Inspiration Post – Sharing Art

In today’s post I’m going to share some inspiration with you.  Over the past few days I’ve come across a few art blogs that I really feel like everyone should know about, so I’ll be sharing those as well as a few links to blogs that I’ve been reading for several months now.  I feel sometimes as if I’m opening doors one by one, and keep finding treasure chests behind each separate door.  Each of these blogs contains a lot of art, namely fantasy illustration.

First up is Cory Godbey’s blog, Light Night Rains: http://lightnightrains.blogspot.com/     He releases yearly sketchbooks that each follow a theme, and his illustrations and art often focus on fairies and the hidden world.  The image below is one that he did of Hagrid from Harry Potter, carrying an infant Harry to Number 4 Privet Drive on Sirius Black’s flying motorbike.

Next is Justin Gerard’s blog, quick hide here:  http://quickhidehere.blogspot.com/   Justin’s illustrations and art feature dragons, knights, and the world of Tolkien.  Several years ago he did a series of paintings based on The Hobbit, to preserve the mental images he had in his head of the characters and scenes before the movie is released.  The picture below shows the scene where Bilbo is captured by the three trolls, and they debate the pros and cons of eating hobbit.

Both of the above two artists post not only finished work, but also work in progress shots, thumbnails, and sketches, which makes their blogs invaluable for any starting artist, or anyone who likes to see the process behind an art piece.

I’ve also been reading James Gurney’s blog, http://gurneyjourney.blogspot.com/   The creator of Dinotopia posts daily with advice, helpful hints, examples of early illustration work, and much more.

The Drawn Today blog is a collection of artists posting their work, and is the website for their podcast, also named Drawn Today.   http://drawntoday.blogspot.com/

I’m going to try to continue these types of posts when I can, because I feel that inspiration should be shared freely, and these artists all do incredible work that fires up the imagination.  In my next post I’ll try to have some recent artwork of my own, as well as a few sketches.  Would you be ok with short posts that largely feature sketches or works in progress with little text?  Let me know in the comments section.

A Bit of Whimsy

I’m not usually one to call out other people, but I found a few awesome things tonight, so I thought I would share before bedtime.

The first is a shop filled with magic, art, and whimsy.  You should all check it out.  It’s called Art by Kristin Kemper, and can be found here:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/Kecky?ref=pr_shop_more

The second is a shop focused on spiders, spiderwebs, and other little creatures that crawl.  It’s called SpiderwoodHollow, and it’s all about the arachnids.  Take a look here:

http://www.etsy.com/shop/SpiderwoodHollow

That’s pretty much it for today.  I finished another drawstring bag, this time created from a fabric with keys printed all over it.  Also, I plan to draw more(again), since I need to catch up on my drawing and want to improve my skills.  I recently stumbled across an artist’s Tumblr post, in which he states several important things that he wishes had been taught in art school.  One of the tenets was “Draw awesome stuff and put it on the internet.”  I think I’m going to try and strive for that… and with daily sketching/drawing, I should see improvement, and so will you(if you keep reading my blog, that is).  I’m going to try to draw every day, snap a quick picture or two of my sketches(no scanner, alas), and post them here and on my Tumblr.  Which can be found at thekiltedgerman.tumblr.com

Here is that drawstring bag with keys that  I mentioned above.

http://www.etsy.com/listing/74678012/the-key-drawstring-bag-by-greyedout