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Life Drawing V

Nathan Olsen — Mon, 04 Aug 2008 20:15:07 +0000

I thought I’d post some more of my life drawing studies. These were done in the Fall 2007. They’re charcoal on 18″ x 24″ Strathmore drawing paper.

Previously in the notebook:

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The Film II

Nathan Olsen — Fri, 18 Jul 2008 04:57:22 +0000

I thought I’d post an update about the film: a crazy, impossible project that I just can’t seem to give up on.

I wrapped up another scene last night which brings me to, oh, say, NOT NEARLY ENOUGH FINISHED SCENES. As I wrote previously, I really didn’t understand what I was getting myself into with this project. But, now that I’ve invested so much time, I am determined to finish the film.

In the past few weeks, I’ve had some pretty big breakthroughs. In order to deal with some rigging issues, I invested more time in just learning Blender 3D and really got a handle on some of the more powerful ways of using the program. And that means I can work faster. And working faster means that I can finish scenes faster. And finishing scenes faster means that this film might just get completed before I die.

Sigh.

I am proud to report that the scenes that I have finished look pretty amazing. I’m really happy with the way the project is coming together. I’m also really happy that the last few scenes have only taken two to three days to complete. Which, of course, is still too slow.

Anyway, here are a couple of backgrounds from the film. I think they give the film a really unusual look and give the piece a lot of character.

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The Comic

Nathan Olsen — Mon, 30 Jun 2008 17:55:32 +0000

Last year, I started work on a little comic book story and, like many things I seem to do, I never finished it. I have six of eight pages inked and some preliminary lettering finished as well. It’s a little sci-fi story about an astronaut that gets separated from his ship and has to figure out how to get back.

I experiment a lot. I’ve never hit upon a working method that I’ve ever totally comfortable with so I’ve continued to try new things rather than sticking with a single style. The experiment with this comic was that I inked it using Adobe Illustrator. I thought that it would allow me to work faster than I was able to all those years ago when I was inking with a brush. I figured that it would also allow me to more easily correct mistakes (by either undoing a brushstroke or tweaking the anchor points on the vector path). I was wrong.

This project became a nightmare. Inking with Illustrator is a painfully slow process for me. I’m not saying that it’s impossible to ink quickly with the program — I just never figured out how. I used a Wacom tablet to create my brushstrokes and, on tight curves, Illustrator had a tendency to create weird, super-fat brush marks that required individual tweaking to fix. This really slowed me down.

I kept thinking that the process would get easier that more I worked with Illustrator but it never did. After six pages, I just couldn’t face inking with the program anymore and gave up. I also knew that finishing the comic any other way at that point wouldn’t work — there’s no way I could mimic that inking style. It’s just too clean. I love the effect, but the process is unbearable.

Now that I have Adobe Illustrator CS3, I’ve been tempted to go back and see if I couldn’t finish this story. Maybe the brush tool has been improved. I’ve very please with the pages I’ve finished so far and I’d really love to see this thing through. Maybe I’ll find some time this summer to work on it. I have no idea what to do with it when it’s done though.

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From The Vault: Bear & Pig

Nathan Olsen — Sat, 21 Jun 2008 01:27:51 +0000

Here’s another set of illustrations from 1999. I came up with a couple of characters that I creatively named “Bear & Pig” and sent them around the world. As I recall, I had more destinations in mind for the duo, but had to move on to other projects.

This first piece was the inspiration for the rest. It was for a self-promotional postcard. The caption was to read: “‘Oh, no!’ Exclaimed Mr. Pig. ‘Without opposable thumbs, how will we ever finish our project?’” That, of course, would be where I came in.

One of my favorite parts of drawing is when you’re able to crack yourself up. I remember giggling to myself quite a bit as I drew those horns onto Mr. Pig.

Vegas! Please ignore the horribly drawn lights in the rafters. There are times when rendering everything with a tiny brush starts to wear you down and, if you’re not careful, it ends up on the page. I should have just taken a break.

Of course, I spend all that money to send the pair to Russia and what does Mr. Bear do? He sleeps through the whole goddamn thing. Sheesh.

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From The Vault: As I Lay Dying

Nathan Olsen — Sat, 14 Jun 2008 02:00:07 +0000

I’m going to try to keep these weekly postings up and, while I work on new material, I thought it might be fun to show some of my older work.

When I was an undergrad at CSULB in the 90s, I was a big fan of pen and ink. The work I admired most always emphasized markmaking — whether it was ink or paint, you could see the artist’s process as he worked through an illustration. Although my style is evolving, I still am drawn to this sort of work.

Anyway, for the Advanced Illustration classes I took in 1999, I did a series of brush and ink illustrations about William Faulkner’s 1930 novel, As I Lay Dying. I had read it in one of the many literature classes I had taken, and I had fallen in love with it. In the book, Addie Bundren dies an unhappy woman and, to exact her revenge on her family, requests burial in Jefferson City — a brutally long journey made worse when one has a rotting corpse in one’s wagon. Hilarity ensues.

This first piece shows poor Addie Bundren in her coffin. She would only fit in upside down because she insisted on being buried in her wedding dress.

In a famously short chapter from the novel (it’s only one sentence long), Vardaman Bundren, Addie’s youngest child, confuses his dead mother for a fish. I wish I could take credit for the coffin-shaped plate, but it was my instructor, Robin Richesson, that came up with the idea while we were discussing my thumbnails for the project.

The Bundren’s journey to Jefferson City. I’ve never been one to shirk away from difficult perspective challenges in an illustration and I was quite proud of the way I handled the horse in this piece. One might argue that the people in this piece look somewhat crude, but that was intentional. Was the effect successful? I’m not sure. I do think that they work okay in the piece, but I can’t say whether it was the best solution.

One of Addie’s older children, Darl, burns down the barn where Addie’s body is being housed for the night in order to stop the family from having to continue on their journey to Jefferson. It almost goes without saying that the farmer who owns the barn is not very happy. Oh, and they managed to save Addie’s corpse from the fire too!

Looking back on these illustrations, I’m still pretty happy with them. They’re a bit rough here and there — I think Addie’s dress was my biggest failing — but they still have a certain charm. I remember that I worked really hard on these pieces — each one probably took about eighty hours to complete. Drawing all those teeny-tiny lines with a #1 round brush adds up. Hardly efficient, but it can’t be said that I didn’t work hard. Three of these pieces were matted and framed as a triptych and displayed in the annual end-of-the-year student show in the CSULB University Art Museum.

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Life Painting: Skulls III

Nathan Olsen — Sat, 07 Jun 2008 01:17:03 +0000

One more batch of skulls! I really enjoy working with the figure and this skeleton gave me the freedom to do that without getting someone to pose for me. I had the opportunity to work with several models this spring, but I’d really like to do more. Again, these paintings are 9″ x 12″ in size and took between an hour to two hours to paint.

Previously in the notebook:

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Life Painting: Skulls II

Nathan Olsen — Sat, 31 May 2008 01:14:58 +0000

Here are a few more of the oil paintings I did from observation. Again, each is 9″ x 12″ in size and took about an hour to two hours to paint.

Previously in the notebook:

Skulls

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Life Painting: Skulls

Nathan Olsen — Sat, 24 May 2008 01:06:39 +0000

I’ve always avoided painting. I dabbled in watercolor and acrylic for awhile but I never really found the process very satisfying or enjoyable. So, this spring, at the urging of one of my instructors, Dominic Cretara, I decided to learn how to paint in oils.

My biggest concern with oil paint has always been their toxicity. It’s not even the paints that are the worst, but the mediums and thinners that are generally used. Every artist should be concerned about the hazardous chemicals in their studio — artists work with some of the deadliest substances found in the workplace.

But, as it turns out, the toxicity of the materials really hasn’t been an issue. I’ve been working in well ventilated spaces, I wear gloves and an apron, and I use odorless mineral spirits instead of turpentine. Just following some common sense precautions is all that’s really required.

The result? I’ve fallen in love with oil painting. The one quality about oils I thought I’d like the least — the fact that they do not dry quickly — has turned out to be the quality I enjoy the most. There is nothing more satisfying than pushing paint around on a canvas, cajoling and finessing it until it’s just right.

For practice, I’ve been using a skeleton in the studio the paint from. Each painting is 9″ x 12″ in size and took about an hour to two hours to paint using various limited palettes.

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Insights 2008

Nathan Olsen — Thu, 15 May 2008 22:21:30 +0000

This seems to be a busy time for news! I have an illustration in Insights 2008, the CSULB University Art Museum’s annual student art exhibition. The show opens tonight from 6-8 pm and will run through June 1, 2008.

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3×3

Nathan Olsen — Wed, 14 May 2008 21:24:25 +0000

3×3 Magazine has announced the winners of their 2007 student show. I’m proud to say that I made the cut, earning “Distinctive Merit” for a piece I made last fall, “Dance, Lovebot! Dance!” (Now on view in my pathetically empty portfolio.)

Does this mean I can now call myself an “award winning illustrator?”

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