Smoke And Mirrors

Two fun examples of a little computer manipulation. Claude Rains as THE INVISBLE MAN was done by drawing the head and body seperately, then knocking down the transparency of the head drawing. Lon Chaney's PHANTOM was altered with a "blur" tool to recreate the fuzzy, scary image from the original film.

Classic Examples: Phantom And Phibes

In my last post I mentioned Lon Chaney's PHANTOM OF THE OPERA and Vincent Price's ABOMINABLE DR. PHIBES as two characters that we classic monster artists love to sketch and paint. Here's two recent additions. The Phantom is done in oils, Phibes in watercolor...

A Quasiwatercolor!

After a year of almost continuous professional work, as both an artist and screenwriter, it's nice to have a few days to just kick back and do some artwork for myself. Today I broke out the watercolors and dove into yet another Lon Chaney Sr. piece. As I've said before, watercolor is probably the most challenging of mediums, as there is little room for error. But today I was relaxed, and the colors flowed peacefully. I know that after the New Year I'll be back in full work mode, so I really appreciated the opportunity to just do what I love to do.

The Almost Last Painting Of The Decade

As the decade draws (yes, pun intended) to a close, I want to thank all my friends and fans for continuing to support my work. Without you folks, all this artwork would be for my eyes only, and that would be not nearly as fun.

I still have a few days before the ball drops (uncomfortable expression, isn't it?), so I may have time to finish one more oil painting...but in the meantime, here's one that I finished yesterday. I wanted to capture that moment, just after Mary Philbin snatches Lon Chaney's mask from his twisted face, and he turns and glares at her in accusational rage. The shot in the film is slightly out of focus, which somehow makes it more nightmarish.

The "soft focus" effect here is easily accomplished. While the oils are still wet on the canvas, I take a fan brush and very lightly drag the brush over the paint. I dry-wipe the brush clean after each stroke. I work in one diagonal direction, and then the other. The key is not to put any pressure on the brush as it sweeps over the paint, just let gravity do it's thing. The result is an eerie, soft glow, which is a pretty cool effect.

I use this technique on almost all my oil paintings, usually after the tones have been laid down. It helps me see that the general shapes of the tones are correct. In most paintings, however, I continue to refine after that. This PHANTOM OF THE OPERA didn't need much else, except a little tweaking in the eyes.

Happy Holidays!

Long Lost Lon

London After Midnight mat never be found, but I recently discovered this image on an old ZIP disk. I think it was meant to be the home page image for my very first website, long since retired. It represents some early experimentation with Photoshop, or some lesser photo editing software. The sketch of Chaney is pencil, while the background is a photo, slightly blurred to create the illusion of depth. The drawing was one of the very first "full body" Sketchy Things pieces, from The Things Remain Sketchy (2000).

This piece would have made a nice first post for this blog, but the Heston thing was so fresh in my mind, I felt it was somehow more urgent.