Art by the Week

Moved!

artbytheweek — Sun, 28 Nov 2010 11:52:06 +0000

Dear readers,

I’ve moved my blog from wordpress.com to wordpress.org and am finally back with new art and a new blog concept!

I would be happy if you’d like to follow me to: http://www.artbytheweek.com/

See you there!

Bettina

everything NEW

artbytheweek — Sun, 03 Oct 2010 20:57:31 +0000

I don’t really know how it happened but the last week was full of surprises.

It all began with a new printer a friend of mine organized for me. An Epson printer which opens up a lot of creative possibilities. Which led to new experiments.

new printer

Besides I suddendly felt the urge to move things around in my room… again. My room is not really big but I had the chance to try something new again and now I have, for the first time ever two desks.

workspaceS

Workspace for creativity

It feels so good!

I celebrated with a visit to a major art supplier: Boesner and bought new paper, new colours and a new brush.

new stuff

If this isn’t a new beginning … !!

Next time I’ll talk about a new challenge I will give myself! It’s about time to do it again, don’t you think?

back on track

artbytheweek — Sun, 26 Sep 2010 20:33:13 +0000

oil painting

Last week I slowly got back on track with my projects. I started a new oil painting, I did a new piece for my secret calender project, did some sketches and a new fanart piece.

Not bad, although I can’t really show my progress yet.

At least the fanart I can show. It’s for the popular anime “Naruto”. I used some new illustration board I bought in London. Unfortunately I was very disappointed with the outcome. I also used a new artist tape which might be what I was looking for.

lineart

Uchiha Sasuke

I hope there will be more to show next week!

artbytheweek — Sun, 19 Sep 2010 15:31:46 +0000

Since I came back from London my life kept me busy and disoriented. No time or energy for art.

But I found this photo from London and wanted to share it! One of the best moments of the last months.

proof

I hope I’ll be back on the track next week! See you!

London sketches

artbytheweek — Tue, 14 Sep 2010 09:35:58 +0000

I’m back from my trip to London!! I didn’t get as much sketching done as I had hoped for, but I did a few sketches which I love already! Here you go (click to enlarge!)

our room

Breakfast in the "Breakfast Club"

in Caffè NERO

near Whitehall

Shopping

Trafalgar Square

Illustration Friday: Dessert

artbytheweek — Sun, 05 Sep 2010 08:05:16 +0000

This week’s topic ‘dessert‘ I couldn’t resist.

I’m trying to develop a light figurative style for this kind of illustration, but I feel like it might take some time. Not 100% content yet.

Illustration Friday: Immovable

artbytheweek — Wed, 01 Sep 2010 19:16:38 +0000

This week’s illustration friday topic is immovable.

That’s what I came up with!

new & old – Fanart

artbytheweek — Sun, 29 Aug 2010 08:29:22 +0000

One of the best ways to stay productive and challenge yourself is in my opinion doing some fanart. It offers plenty of material to work with but leaves enough space for creative freedom. Plus: a lot of people enjoy it!

My most productive time before 2010 was when I was involved in the Harry Potter fandom. With the last book it went quiet in the fandom, however I had done an illustration of my favourite moment of the last book in 2007 and always wanted to give the scene another try. At that time I didn’t feel confident enough with watercolours to use them for a scene set at night.

That’s what I did back then, done with pencils and coloured in Photoshop:

I still like the expression of the illustration, however I was curious about how I would interpret the scene today and if this time I would be able to do it with Watercolours:

The forest again, chapter 34

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows

Looking at them now, I don’t feel like it is possible to compare them with each other. They are so different. But it was a long overdue experiment and I’m glad I did it.

improvement

artbytheweek — Sun, 22 Aug 2010 08:19:37 +0000

Since I finished this illustration for one of the fairy tales a friend is writing, I knew I had to give it another try. At that point I did my best, but originally I had planned to do a different scene and last week I felt confident enough to try it again.

I took a lot of photos during the drawing process and can therefore give you a long entry about the creation process:

Everything begins with a first thumbnail sketch where I try to get an idea for the composition. I did a few but the first one turned out to be “the one”!

first sketch

Next: I transfer the rough composition on my watercolour paper, in this case: Canson illustration board.

step 2

Now I work out all the details.

details

Often this step includes looking for reference pictures or taking them by myself like this one:

hand reference

Eventually the lineart is finished:

lineart

Normally I start the colouring with the background, this time however I chose a detail to begin with, because it was important to get this element of smoke right.

starting to colour

For the background I had to use masking fluid to protect the borders of the palace.

masking fluid

I actually hate to use masking fluid and as you can see I really should use it more effectively.

final background

What takes most of the time is the colouring and working out all details with colour. From here it’s all about patience.

mermaid skin detail

more details

Hours later with a little contrast correction in Photoshop the illustration is finished:

I hope you enjoyed this post about my creation process!

Have a nice Sunday!

Update: Fairy Tale illustrations

artbytheweek — Sun, 15 Aug 2010 18:05:19 +0000

My goal for this week was to create two illustrations for the fairy tale collection and I’m very happy that for once I’ve been able to attain my goal.

The process of creation was different for each of them. For the first one it took days to decide on one scene to illustrate and even more days to develop a fitting composition. Sometimes it’s just there and sometimes I have to do endless sketching until I come up with something I can work with.

sketching

more sketches

The scene I chose was rather complex with three characters and lots of details, however by chosing this scene I proved that I’m not making it easy for me, which is good to know. It can happen fast and unnoticed.

After doing those thumbnail sketching I create the actual drawing detail by detail on the illustration board.

lineart

I started to work in a larger format to get more details in my illustrations and although it takes a lot more time to finish one illustration, I am more satisfied with the outcome.

starting to paint

And this is the first one:

For the second one I knew almost right from the start what scene I wanted to illustrate.

sketching

Because of some details I flipped the composition, but that was easily done. The whole painting with sketching and painting took only two days while I worked on the other one for almost a week.

Besides these illustrations I worked on my calendar project, which still has to remain secret I’m afraid. I’m not quite sure what the next week will be about, depends on inspiration, demand and time. We’ll see!

Have a nice Sunday evening and thanks for stopping by!