original, and it's still just a little off. I'm looking forward to hanging this at Artomatic next month, so that its hues can be appreciated for real.