I had a great experience being an artist for February’s 2010 Artifakt – A Valentine/Anti-Valentine themed event that took place at LoFi Seattle the weekend of Valentine’s Day. This salon style event was a mega-bash of super sweet works in a variety of media that spanned the theme of love and well love/hate. Myself along with other local greats Chani Murat, Dear Earthling, iamintricate, Grym, BurnOne, Dave Bloomfield, Keger, Rob Ripley, and Crystal Barbre hung our “hearts” masterpieces. The evening kicked out a huge crowd who also showed up for musical mayhem from Lost Boys vs. HitGirl! (Sean Majors & Marty Mar vs. Miss Funk & Mixtress) http://www.hitgirl.net/, Bryan J. Furious vs. Venus, and Goner vs. B.Fly.
The piece I chose to do for the show was an amalgamation of media. As I love to get tight with a lot of my illustrative style works the process is a daunting one that involves laying down a full rendering in graphite, inking with some sienna india inks, oil paint washes, and then redefining through the use of sharp color pencils to inflict contrast. The result is an eye-pleasing, three dimensional look that is nothing short of extremely unique.
This particular piece titled Fragment Heart was my take on the effect of broken hearts and how one copes with the trials and tribulations of love. It involves a sexy, medusa-like, anime-esque-shiva female who holds the radiating pillowy heart which is the icon of love. She grips it close to her chest with snakes writhing from her hair and a look of despair. Precariously gripped in her hand is a needle which is on the hinge of poking the “Valentine” to blow up the love that once was. It is also a sort of play on voodoo and what a jilted lover might choose to do when love has gone wrong. She sits on a sinewy blanket of folds that creatively spell L-O-V-E. She is no longer taking what love has to offer… time to move on… time to put love in its place… time for revenge!
Here is a breakdown of the creative process:
Beginning with a sketch I build upon the image rendering it with graphite pencils to create contrast and depth.
After fully rendering the piece in graphite (which looks black and white) a thin layer of clear acrylic spray is applied. Once dry, a mid-tone layer of ink is applied to accentuate details in the drawing.
After ink dries, another thin layer of clear acrylic spray is applied. Next, oil paint is rubbed into the surface of the image. Highlights are pulled out of this layer by means of eraser to create form through contrast and layered depth.
The tone is now set into the piece with the hue of the first layer of oils. After another layer of clear spray another hue of oils is added. In this case the piece turns from a ochre/sienna hue to a warmer red/rose. Erasing is repeated to create more depth between tones throughout the piece.
The last layers are the rose oil paint rub and black color pencil to reinforce clarity, depth, and contrast making the end product vibrant and 3 dimensional. The full piece before adding the red/rose tint and color pencil pictured on the left. Final pictured on the right above.
All Images © Nick Beery | All Rights Reserved | www.BEERYMETHOD.com
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