It is awesome to be part of such the thriving DIY artistic community on deviantART.com . There are many a websites that showcases the portfolios of artists but only a few that really foster an arena for prolific dialog about the arts. The community is vast in levels of talent and amazingly rich with support and critique. Rather that just showcasing the best of the best, it is truly a venue or artist who show up with the best of PRACTICE. Over 22 million members globally use the site in every medium and theme I can think of. I have seen the world through a lot of lenses, most of with are jaded by intentions that are non-artistic and super insular. It is refreshing for me to see super talented famous artists and really stoked junior high artists chatting in the same forum groups, helping each other in critique. I am very inspired to be a part of it.
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It is an honor and a pleasure to share an on going series of paintings that I have been rapidly painting as the Art Director and Illustrator at Planet Labs in SF.
Each of these pieces is 48 x 48 inches. They are painted on primed wood panels because I love the texture and rigidity of wood. I have been on art sprints alongside the aerospace engineers producing each painting in 3 work days. So 24 hours per piece, I love to work on multiple pieces at a time and will share the process of bouncing between pieces in a future post.
Our company is an earth imaging satellite company. We use our data to show the large organic changes occurring in the world. I have chosen to paint these large canvas' of inspiring, unique, and sometimes obscure places.
Here are the first seven of a series of ten. The next three will b painted starting tomorrow.
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I love painting large and it is always an honor to be asked by a wonderful organization to paint at their space and represent their community visually. This week I was asked to paint a piece in Oakland Chinatown at Lincoln Square. An amazing community center the has droves of smiling people enjoying the giant ship like playgrounds, the expansive b-ball courts, and sword fighting in the lawn bowling court, to name a few. The ages ranges from 1 to 100+ and all the folks were super stoked to see this painting in process. My good friend Christopher Mackessy, ( who took most of the photos for the deviantART Gear Shop,) is also a painter, As well as a teacher. He procured the walls through the community center with the blessings and we spent the last 2 days painting. Many of his students came out and we fitted them with brushes and oversized tee shirts and they went to town with our instruction. With the help of these smiling pint sized 8 year old Picassos we crushed it with a mixture of spray paint and acrylic. Rocking a huge dragon undulating through the composition.
Let me know what you think about the piece and if you have ever donated your time to make public art for your community.
Here is the piece at the end of the first session on Sunday with one of our little helpers from East Oakland named Charley. He was stoked to help make such a beautiful piece for his community.
The end of the second day I wrapped up the details and it is looking good!
Here is a close up of the head of the Dragon!
Let me know what you think about the piece and if you have ever donated your time to make public art for your community.
Here is some more photos of the process.
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AmirBeniz said the following:
I am a High school senior at the moment, and I'm choosing colleges to further develop my inspiration for art.
Right now I'm in a rut to decide which school to go to and how I am to pay for it.
I've been drawing everyday since I was a child but my art hasn't gotten to the professional level, ya know like yours.
What do you think I should do?
Hello there!
I greatly appreciate note and I can say that I know exactly how you are feeling about the next steps from high school into art land. On your page it says "I am an upcoming artist whom generally started out drawing marvel superhero stick figure comics and grew up wanting to become part of Marvel's team of comic artists." I can honestly say now that I was saying the same thing when I was your age.
So first off, I applaud you for asking for advice and setting goals to be a better artist. Art is not easy, it does not come naturally, and you must love doing it for it to resonate in you. I was not good when I was young, just hungry to be good, it took lots of bad drawings to do good drawings. But I loved it and pushed forward, excited to get better, while actively showing my work to others for critique all along the way.
To answer your question: YES, I went to school for art. Lots of school, I have 4 college degrees including a Master's and that was a lot of time in class doing art. But School is not for everyone, and when I was your age I did not know I could do what I am doing now. I wasn't really even college material when I was 18 and way to immature to jump into an Art College.
My advice for you is to PRACTICE all the time. What makes me a good and successful artist isn't just my college education, it is the fact that I have drawn tens of thousands of drawings in my sketchbooks and made hundreds of paintings, been in over a hundred art shows and read endless books on art. I got good at art because I love doing art.
Make a team of artists to work with and bounce ideas off of, challenge each other to do good work, have art shows, and draw togher as much as possible. Put in work and you will get better every day.
If you are going to get good at something you have to do it A LOT! Art is the hardest thing to do professionally because you have to learn business, and the hustle, and people skills, and teamwork, and time management, and patience, and stay humble. ALL OF THIS, while you are learning technique, and concept of your art and how it fits into the art world around you.
The biggest piece of advice that I got as a youth was to choose what I love best and practice it until I am the best I could be in the field, then there will always be work for you.
I lived by that mantra for 15 years having a ton of different jobs and always doing art and developing my education. The whole time I was ruthlessly doing a ton of art, copying masters in all genres, exploring all sorts of mediums, reading lots of books, asking every question I could think of to everyone better than me, and saying yes to every artistic job opportunity that came around that I could do.
In Graduate School, after I was through my rough years of Punk rock and Hip Hop angst, the best advice I was given was; Always carry a sketchbook, and always write down every good artistic idea you have and write down and draw anything that inspires you. This doesn't have to be beautiful finished drawing or beautifully written and edited text. This is the opposite. This is PRACTICE. The more ideas I write down, and the more observations I record, the better arsenal I have to apply to those random jobs that come up all the time. Because I practice my lettering all the time, I can do graphics in multiple fonts, since I draw characters all the time I can make any thing have a fun face, Since I practiced classical drawing techniques for hundreds of hours I can draw like the Classical masters, and Since I have spent hundreds of hours working in Photoshop I can manipulate my art into usable design for the marketplace in the digital world. And because I smile and am nice to people always, I always get asked to do good work by respectful and responsible clients who my not trust young people. I can do art on many media because I have done enough of it to have established my own style based on good design and my own swagger. It is unique because it is crafted, and this is just the beginning, I am getting better with every piece and always doing more.
Be positive and full of love and compassion, this will bring you good luck. Learn good business practices, so you wont get screwed over by the jerks.
SO, the short of it is PRACTICE, DO GOOD WORK, BE NICE, LIVE HEALTHY, AND ALWAYS BE LEARNING ABOUT EVERYTHING!
draw more fear less!
I would love to see more of your work, please post more my friend! What is your favorite style of work and who are your favorite artists? Let me know if you have more questions, I am honored that you asked my advice.
Thank you for your time!
I greatly appreciate note and I can say that I know exactly how you are feeling about the next steps from high school into art land. On your page it says "I am an upcoming artist whom generally started out drawing marvel superhero stick figure comics and grew up wanting to become part of Marvel's team of comic artists." I can honestly say now that I was saying the same thing when I was your age.
So first off, I applaud you for asking for advice and setting goals to be a better artist. Art is not easy, it does not come naturally, and you must love doing it for it to resonate in you. I was not good when I was young, just hungry to be good, it took lots of bad drawings to do good drawings. But I loved it and pushed forward, excited to get better, while actively showing my work to others for critique all along the way.
To answer your question: YES, I went to school for art. Lots of school, I have 4 college degrees including a Master's and that was a lot of time in class doing art. But School is not for everyone, and when I was your age I did not know I could do what I am doing now. I wasn't really even college material when I was 18 and way to immature to jump into an Art College.
My advice for you is to PRACTICE all the time. What makes me a good and successful artist isn't just my college education, it is the fact that I have drawn tens of thousands of drawings in my sketchbooks and made hundreds of paintings, been in over a hundred art shows and read endless books on art. I got good at art because I love doing art.
Make a team of artists to work with and bounce ideas off of, challenge each other to do good work, have art shows, and draw togher as much as possible. Put in work and you will get better every day.
If you are going to get good at something you have to do it A LOT! Art is the hardest thing to do professionally because you have to learn business, and the hustle, and people skills, and teamwork, and time management, and patience, and stay humble. ALL OF THIS, while you are learning technique, and concept of your art and how it fits into the art world around you.
The biggest piece of advice that I got as a youth was to choose what I love best and practice it until I am the best I could be in the field, then there will always be work for you.
I lived by that mantra for 15 years having a ton of different jobs and always doing art and developing my education. The whole time I was ruthlessly doing a ton of art, copying masters in all genres, exploring all sorts of mediums, reading lots of books, asking every question I could think of to everyone better than me, and saying yes to every artistic job opportunity that came around that I could do.
In Graduate School, after I was through my rough years of Punk rock and Hip Hop angst, the best advice I was given was; Always carry a sketchbook, and always write down every good artistic idea you have and write down and draw anything that inspires you. This doesn't have to be beautiful finished drawing or beautifully written and edited text. This is the opposite. This is PRACTICE. The more ideas I write down, and the more observations I record, the better arsenal I have to apply to those random jobs that come up all the time. Because I practice my lettering all the time, I can do graphics in multiple fonts, since I draw characters all the time I can make any thing have a fun face, Since I practiced classical drawing techniques for hundreds of hours I can draw like the Classical masters, and Since I have spent hundreds of hours working in Photoshop I can manipulate my art into usable design for the marketplace in the digital world. And because I smile and am nice to people always, I always get asked to do good work by respectful and responsible clients who my not trust young people. I can do art on many media because I have done enough of it to have established my own style based on good design and my own swagger. It is unique because it is crafted, and this is just the beginning, I am getting better with every piece and always doing more.
Be positive and full of love and compassion, this will bring you good luck. Learn good business practices, so you wont get screwed over by the jerks.
SO, the short of it is PRACTICE, DO GOOD WORK, BE NICE, LIVE HEALTHY, AND ALWAYS BE LEARNING ABOUT EVERYTHING!
draw more fear less!
I would love to see more of your work, please post more my friend! What is your favorite style of work and who are your favorite artists? Let me know if you have more questions, I am honored that you asked my advice.
Thank you for your time!
Forest
--
Good afternoon, my name is Forest Stearns and I am the Director of Art and Illustration at dA. That simply means that I artistically represent deviantART with my art 24/7 in both muro and traditional media. I love the artistic adventure of THE PRACTICE
Good afternoon, my name is Forest Stearns and I am the Director of Art and Illustration at dA. That simply means that I artistically represent deviantART with my art 24/7 in both muro and traditional media. I love the artistic adventure of THE PRACTICE
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Rocking Pieces in dAmuro!
2 min read
As a successful artist you have to be resilient and be able to adapt to new media. dA muro is a great archway between traditional mark-making and digital responsiveness. You pick up a new medium, it takes a bit to be able to speak your own style through the new marks. Not unlike a watercolor paintbrush or a chalk pastel for the first time, it takes some getting used to for sure. It is pretty straight forward and with practice it is as awesome as any other medium you are stoked on.
Here are some other pieces I have made with dA muro.
Here are some other pieces I have made with dA muro.
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The importance of having artistic community.
I was honored that one of my piece was chosen to be a 'Daily Deviation,' and in the 12 hours that it has been on the list, thousands of members of the community have viewed the piece and hundreds of artists have given me feedback. I do not know any of these people, but I can now have an artistic dialog with them. Pretty amazing to have that much buzz, and exciting to know the arts are viral. Maybe the economy is tanking, but the creative spark is alive and well.
The piece that was chosen is called ' Get Some Air.' A fun digital painting of a chillin goldfish. (are they goldfish if they are not gold?)
The piece that was chosen is called ' Get Some Air.' A fun digital painting of a chillin goldfish. (are they goldfish if they are not gold?)
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