4 Seasons. A Beautiful Piece from my new home in Thailand.

4 Seasons from Nestrasentra

This beautiful peice of art comes from Nestrasentra on Deviantart. The colors are amazing, and attempting to translate his Thai to English, it was part of his theme to pick a season, and incorporate many colors. I say he succeeded.

Be sure to check more of his amazing digital art in his Deviant Art Gallery. Certainly worth a watch.

Art News: Richie Buys Australian Art

Heres some great art news for all those hoping to make a little money from selling their artwork. Maybe you can get a pop-icon to buy it from you. This story comes from Sky News:

Singer Lionel Richie has capped off his Australian tour by purchasing a number of local art works.

Richie is thought to have paid almost $10,000 for a piece by renowned Australian artist Sidney Nolan.

A spokesman for Menzies Art Brands said the former Commodores crooner purchased the graffiti-themed work at an auction in Sydney.

It's believed Richie acquired the artwork for his new Beverley Hills home.

After concluding the Sydney leg of his Australian tour, the singer celebrated with a group of adoring fans at the popular city nightspot, Trademark.

You can find the original story here.

So if you could give your art to any celebrity who whould you give it to (or sell)?

Artwork: 13 Inches

"Unnamed" from ei-en over at Deviantart

Ei-en has some truly amazing work that you should really see. Also, feel free to check out his personal portfolio of art at nekro.es. Some truly amazing digital artwork he has put up. This is work from what seems to be his story: 13 Inches.

Great Works Of Art.

How To: Create Fog in Photoshop

Here's an easy tutorial that will help you grasp some of the basics in Photoshop. This one takes a basic image and adds a fog effect to it.

Click here to go to the tutorial

This tutorial from Photoshop Tutorials made it really easy to do this. The steps are laid out over 5 pages, all with pictures to aid you. I think the best thing about this is you will get a good grasp of Photoshop with a very simple edit. You can also use this to add effects to your own artwork and not just images. Many of the steps are steps used for processing other effects as well

In other news, I just got back from my girlfriend's birthday party. Damn... Thai people really know how to get drunk... haha.

Smoking Kills

An interesting picture found at Insomnio. Take a look at this image and ponder, especially if you are a smoker:

(Click for the larger image)

Really makes you think, huh? Certainly one way to visualize that smoking kills. I guess its a form of murder and suicide when you think about it. You use a gun to shoot others and yourself. Art has some powerful messages.

My Personal Art

I've decided to upload a little original content for my loyal blog viewers... if I have any yet... erk haha.

These are just two of my better pieces I have done.

Click on the images to enlarge them.

The image on the left is a digital portrait of Japanese model, Chinatsu Wakatsuki. I used Corel Painter 8 and a Wacom Graphire tablet to get that one done. It took maybe 8 hours to do. I'm a slow worker... The hair came out nice though, and the custom bruhes for the original background did their job, too.

The art on the right is a mixed-media self portrait. I did it in kind of an Escher style without thinking about his artwork. Charcoal and pastel pencils were used to put this one together. I really enjoy messing with colors and thats how the colors in the iris came out so magnificent. That is my eye, by the way. I love smearing...

So there you have it... if you'd like to check out more of my work, you can find it at my Deviantart account Righhhhhht HERE.

-Justin

High Cotton's Stolen Art Work Returned

Some more interesting news. You can find the full story here.

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A piece of art work stolen from High Cotton restaurant was found just inside the door of the restaurant wrapped in a blanket on Friday morning.

Employees at High Cotton said they found the piece inside the revolving door of the restaurant at about 8:15 a.m.

Police said that the piece of art was stolen in broad daylight during business hours last Monday.

The theft was reported when an employee of the restaurant noticed a blank spot on the wall. The piece, called Triangle With Bows, was created by local artist Jamie Davis. It is valued at more than $2,000.

Patrick Emerson, with Maverick Southern Kitchens, said, "I'm surprised that somebody decided they were going to take it. In fact, the piece was pretty well screwed into the wall so it must have taken some effort to take it off."

The employees who found the piece said that it did not appear to have been damaged.

High Cotton General Manager Kirk Watkins said, "Probably with all the media that's going on with it -- it's been on the news -- I'm sure somebody got a little nervous and somehow returned it in the middle of the night."

Police had been reviewing surveillance camera tapes to see if the theft was caught on camera. They will also review surveillance tapes from overnight Thursday and Friday morning to see if the return of the stolen piece was recorded.

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They felt bad? Just wanted a closer look? Borrowed it for a school project? Who knows. At least it is back with its owner. Any clues here? Post a comment!

How To: A Beginner's Tutorial to Pixel Art

Welcome to another edition... *cough* blog from How2Art. I was surfing on Tutorialblog, and found some interesting links on blogs for Pixel Art. As you should know, pixels are the individual little dots that make up an image on a display screen. So Pixel Art is painting those dots, individually, using computer software. Basically anyone with a PC can do it as well, with the basic Paint program preloaded with Windows! I picked just one of the tutorials listed, but you can get the others on Tutorialblog here.

Click here for the tutorial

Derek Yu writes an excellent how to on pixel art. He covers the basics to finishing and coloring your first work of pixel art. It really seems like it is simple, despite the effort you may have to put into it painting dot by dot. Follow his steps and you should be on the right path to gaining the basics of the design process.

Enjoy, and don't forget to subscribe to get more updates and simple tutorials to practice your art skills!

How To: Photomanipulate Teeth into Fangs!

With a new day comes a new How-To guide for you artists. This one will turn your images of normal teeth, into sharp vampire fangs!


Click here to see Wycked's Fang Tutorial

Wycked (from DeviantArt) puts together a really easy to follow tutorial on how to make a fang from a previous photo. This manipulation took me less than 5 minutes to put to test and it came out with pleasing results. Wycked uses photoshop, but I know a lot of other imaging programs feature the same tools used in this tutorial.

Enjoy and don't forget to check out the rest of Wycked's gallery!

A Photographer's Line Up Mishap

Here's some odd news I found at "News of the Weird." This is definitely not a way you want to set up a photo if you plan on becoming a professional.

"The head teacher of Sandhurst Junior School in south London apologized in October because a professional photographer had arranged, for his own convenience, an unfortunate group photo of the school's 100-plus students. The photographer, trying to keep from having to re-set his reflector screens, lined up the kids from the lightest-skinned on the left, gradually over to the darkest-skinned on the right. Said the head teacher, "We can see that this was an error of judgment."

Let's learn from his mistakes, shall we? Hahaha...

How-To: Draw a Chibi (Super-Deformed)

First off, I wanna say welcome to the blog. But, I wanna get straight into writing this, so let's do it!

The first entry here is a tutorial on how to draw a "Super Deformed" character.

Click here to go to the tutorial from Dejichan on DeviantArt.com

Dejichan does a really good job explaining how to draw these types of characters, giving a good explanation on what you can do to warm yourself up, and leaves post-production up to you. Make sure you check out this tutorial, as well as the other great pieces of art Dejichan has in her gallery.

Here is a quote on the style from Wikipedia:

"Super Deformed is a specific form of Japanese caricature, in which characters are drawn in a highly exaggerated manner. Those characters are typically small and chubby with stubby limbs and oversized heads. It is sometimes called chibi by some anime fans, though chibi is a different concept that refers more to a person's stature rather than the art style.

It is part of the Japanese culture, and is seen everywhere in Japan, from subway signs and advertising to anime and manga."

So let us hope the confusion surrounding Chibi and Super Deformed is cleared up for you! Enjoy drawing some new Chibi characters, and keep practicing everyday!