ZenAngel13

'Nother Portrait :)

2012-01-04T20:16:00.001-05:00

Now with Colors!!!

2012-01-03T21:12:00.002-05:00

Dude Portrait, Charcoal and Chalk :)

2011-12-31T18:29:00.002-05:00

Second Charcoal Portrait

2011-12-28T21:05:00.002-05:00

Portrait Drawing

2011-12-27T20:07:00.002-05:00

New Photos, Timonium, and A Big Red Circle

2011-12-13T23:09:00.004-05:00

Trying to get back into making Art now that the school semester has come to an end. I went into the garage and decided to do some photo shooting. I took 30 or 40 photos with some ideas in mind, and got these 4 edited and posted here, on Facebook, and Deviantart.

Also, the Timonium Motorcycle Show is coming up again in February. I haven't had a lot of time because of school to keep up with fun stuff like the blog, or making art things, but the Show comes at a great time when I'm finishing up my Winter Break and should have a few new things as well as some older goodies :)

Be sure to check back for more fun stuff!

Sharpie Skateboard Finished!

2011-10-30T13:40:00.004-04:00

Sharpie Skateboard is now finished and will be available in the Saint Motor Company store shortly.

7 ply maple deck, dipped in white, then graphics hand drawn with sharpie to the underside of the board. The words in the banner are Latin, and translate to "Let the Light Grow Strong".

More Skateboard Goodness

2011-10-23T19:22:00.002-04:00

Wood Burning is Wholesome Good Fun :)

2011-10-13T00:24:00.001-04:00

Tee hee...

Self Portrait

2011-10-06T01:49:00.001-04:00

I started doing studies of myself for the illustrations... here's the first one :)

More Vultures

2011-10-02T23:34:00.003-04:00

Two more studies for the vulture in that dream. I may do a few more for the body and the wings, but I gotta move on to some other subjects soon. Between work and school I haven't had much time for art, so I've been putting off some stuff to make time.

The new studies will be up soon :)

Updates for Stuff

2011-10-02T13:59:00.002-04:00

I have weird dreams a lot and decided to start illustrating them. This turkey vulture was in one of my more recent dreams and played a pretty significant part so I've decided to do a few studies to get the head and the body down before I go nuts with drawing it for real. There will be more studies soon, I'll post them up here with notes and maybe some color soon.

Another thing that might interest you guys is this Study of a Ram Skull illustration. I put it up for sale yesterday in my Etsy store. It's 11x14 inches and comes framed in a solid wood, semi-flat black frame, behind glass. Signed and dated in the lower right corner, "Kyle Yarrington '11". I set the price at $40 USD. Here's the link.

Art School...

2011-09-17T23:52:00.003-04:00

I had a painting class last semester and the more I think about it the more I come to despise and loathe that teacher. It got to the point where I was angry from the moment I got outta bed in the morning until I left class at 11pm. He just argues with you, tells you you're wrong, and then gets pissed when you decide to have an opinion. I stopped going. There were three paintings in the 11 out of 16 or so weeks I was there, none of them were finished and none of them were graded. The other two are going to make some nice kindling this winter. This is the only one I like from last semester with Prof. Beelzebub. I'm glad I never finished it, otherwise it might've ended up in the pile with the other two.

Ram Skull

2011-09-17T03:26:00.001-04:00

Copic Makers

2011-09-15T23:51:00.001-04:00

This is my first time using the Copic Sketch markers. The drawing of the girl came first and I like them, but then I tried watching a few other people and did some research on the blending of colors and the tattoo flash came second... I like them, I keep telling Chris to try them (he's resisting, but he'll cave eventually) :) teehee

The Rest of the Road Trip Pics

2011-09-14T23:30:00.009-04:00

Nine Corner Lake

2011-09-14T23:13:00.004-04:00

Niagara Falls State Park

2011-09-14T22:44:00.004-04:00

Pics from Niagara Falls/Caroga NY

2011-09-13T23:11:00.004-04:00

I've been away...

2011-09-12T23:23:00.005-04:00

In multiple ways, mainly from writing and slightly from producing artwork. Something was kinda bothering me for awhile and I don't even think I ever figured out what it was. I struck a nerve in myself at some point however and started back into it again. One of the things that I did to try and get myself back to normal again was taking a nice road trip :)

Since I've had my Suzi I've always wanted to go on a bigger scale road trip with lots of nice scenery and a lot of motorcycle riding too. I finally got to do that, and to add in more fun, we would be camping, swimming, boating, and fishing. All of the things that I haven't done since I was a kid, a nice little tribute to when going outside and playing with rocks and water was a favorite pastime.

My friends and I all got our bikes together and met up close to Interstate 70 and headed North to 81, then 88 and Rt. 10 and BAM! We were in upstate New York at Caroga Lake. The cabin was pretty small and very simple. Just the bare essentials and all the plumbing is run off of the lake, which is an arduous 50 feet from the back door of the cabin (I know, all that riding and then... dammit, now I gotta walk?!)

The first thing we did after we threw our bags into our rooms was get changed into or shorts and jump into the lake, which was kinda of surprising when I thought about how sore we all were. The lake was a little colder than normal, but the air temperature in Maryland had been between 100-120 ish degrees with the heat index, so cold lake water and a breeze of 75 degree air was more than welcome.

Over the next week there were plenty of things to be done. David, Ben, and myself took out the rowboat on a few occasions and went fishing. We caught mostly Sunfish and a few smaller White Perch (the perch was thrown back, too small, I kept the Sun Fish though), and one Small Mouth Bass. None of the fish were record setters, but Dave filleted them and put them in the fridge for later. There was a Wal-Mart nearby, a nice 20 minute or so ride through the woods and the small neighborhoods would get us there for camping supplies and B-rate 80s movies (Super Mario Bros. if you want to know)

During our downtime we were all pretty quiet and did our own thing. Ben would usually be on the computer facebooking people, Dave would sleep, and Mark would go out to run up and down Cain Mountain. I decided to be a lazy beast and read a book, "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance". It was a philosophical book about finding small pleasures in road tripping with the bikes, but also had a very large amount of diving into psychological issues in abnormal behavior and thought, with a little bit of ethical and moral editorial thrown in. All in all, I liked it, and it was relevant to what I was doing, so I kept reading it :)

Our camping excursion was hilarious. The day before I had gone out onto a SunFish sail boat with Ben. I figured he was the one to go with since the year before he had placed second in a zig-zag sort of race around Caroga Lake, this was an excellent choice. Ben had started out nice and easy getting out of the dock area and we were sailing, he then asked me if I wanted to try and go a little faster and of course I said "HELL YES!"

He let out the slack in the rope and the sail yanked outward and the boat went from being nice and level to being at about a 40 degree angle off kilter and there was this instant burst of speed. That boat without the mast probably doesn't weigh more than a long surfboard. We spotted John, Ben's brother, off in the distance on a jet ski taking their little cousin out for a ride. We yelled at John until he finally started doing doughnuts around the boat and rocking us back and forth. This was great fun for us because we wanted to go through some treacherous waters and see if we could jump through waves on the little thing. We ended up taunting John a little too much and one good wave had knocked me off the boat, and I lost my nerdy hipster glasses. So we packed it in and said goodbye to the fun boat lol

John felt horrible, but it wasn't his fault. I told him it was cool since Ben and I were yelling at him to make waves and I probably shouldn't have brought the specs with me in the first place. So the next day, Mark, Ben and I drove out to Rotterdam... or Schenectady, one of those two, and bought a new pair of glasses (with a warranty) from a very nice, extremely cute girl (who if she reads this should know that her boyfriend from Maryland sucks and that if she wants a different boyfriend from Maryland, I'm willing to submit an application :)

So we get back and pack our things for camping at Nine Corner. Dave had gone ahead of us and set up the tent already, so when we got to the campsite, we unpacked and got into our shorts again. We set up a few things to cook while we went swimming and climbed up onto a rock wall where a few trees had grown over and someone with a brain and very long arms had ties a rope swing to one of the branches. The rock wall had been maybe ten or so feet above the waterline, but if you fly out onto the rope and let go at the peak height of your swing you'll drop about 15 feet, which is always good fun when you can't see the bottom. After we jump off the rope, we took turns swimming out a little further and climbing another rock, pyramid shaped and pretty smooth, but with a few small cracks that were just enough to get a good grip climbing up. The we would dive, flip, and cannonball off of it into the murky water.

Maybe an hour after we had gotten to camp and met up with Dave, the food we left on the grill had finally finished cooking. At least we were hungry enough to where we didn't care if it was done anyways, but it was the best food we'd had all day. Quite the conversation starter too as the group of campers (ranging in age from 17-25) next to us hadn't brought anything except for two tents not big enough to fit everyone, and a cooler full of beer. This group had excellent planning skills and were clearly Eagle Scouts... or not.

They were nice enough though and after talking with them for a few minutes had revealed that they thought Dave was an explorer since he was alone before the rest of us had shown up, and he had been video recording conversations with himself while he was cooking. We had a good laugh about that and they offered to trade us beer for food, which we agreed to since the four of us had brought too much food to begin with. We all sat down on logs and rocks and listened to Jack Johnson and BB King while we talked about various things. Music, where everyone was from, what schools we went to and where we worked, how the stars looked better here than in Maryland. Anything we could think of, we would talk about, and with everyone too, a million little discussions happened that night. Did you know that from where we were sitting, you can see the Milky Way?

We drank the beer and our little stash of whiskey, ate all the chili and hotdogs and biscuits and Ben and I kept the fire going. We made a few trips out to the woods to get more kindling and branches until I leaned on a rotten tree stump that was maybe 10 inches wide and as tall as me. It gave a little when I leaned on it so I just wiggled it until it cracked and lugged it over my shoulder and back to camp. Ben was laughing at the pile of twigs he had collected and then I show up with a tree :) We put it on the ground and used it as a bench until we ran out of normal wood, then we just fed one end into the fire and kept feeding more in until it was done too and called it a night.

Breakfast in the morning consisted of eggs and green peppers, and the fried versions of the fish Dave and I had collected earlier in the week. I'm not much for eggs, but they were really good. Apparently I'm also not much for Sun Fish, they taste like eggs... but they were really good too lol

Just watch out for the little bones. They're small, flexible, and pretty sharp so they are kind of a pain in the ass in you get one stuck in your gum like I did a few times.

We said goodbye to our camping friends, whose names I can't remember now, and hiked back down the trail. We had a nice long dinner with the parents and grandparents and watched movies and played trivia games until our minds were as sore as sore as the rest of our bodies.

The next day would be our road trip inside a road trip. We were going to Niagara Falls.

We all woke up and stretched, taking turns getting showered and geared up for the ride, and then we all walked outside to find a nice, pleasant, torrential downpour. Excellent. High Five weather man, I didn't have anything against you until then, but oh the wrath you will see when I find you...

This little bit of imminent doom didn't stop us though. We thought "We're strong, we're smart, we're good riders, and we're 20 something!"

So off to the Grandma's house we went. She had already made coffee and cinnamon buns for us and had some soft towels so we could cover up while waiting for our clothes to get run through the dryer. Grandma's are good like that, they know you're going to do something, most likely something stupid, and they love you anyway and give you cinnamon buns to boot. :)

The rain stopped, so I guess I'll not perform wrathful things to the local weather guy, I still don't like him though. We got gas around the corner from Grandma's house and checked our tires and set off. I can't remember what road we were on, but it was 200-250 miles until Niagara. Not bad considering the ride to NY was 450, so 200 ish would be nothin'.

Wrong.

Cousin Dan, who met up with us at the Grandma's house before we left, had just bought a 1993 Katana and somehow had gone through quite a bit of fuel about 100 miles away from Niagara. Enough to where he ran out completely and since we're all dumber than a box of rocks, decided that it had to be something like a leak, petcock, points fried, no spark, blah blah blah... So maybe four hours later after getting a tow to a gas station, refueling, getting to a shop that was closed, then going 20 miles in the wrong direction to a shop that was open, they told us, "get gas" and we all kicked ourselves in the ass for that one. We had left at 7am and arrived in Niagara Falls State Park at 7pm. We were hurting, we were hungry, we were a bunch of whiny little bikers that wanted to find some pizza. Until we got our tickets to get on the Maid of the Mist, a boat that tours you around the bottom part of the US and Canadian parts of Niagara Falls. Which was amazing, the cliffs and the water, all the noise, the mist and just the sheer tonnage that river throws over is amazing. At some point the tourist recording playing over the boat's PA system said that the amount of power the falls produces is somewhere in the neighborhood of 12 million horsepower, which gave me an idea. But then I figured that a motorcycle that was powered by Niagara Falls would probably be bulky, hard to steer, limited in where it could go, and would be pretty ugly... still probably feasible though ;)

The ride back was a whole 'nother story. We had Mark's Dad type "pizza" into the GPS and it immediately took us past all the nice hotels and casinos and straight into the GHETTO-OH-OH. We pulled over and Mark's Dad said, "Well I think the pizza place is closed."

Mark and I turned, looked at each other, and just started shaking our heads.

"I think the pizza place burned down, dude." I said.

"Yeah, let's go before one of us becomes a chalk outline." replies Mark.

After some discussion, we headed for the highway and decided to just pull off at the nearest rest stop with a McDonalds. McDonalds somehow turned into Cracker Barrel and we had an epic dinner that left us all stuffed and tired. But we are 20-something! Sleep can wait!

We ended up at the cabin around 4am and Ben and I stripped down to our boxers and sat on the wood stove. Discussed how angry we were and asking each other why our butts were so itchy. Sitting on the wood stove was that highlight of being at the cabin that day lol

Mark and I left at 7pm the next night and had to do so in kind of a hurry. Some things had come up at Mark's work and I had family coming in that I wanted to see. We got our bags packed and got our gear back on and said goodbye and gave a few hugs out and we were off.

It didn't take long for the sun to go down unfortunately. We pulled off to get some bungees and some dinner (our first and last meal of that day). We talked about the map, the trip, friends, how glad we were to be making the trip back with each other and how we were going to be happy to see our own beds. After dinner we got back on the bikes, whined a little bit and then let out the unmistakable war cry of a Harley Night Rod and a Suzuki SV650S pulling carefully and unclimatically out of a parking lot. The trip back was filled with maybe four stops. Three for gas and conversation, and once because I felt my bag coming loose and having to retie it to my tail.

Coming back down Rt. 81 from Pennsylvania into Maryland, we could see the sun coming up. The clouds were turning from a navy blue to a hazy gray and there were pinks and greens on the horizon. Getting back to Interstate 70 was probably one of the best feelings ever since that's the home stretch for us. We had maybe 35 miles to do on 70 before we would exit, and then it was only a 5 minute ride back to Mark's house. This was a pretty short lived feeling though, once the light came back on and it was definitely morning, we could see mountains up ahead that had black clouds looming over the peaks. As we got closer, the clouds got lower until the tops of the mountains were gone and enveloped in what appeared to be the rapture. After we passed Frederick, about 18 miles to go before we got home, Mark and I let loose and decided that this time we refused to get rained on at all. We did the Ton and kept it there! I felt a drop of water hit my wrist and we only gave it more. Our cycles were screaming, his at 5,000 rpms and mine at 8,000. We were racing Mother Nature and we were winning. If we had wings we would've flown. Coming off the exit ramp was fun to adjust to, we dropped down to 50 and kept rolling, no traffic this early on a Saturday, so straight down the road we went. Another raindrop hit my visor. We cracked open the throttles again and happily did the Ton, letting our bikes actually have a good War Cry this time, and I think Mother Nature heard us.

Getting back to our road is fun, there are a few longer curves where you don't need to adjust your speed, and a few nice S-curves too where you can get a good lean in. We slowed down and turned down Mark's road, I think I almost lost it here. We round the turn and I come up from my lean my bike is still turned, but I'm going in a straight line... No, wiggle from the rear though, so I thought it would be super hot and sliding, which it was. I drifted a motorcycle and was so delirious from riding and no sleep that it didn't even phase me.

That's a lie actually, first I was worried, then I was methodical thinking about what was happening, adjusted for the situation (this all occurred in a two or three second time period, mind you) and then laughed maniacally about it all the way up Mark's driveway.

We pushed our bikes in the garage, checked the time, 7 am. It took 12 hours to get back. We were in hysterics, and also extremely pleased with ourselves being able to say that we have ridden "from dusk 'til dawn." haha

We went inside that house, got some water and something to eat, then laid on the couches and watched all of maybe 5 minutes of Top Gear before passing out from exhaustion. Somehow I woke up three hours later and went home, which I don't remember much of, so I'm guessing I was still a little loopy.

Altogether it was a good trip. Something to tell the Grandkids about (in the event that there should be any... maybe if the girl calls me that I bought those new glasses from?) We took some pictures, laughed at each other, nobody got killed or killed anybody, and we rode our motorcycles 1400 miles. Suzi is slowly wearing the back tire in again to recover from all the highway, and I'm pretty sure she needs some attention given to her forks, but she's a good little trooper, maybe I'll keep her :)

Soon after that, Mark and I went back to work and a few days later Ben and Dave got home. We're all back in school, except Mark who graduated already, and back to normal.

My New Obsession...

2011-06-16T21:00:00.004-04:00

Still into doing art and soon I'll have that Moto Painting Tutorial finished (really, I swear)...

This is what's been on my mind lately.

My current ride is a 2007 Suzuki SV650S (nicknamed "The Brave Little Toaster"), the best bike in the world for anyone just starting out. Torquey, lightweight, agile, and very pretty. For buying it when I was a high risk for any insurance company at the age of 19, the price of the bike and the insurance on it is outstanding. But sadly, I think I'm slowly falling out of love with this machine. I've managed to go down once, and narrowly avoid getting hit by a car with her, and somewhere in the middle ridden nearly 15,000 miles. She just is not as exciting as she used to be, so soon I will be letting her go to make someone else a seasoned rider.

This is most likely what I will be replacing the Toaster with... The Ducati 1198 Superbike

Oh yes, she will be mine... Oh YES

Pretty Awesome...

2011-05-14T11:00:00.002-04:00

A work in progress - 'Solitude' 2010/2011
I started work on this image back in 2010. It is 8ft across & 5ft high. In these photos I am only working in graphite. Later I will go in with ink and acrylic.

Project by Joe Fenton

Reposted from http://www.stumbleupon.com/su/1Bpq0Y/www.behance.net/gallery/Solitude-20102011-A-work-in-progress/954142

Good Ideas for Fun

2011-05-06T11:04:00.000-04:00

Reposted from TheAccidentalArtist.com

http://www.theaccidentalartist.com/content/drawing/100-creative-drawing-ideas

Even for those who love sketching, there are times when the lack of fresh drawing ideas inhibits the creative process: you can only draw that tree outside your kitchen window so many times. Coming up with new ideas is not that difficult, if you start thinking in categories---and put a twist on each item in your category.

20 Ideas for Drawing People

Draw a person you know well with an out-of-character hair-do, wearing clothes from a previous century, sitting in an oversized or undersized chair or reacting to a winning ticket in the lottery. Draw someone as an infant, a toddler, a teenager, an adult and an old person. Draw someone you see on the street greeting a friend, arguing with a boss or posing for a photo. Draw a couple embracing, arguing, taking a walk or dancing. Draw a doctor consoling a patient, a teacher praising a student or a police officer interrogating a subject. Draw yourself with various facial expressions.

15 Ideas for Drawing Still-Life Pictures

Create an arrangement of books of various sizes and draw it from various angles. Draw a row of books on a bookshelf, or draw a large opened book from several angles. Draw four items from the refrigerator that you have placed on a kitchen chair. Put a few large toys next to a tricycle. Draw three teddy bears lined up on a shelf. Pile empty grocery cartons next to a trash can; then turn over the trash can and do another drawing from that angle. Make a tower of dinner plates alternating with small bowls. Do a drawing of your computer, your iPod or your cell phone, including an unrelated object next to each. Take the coins out of your pocket, spill them onto a tabletop and draw them how they landed. Draw a chess set or game board. Draw some shirts piled into a laundry basket. Sketch toiletries and cosmetics placed in an interesting arrangement. Draw a collection of baseball caps.

16 Ideas for Drawing Animals

Draw your dog (or someone else's) sleeping, sniffing and begging. Sketch a cat ready to pounce; make another drawing when it's curled up in a basket. Draw birds from an Audubon book, or draw pigeons in the park. Go to the zoo to find animal models; draw them separately, from different angles, and juxtaposed next to one another. Dig up some worms to draw. Use a magnifying glass to draw ants you attract to a saucer of honey, and spiders you trap in a jar only long enough to sketch them. Sketch guinea pigs at a pet store. Visit an aquarium and draw the largest fish and the smallest fish you can find. Using a book of dinosaurs, draw dinosaurs next to bridges.

15 Ideas for Drawing Home Interiors

Draw your bed first thing in the morning and then again after you make it. Open your closet and sketch a group of clothes hanging together. Draw your dresser, and then open a drawer and sketch the insides. Draw the stairs from several angles. Draw every door in your house or apartment lined up next to each other. Draw a large appliance, such as the refrigerator or washing machine. Draw the table set for dinner and then again after the meal. Sketch a picture of the pictures on your wall. Draw something you see when you look out the window. Draw something small, such as a keyhole, a doorknob or a cabinet handle. Make a drawing of your bathroom. Lie on your back and draw the light fixtures on the ceiling.

14 Ideas for Drawing Outdoors

In the city: Draw a taxi. Draw the corner of a large building. Draw a traffic light or a stop sign. Draw the exact same scene at 5 a.m. and 5 p.m. Sketch a picture of the streetlights. Draw a storefront. In the country: Draw the side of a barn. Draw a fence with a few fence posts. Draw a patch of weeds. Sketch the window of a country store. Draw a tractor or other piece of farm equipment. Draw a rural mailbox. Draw the view down a dirt road.

20 Ideas for Drawing Outside the Box

Draw an inventive alien. Juxtapose dissimilar objects, such as an orange and a miniature car, and draw them together. Draw your toenails. Draw a machine with an unknown purpose. Sketch a pleasant memory. Illustrate a nightmare. Draw a pile of stuff you'd buy, if you won the lottery. Draw a famous landmark. Draw an imaginary landmark. Make a picture of all the junk food you like. Draw yourself wearing a new outfit you design. Create an incredibly modern-looking car. Draw a scene from history, a movie or a TV show. Sketch some illustrations for your favorite book. Draw an imaginary cartoon character. Draw a famous person from the past. Draw the president of the United States. Draw a box and draw something outside of it.

Yamaha XS 650 Tank Badges

2011-05-01T23:47:00.005-04:00

My Dad, Jeff of Saint Motor Company, usually leans toward doing little things that add personalized details to each of the bikes that he builds. For the Yamaha XS650 cafe racer for a client in LA we wanted some custom tank badges. The original badges were plastic with the number 260 on them (from the Benelli/Wards Riverside tanks that he's been favoring lately).

He painted them silver and asked me to draw something classy on them to make them stand out rather than filling in the recess for them on the tank and painting it to match. So here's the newly refinished badges :)

The little piece of paper on the left is the picture that the client had sent us. It worked out pretty well. I made a transfer for it the same as how I've been making the transfers for the watercolor paintings, then inked the drawing using the india ink pens. The badge in the picture above and towards the top had been cleared over using a high gloss lacquer. It grayed out a bit making look like a pencil drawing, which looks kinda cool up close. Almost resembles something that had been carved in stone :)

Motorcycle Watercolor - Part 3

2011-04-26T18:52:00.004-04:00

Alright, so this is where the fun part begins...

First off before you start the inking process, you'll want to make sure the pencil lines on the paper are pretty light. Otherwise, when you begin tracing over them with the ink pens, the pen tips may get clogged with graphite and need to be taken apart and cleaned (if you use the fancy kind), if you're like me and use the disposable pens, you'll end up having to throw them out if they get clogged.

So first thing is to take a white vinyl eraser and lightly erase the lines, just to the point of still being visible enough to trace.

Once the initial erasing is done, you can start to ink. I'm doing this freehanded but if you want to, you could use French Curves or Shippens Curves, which are very easy to use and very affordable. Also, it's important to start with a pen that has a small tip. For this illustration I'm using a Staedtler .03 india ink pen. The reason that you start with the small pen is because with inking you can always add more ink to thicken a line, but you can't take away to make a line thinner. Since I'm using watercolors too, which are very transparent and don't cover the picture plane like oils or acrylics, you have to be very mindful of this as you won't be able to paint over the lines later. (This is actually an advantage, you'll see why in the next part of the tutorial)

So in the above picture you can see that the lines I've added around the rider are pretty defined and solid. This is because the rider is in the foreground, also, he and his bike are the main subject matter. In the picture below the background objects are drawn very loosely to convey the idea of distance and to attempt to show that the rider is in motion.

Below is another example of the same concept. Drawing background objects a bit looser to convey distance and that they would be "out of focus" being so far away.

In the middle ground, between the background and foreground, the objects start out less defined as they are further back into the picture, but become more pronounced as they come forward. Look at the lines in the road for example. They are small and insignificant towards the back (the dividing line in the road behind the rider) but become more defined as they come forward (the two remnants of a dividing line to the right of the rider).

Now take a look at the spokes. They are a little bit of a problem that a lot of people would solve differently. The problem is that they are in the foreground, so they should be in focus, but since they are in motion, they should also be out of focus. Tricky, tricky...

What I've done is drawn the base of the spokes closest to the center of the wheels. As they move outwards to the tire they appear to be blurred more, so with a small "whip" of the pen tip, you can create a line that begins solid enough and quickly tapers to nothing. It works very well to go from a defined area to an obscured area in a short distance.

Does this motorcycle look funny to you? Where's the motor? The top tree on the fork?

It's all there, but if you look back at the photo from parts one and two that a lot of the motorcycle is black from the shadows that the machinery creates. So instead of driving yourself crazy, just trace the blocks of color, this will make it look like a "paint by number" but trust me, you'll love it. One thing to remember (and this is just my way of doing it, so if you ever meet a real painter, don't hesitate to listen to them too) is that areas that are highlights should be traced a little larger than the highlighted area. The reason being because when you go to paint with the watercolors, you'll want to try and match the transition from black to white (like on the exhaust pipes for instance) and that gradation, or "fade" will require that the line not be shown too much. You can certainly leave the pen showing when you're painting and not worry about it, or try to fade the shadows into the highlights and cover the lines as you find fit. No wrong way to do this, just fun to try different things :)

After all that, defining shapes and being aware of line thicknesses, solid or loose lines for depth and all the other fun stuff that goes into the drawing with ink, this is really the fruits of you labor. After the ink has dried, which should only take a few minutes from the last place you put you pen tip, you get to take the handy dandy white eraser again and clean up the whole drawing. Erase everything on the entire page and VOILA! All the pencil lines and smudges will be gone and you'll have a very dramatic little pen and ink drawing on a stark white piece of paper. Really fun to do the first time around :)

If you'll notice that I didn't ink the shadow underneath of the bike, that's because I plan on using it to paint over and keep the blurry quality of the shadow intact. This technique can also be used for highlights as well, but when you paint, remember that the water from the paint may wash out some of the leftover pencil lines as well.

Isn't it cool?! Very good, and now the really super awesome part! PAINTING!

One difference from this painting and the others in the motorcycle series is that this was done on watercolor paper and the other ten paintings were done using illustration board. The change in media should make for small adjustments but an interesting challenge as well :)

Enjoy!

Dear Sir Isaac Newton...

2011-04-24T20:21:00.003-04:00

I have defeated your so-called "gravity"...

Regards,

Kyle Yarrington

P.S. Happy Easter :)

Motorcycle Watercolor - Part Deux (2)

2011-04-20T18:18:00.005-04:00

So today I'm tracing the images and transferring them to the watercolor paper. Now that the stencils are made from the print out and taped onto the paper, this is a breeze.

You can begin wherever you like, but I usually start out with the important parts of the painting. The subject matter in the foreground is the rider and his motorcycle. These are the time consuming parts, but also the most interesting, so be careful. Try to stick to tracing the shapes or "blocks" of color, and a few contour lines here and there will give you good reference points for later. Also, you don't have to press very hard when tracing, so try not to poke through the paper. (NOTE: If you used charcoal or very soft graphite (3B-8B) on the back of the printed image as the transfer material, you don't have to press very hard at all with the pencil. If you used something harder (graphite from 8H-B) then a little more pressure will be needed.)

Now that the bike and the rider are all traced, look over it quickly and make sure that nothing was missed. If you need to retrace anything, now is the time to do it, if not, scan the background and look at the objects.

Softly, scribble underneath the bike to add in the cast shadow.

The road lines in the foreground are in focus with the rider, so try to match the shape accurately without drawing too much attention to it. A little looseness will be good in this area to keep the attention on the rider and keep the viewer's eye from wandering too much.

Notice how everything is blurred? The rider is in motion in this picture, so you need to trace the objects in the background loosely. It'll give you a good head start when trying to paint a blurred background. When tracing the background, it doesn't have to be perfect, just enough to get the basic shapes out of it.

Now that you're done tracing, try to peel back the tape at a fairly sharp angle, while pulling out to the side. This will give you a chance to minimize ripping or tearing the paper and will also preserve the printed image should you need to start over with a new stencil.

Once you have the printed image removed from the paper, take a look at your transfer. The basic shapes are all outlined and there are a few contour lines to give you an idea of the depth of objects and the placement of shadows throughout. Also, if you missed an area here or there like I did (the handlebars, and the back wheel), this is an easy fix. Choose two objects close to the edge of the printed image and try to line them up with the traced image. Be careful as this can be kind of a pain to undo if you're a little off, but once the images are aligned again, just retrace the areas you missed :)

That's all for now. I'm going to go back and trace the other two stencils from the previous post.

Next will be the inking process, which is fairly easy and along the same lines as the transferring steps in this post. The big difference is that the inking process allows you to start being creative :)

Rebel!

2011-04-20T17:07:00.000-04:00

As an art student, I feel it is my sworn duty (if only to myself) to not only do a good job in school learning the ways of traditional art, but also to practice new forms of art and to try and allow myself to progress based on curiosity and experimentation as well as in practice.

That being said, skateboards, motorcycles, cars, and silly little comic books are not the newest forms of media, but I enjoy them. The skateboard that I'm currently working on is a Bomber from the Bozi lineup of a few short years ago. I stained racing stripes on the top and outlined them in black acrylic paint. I'M OPEN TO SUGGESTIONS ON THE BOTTOM GRAPHIC! I'm blanking out here. Haha :)

That's all, here's a pic of the top of the board

BAHAHAHAHA

2011-04-18T01:18:00.001-04:00

Motorcycle Watercolor - Part 1

2011-04-17T17:22:00.005-04:00

I have three pictures that I'm going to paint and send out to California :)

The easiest and fastest way of doing this with watercolors is to make a transfer, it works the same as Carbon Paper.

Here's the images printed off on standard printer paper, 8.5"x11".

Next, I'll scribble all over the back with a soft graphite pencil. When I trace the image from the front, the graphite leaves the transfer and sticks to the watercolor paper, leaving a light tracing for me to work with.

After the scribbling, tape the image to the watercolor paper with the lowest tack tape possible. Most art stores sell drafting tape which is very low tack (stick it to a piece of tissue paper and peel it off, and the paper won't rip). The blue tape I'm using here is "Delicate Surfaces" Painter's Tape. It's a larger roll, with a little more adhesion, but not enough to tear the paper, and it was cheaper :)

So there's the first step. The transfers have all been taped tot he watercolor paper and are ready to be traced. The tracing is fairly tedious and time consuming, so if you're trying this, prepare to be slightly annoyed lol

Once the tracing is done, the ink pens can be used to trace thick lines directly onto the watercolor paper, or you can jump straight into the painting! YEAH! ART IS AWESOME!!

ahem... airplane ride got postponed again, btw, there were some very strong winds this morning left over from a storm that had passed through late last night... LAME, try again next weekend.

In Case You Noticed...

2011-04-15T23:23:00.001-04:00

I'm also going to make the blog look a little more fancy :)

Hence the white, and a snazzy new logo coming soon, tee hee

Sometimes I Cheat with Painting

2011-04-15T23:15:00.003-04:00

Tonight I wanted to start three new watercolor paintings for a bike builder in California. The way that I had done this before was by using a photograph and printing it onto 8.5"x 11" paper, scribbling on the back with charcoal or graphite, then tracing the image (drawing directly onto the printed image) and lifting it off the illustration board. This would transfer dry media from the printed photo to the illustration board and made it very easy for me to ink the picture and begin painting watercolors in, with only an hour or two spent tracing.

Unfortunately the printer ran out of color ink and only printed black... LAME... So I ventured to the local ink store and got the toner cartridges for a solid $40. I also picked up deodorant for the little brother, so if he smells nicer next time you see him, think of me.

I ran home and tried printing out the photograph again to make a transfer and much to my delight, the black ink cartridge ran out... SOOOOOOOO LAAAAAAAME...

I'll be making another run to the store tomorrow for more ink and will most likely be taking some pictures along the way to show the process :)

Also, it looks like this Saturday is going to be rainy and foggy, so I probably won't be flying a plane tomorrow. I'll have to call the airpark and reschedule for Sunday. This weekend is going to be interesting to say the least.

On a Side Note

2011-04-11T23:16:00.004-04:00

I have been kinda curious about planes lately, and found out about a place where you can get a short "Test Flight" with an instructor. After the weather was not so friendly this past weekend, I called the airpark for the third day in a row and scheduled a flight for 8:00 am Saturday morning.

Clouds be damned, I WILL be flying an airplane this weekend!

This Week...

2011-04-11T22:53:00.006-04:00

A few things have happened in the past week or so.

1. The Land Cruiser is finally road worthy again (mostly), thanks to Dad, who knows how to fix monster trucks and make them do cool things, you know, like steer :)

2. The SV got a shiny new tire on the front today. I gave the wheel and tire to my friend Eddie who mounted it for me, so he'll be receiving a chocolate cake from the sister person and probably some artwork from me.

3. Started doing some tattoo flash for a friend, here's the first drawing of a Tiger Lily. I may do a few more in different styles and see which is best, then colorize them in the shop of photo.

This week is starting off on the right foot I think, a few minor tasks getting done and exciting me for the next few days and this weekend especially. Nothing fancy this weekend, just loving the bikes and arts.

I have three watercolor paintings to start this week too. They'll be something a little more time consuming and special, but well worth the effort. They'll be going out to California when they're done, and hopefully making a few people pretty pleased with themselves :)

Enjoy!

Ah, the Europeans :)

2011-03-27T20:26:00.002-04:00

The Motorcycle Series paintings are still getting a little attention, which I did not know, but am pretty thrilled about :)

I was poking around the web and found a pretty cool Italian blog called boldorbikers.blogspot.com that had posted up five of the original ten paintings...

Sweet, I have swarms of fans in Italy :)

Maybe not, but I can dream lol

Back from the Drawing Board

2011-03-15T16:14:00.003-04:00

The Yamaha has been sitting in the garage, not really getting any love lately. I threw away the old handlebars, seatpan, headlight ears, and speedo mount. Starting to rework the bike again and do a new body for it. Should be interesting...

... mysterious picture...

Blah Blah Blah

2011-03-14T22:10:00.004-04:00

Been feeling like I'm walking through a thick fog the last few weeks. I haven't much felt like painting or working, or doing very much of anything really. I want to actually, but I can't seem to get myself up and go.

Finally started to get back intot he garage today though. I wanted to work and get something done, even if I wasn't in the mood. So I cut off the rear section of the frame on my Yamaha and the crossbars that went underneath the stock seat. Made one new crossbar, ground down the old welds, and spot welded in my new one. I got tired of dealing with the noise so I went back to the skateboard I've been working on and outlined around the racing stripes I had stained onto the wood.

Went to visit a friend today and hung out for a little bit, went to run errands and such, then had dinner with the family. Not a bad day really, now I'm getting ready to go paint for a little bit and hopefully get somewhere with the Helmet and Gloves. I'm not sure if it's worth completing at this point.

Gonna be a long night, pictures tomorrow of the bike and board.
Anybody heard of a local art gallery in Frederick? There's a few, dragonfly and blue elephant are worth checking out, but so is another one not too far from there. Can't remember the name though, but there was a nice gentleman named Walter Bartman who is a great artist and a pleasure to talk to.

Alrighty then, painting time...

Idea

2011-03-14T00:58:00.003-04:00

Maybe a painting or two of comic book styled illustrations, but done as oil on canvas? We'll see... Work on Helmet and Glove painting tomorrow, maybe stripe the next skateboard a little more, then play with the Yamaha... Need more art things to do for fun and for practice, less going through the motions.

Figure it out tomorrow. Just needed to get ideas somewhere to look at for later.

Art and Stuff and Such

2011-03-10T00:54:00.003-05:00

I finished mixing up 20 color swatches Tuesday night for class on Wednesday. We didn't get a chance to check back with them and see how we did but the general consensus was that everybody in the class had some difficulty with a few colors, but I think we all did fairly well. Also, we had a little demonstration as far as beginning to add color over top of an underpainting.

An Underpainting is a technique used in "Indirect Painting". It's the way that the old Masters would have painted, starting first with a value study. For instance, a black and white or a sepia photograph would be an example of a finished underpainting. The darkest values are a very deep brown while the whites and highlights would be something close to a very yellowish brown color. You get the idea...

After the underpainting is completed, color goes on top. Dark areas get treated with paint that is very thin, that way the color shows true and the value of the brown underneath pops through as well and creates a very dynamic color field. The lighter areas get thicker paint to cover up the browns underneath. The contrast between the two, dark/thin paint and light/thick paint, look really goofy when they're freashly applied. Taking a dry brush and blending the two areas together creates the midtones and the illusion of volume. It's something that I tried to get to tonight because I was excited to try a new method of painting but couldn't quite get to it in time before we shut down for the night.

I have a painting going right now of a Motorcycle Helmet with Goggles and Gloves. Once the underpainting is fixed up a bit I'll post pictures and log the color application, and the color swatches to with a brief explanation.

Time for bed, TTFN

To Do List...

2011-03-07T17:13:00.003-05:00

A few years ago I had the bright idea to start making skateboards again using the old Bozi Board designs that had been leftovers and sitting in the garage. One of these boards was the "Cruiser" model, handmade from birch plywood and now has the tattoo graphic on it. I also grabbed one of the "Mad Bomber II" models that were made and had a local wood shop template the shape for me. The MB.II was a concaved board made from 11 or 13 ply maple depending on preference, and then later turned into a third model made with maple and a ply of "M-core", a material commonly found in snowboards. The skateboards that I had produced were a simple combination of the first and second models, flat with no concave, but possessing the updated shape of the MB.II.

Within the next few weeks I plan on having these skateboards done and up for sale on Etsy, with the rest of my work. Along with a few more paintings for the Motorcycle Series hopefully.

Going back to school has really impacted the way that I see color, forms, space, etc... Same as what I wrote about last time. So tonight I'm going to be going through some magazines and finding colors to mix up just for practice, and it's surprisingly more involved than I thought. Should be a fun evening.

College, Motorcycles, and Artists

2011-03-03T00:49:00.003-05:00

I've been going back to school, and so far it's been going pretty well. I tried to paint something for class that was a little beyond me at first but the more I get into it, the better it seems to be. That's what I get for listening to the teacher, better. Which is fine by me. I love art. Something about it just never ceases to amaze me.

The Motorcycle Series that I started doing is something that was stopped to get ready for the bike show in Timonium last month. I need to get back into that again. The paintings really helped me get ready for school and I think that after some of the material being covered that school is helping me get even more in depth with my paintings and other artworks.

To make sure that I kick off the restart the right way, there is one motorcycle builder that has had a really big impact on both my Dad and myself. I wrote him a letter and asked to do a painting of his current project, to which he had replied "Yes". I was thrilled, the bike builder in particular I'll keep a secret for now in case I go mad and this painting drives me insane. I'm excited though, I would love to send a painting to his shop, I'd be happy knowing that I could send a gift from one art guy to one moto guy.

The art though, something about it I can't explain. The process maybe? It's calming, it relaxes me, it's borderline therapeutic and I can't do enough of it. I'm 23 years old which of course means that I've spent a bit of time screwing around and being a derelict. I've had jobs in different fields and made a few friends that I'll hang with for a good long time to come. I've made a lot of people angry with me and vice versa too, but we don't talk so it's fine. Through all the years that I've been trying to figure out what to do with myself, being completely boggled by everything that normal people find trivial, somehow I never stray to far from Art.

It is the one thing in my little blip of an existence that makes me feel like me. It excites me, gets me thinking about problems on canvas, makes me want to learn, and somehow at the same time gets me to relax, drown out everything that is wrong with myself, my situation, the rest of the world. When I do something with Art, everything stops until I get done. I don't concentrate on anything else until I'm satisfied, and it helps me. The last few paintings I've done somehow I managed to start doing in kind of a funk but then when I was done with them had this overwhelming feeling of accomplishment and contentment.

I know I'm being all touchy feely and not a lot of people go for that. Art is just the thing for me, I don't know anybody that can really say "I do what I love and it loves me back," but that's how it feels when I'm practicing Art. I'll continue to practice it until I get to old to see, or if my arms get bitten off by sharks, but I don't see that happening anytime soon (knock on wood).

Faithful and Steadfast Longboard

2011-03-01T17:29:00.008-05:00

The Faithful and Steadfast Longboard is now FOR SALE on my Etsy site. It's handmade, with the graphics drawn freehand in ink pen and colored pencil. The words in the banner read "Fidelis et Constans" which is Latin for "Faithful and Steadfast", thanks to Matt B. for letting me know, it's on the bottom of his Mom's family crest :-)

The bottom of the board, the graphic side (pictured below) has been clear coated using a Lacquer clear, then wet-sanded, buffed, and polished. The finish on the board is very smooth and has a fairly high gloss. The top side of the board (not pictured) was stained the same as the bottom, and sealed with a light clear coat over it.

There should be a few more of these coming soon, but the decks I currently have in stock all need a bit of prep work. If there are any interested buyers, please see the Etsy store for a more detailed description. Also, if there are any questions or if you would like to see additional photos, feel free to send me an email at zenangel13@gmail.com

Enjoy!

The Metal...

2011-02-26T22:49:00.004-05:00

Watching 80s Hair Metal bands on YouTube can be addicting. You watch one video and see another good one in the corner and then two hours later you could host your own VH1 special...

Lazy Saturdays are great.

.... and then you find Beavis and Butthead... tee hee hee :)

... and the best-ever-live-video-ever... ever ever! RAWK!!!

New from the Saint camp...

2011-02-25T15:21:00.005-05:00

(UPDATE) - since I posted this, someone had complained about the tags that my Dad had used for the search engine on eBay and the original auction had been taken down. He edited the auction and put it back up on eBay. Where this post reads "URAL ON EBAY" is the new link to the auction.

Repost from my Dad's blog...

First, thank you Wes for doing the feature on me & the Ural, very cool. If anybody hasnt poked around his site, youre missing a great spot. I was tickled to see a bunch of articles that indulged me for hours, including a wonderful shoot of Shinyas MV Agusta out in the sunlight.Check them out. Hell For Leather

Also, its on, the Ural is on Ebay. I have nooo idea what will happen here, but I hope its good, I need it right about now. Its a very unique bike to say the least & has gone viral in a few days, very cool & thanks to LeContainer, MotoLady (tumblr), Deus Machine, Return of the cafe Racers, some Russian sites I dont know how to say, Pipeburn, BMWcafe, ismeretlenblog & many other for putting my stuff up.

He ya go, everybody sit down & eat popcorn the last hour of auction with me. URAL ON EBAY

Some Random Projects...

2011-02-24T20:51:00.004-05:00

Here's a few older projects of mine that range from the years 2004-2010. They're each a little different, some are pretty awesome and I love them, others are the kinds that I can't stand and was just glad to have them done but lots of other people liked them.

This is the "Big Hands Mural", it's about 7 feet tall by 4 1/2 feet wide. The trick was to tape a pencil to a stick that was three feet long, hold the end of the stick like the pencil, and as you move your hand the length of the stick makes your movements gargantuan and exaggerated. It was fun, but pretty tedious. I may try this again at some point but I'm not thinking about doing it anytime soon.

This is the "Dragon Skateboard". When I was younger, dragons and monsters were things that I would draw a lot. I was always into mythology and comic books as a kid, so doing odd animals and things along those lines I guess came as no surprise. I got into art classes in high school and started doing more traditional things but also liked doing abstract, pop art, expressive things, like skateboards and tattoo designs. The dragon was just an attempt to get back into that swing of drawing whatever I felt like and making art that didn't have to be this long, drawn out study of how something realistic looked. Not that I'm knocking traditional art, nor the importance of learning the fundamentals and doing studies as a way of progressing, I just like being able to goof around and have fun with it.

A vector of myself. One of the first things that I learned how to do with Adobe Illustrator. I was very excited to learn about the 'live paint' tool, which made this little piece quickly turn into four pieces with different color schemes for each face. I guess that aside from learning the program, this was more an attempt to study colors and their interactions with one another.

Playing with Photoshop can be fun. Just a picture of myself that I had used a few different filters on and also tried digitally drawing and painting over for different effects. A few people have told me that this is something that they really like, but it still is kinda on the fence with me. This is just a study and an experiment.

This one is something that I'm proud to say I made. There is a particular technique to freehand digital drawing and painting in Photoshop that I'm trying to get the chops for but haven't quite yet. After several attempts at this I tried to just draw whatever came to mind and then add things around it. I started with the eyes, then began adding the black and red in the background and played with different blending modes to see what would happen. I wasn't sure where to go from there and then left the project to sit for awhile. After watching "Kill Bill" and noticing the artwork on the cover of the dvd "The Number 23", I got the idea to do a tear away near the bottom and write a short monologue. It turned into kind of a dark, moody piece when I was done with it, but for one of my first tries with freehand painting in Photoshop, with no tracing or cut-n-paste images, I was thrilled :)

There's more of these things all over my DeviantArt profile (that's why some are watermarked). You can see other projects @ zenangel13.deviantart.com or if you're interested in buying something that's way more awesome than a Bieber poster from wal-mart, check out the Etsy store! www.ZenAngel13.Etsy.com

Thanks

2011-02-22T17:06:00.004-05:00

I should really take some time to thank a few people who have been spreading the word about my artwork and supporting the little dudes like me. Whether it be motorcycles, skateboards, paintings, photography, or just a cool story, these guys are all about it...

***

The guys at Lowside Syndicate are awesome. They've all got they're own personalities and everyone takes their motorcycles and artwork pretty seriously, but with a comfortable and friendly attitude. They were nice enough to help out Jeff and Matt from Saint Motor Company with articles about the yellow BSA Cafe Racer and the long Honda CB750 Chopper. The photos from the Cafe article were done by me, which is really cool and weird at the same time to open a magazine and see your work in for the first time lol.

Everybody is really helpful and fun to hang with, we'll be seeing them again soon and hanging out a bit.

***

Return of the Cafe Racers is another blog that does a lot of different stories. One of which was about the Tesla project that's been hibernating in the garage and is being carefully pondered by Jeffy, and another cool thing was a post of theirs that was about some of the Motorcycle Series paintings that I had done for the Timonium show.

***

The guys at Le Container have done nothing but post some of the most amazing photos, videos, articles, art, etc, etc for the past few years. The members in the group have their own niches, so you can almost guess who posts what. The mix of art, bike, people, art, architecture is all great and just meshes a lot of seemingly unrelated fields together with finesse. I love this website, and I'm really happy every time I see photos, art, or bikes from myself, Jeff or Matt end up on here. It gives me that "little kid in a candy store" kinda feeling, all warm and fuzzy :)

More Sexy Ural Photos!

2011-02-21T21:41:00.003-05:00

I know, you just can't get enough of this motorcycle :)

Let's take a look at some more sexy sexy photos then, shall we?

Again, I like to play with color modes... hence the next two pictures are the same minus the snow look in the second one.

So apparently the carburetors that originally came on the Ural didn't work the exact right way. So Dad (or Jeff-fuh-fuh) used a second set of carbs... then someone told him to use a downdraft setup, and so he did. I believe that these are carburetors for a VW Beetle lol

"Forced Induction" Stacks with these cool little manifolds running into the head, and the sweet 180 degree bend slash-cut exhaust pipe :) Very nice!

When the ignition is on, the little green light shines in the middle of the top tree. It's the "GO" light. There's a nice high beam indicator light in the headlamp as well, pretty convenient.

Color modes... I like them, don't judge.

Just give the bike a hug, you know you want to! :)

More Ural Photos

2011-02-21T21:34:00.002-05:00

More photos from taking the Ural out today. Note the lovely SMC van in the background.

Sometimes I like to play with different color modes and see what happens :)

Here's three of the same picture, I couldn't decide which I liked best so Pick Yer Poison...

The Ural Photos

2011-02-21T20:40:00.004-05:00

My Dad, my little Brother, and myself all took the Ural out to day to get some air. Here's some of the finished pictures. I'll post up more as I get them done.

Here we see the elusive Jeff-fuh-fuh trying to keep a straight face. You know, like those hardcore bikers in the magazines? Well, he can't do it, he's just too giddy :)

Back to Work

2011-02-21T14:05:00.005-05:00

The past week or so since the bike show in Timonium has been a basic "getting back to work" kinda week. Monday through Friday is back to the day job, while Wednesday nights I'm in school. Between work and school, I'm finding little pockets of time here and there to get a few more paintings done and get out to do side jobs.

The other night my Dad and I had taken a few photos of the Ural that he had built. I'm not sure what category it falls into, street tracker maybe? It's an odd little motorcycle to be sure. The photos that I had done last night were already up on www.LeContainer.blogspot.com this morning. Which is always nice, those guys are great and the things that they post are uber cool, so it's always good to see something I was involved with end up there. :)

The Ural should be up on Ebay in the next few days and getting bid on like crazy! Now if you'll excuse me, I have homework... blah...

Bike Show Survived!

2011-02-16T16:41:00.004-05:00

We all survived the Motorcycle Show in Timonium, MD this past weekend. There was a very mellow crowd and some great people that came. Thank you so much to the friends, family, new acquaintances, and the gnarly old bikers for supporting us, our bikes, our art, and making this such an awesome experience! We'll be back next year!

Here's the skateboard that got done at the Bike Show. I was very happy with how this turned out, and there will be more to come :)

The clear coat that I'm using to seal the bottom effected the lighting in the picture, but I thought it looked nice and made the grain of the wood "pop". The top of the board will most likely remain blank as it is now, but will still get the same stain and clear coat treatment using a nice natural wood color and the lacquer clear.

Hopefully I should be completely done with this thing by the weekend, that is if I don't wet sand it and buff it. That all depends on how smooth the finish is before sanding. If it's cooperating then I'll leave it, however if there are a few bumps or rough patches, it get the sand paper and a buffer wheel :)

Enjoy!

Motorcycle Series, continued... four more

2011-02-04T13:09:00.003-05:00

More Motorcycle Paintings...

2011-01-30T15:09:00.002-05:00

Sorry about the glare, I had already framed these and was too lazy to take them out to get a nice pic. Got the racers done on Friday night, and the one guy on the six cyl Benelli done Saturday morning :)

The Grace bike from Saint got painted and finished this morning, but I'm not super happy with it. I'll post that one once I get a few more done. Almost halfway done with the series! Only 11-ish days left until the show at Timonium, lots left to do... We're keeping up with the workload over here, so say a prayer and we might make it to the show in one piece without killing each other, lol

Motorcycle Series, continued... The Long Bike

2011-01-26T19:05:00.000-05:00

The Motorcycle Series continued...

2011-01-22T16:44:00.001-05:00

this is how Rat Rods start.....

2011-01-19T16:26:00.004-05:00

Cafe du Saint

2011-01-18T18:29:00.002-05:00

Road Racer in Watercolor

2011-01-14T19:46:00.002-05:00

Excelsior Watercolor

2011-01-12T23:44:00.000-05:00

Top Secret

2010-12-26T15:45:00.004-05:00

Photos from the BSA Cafe Racer Day Trip

2010-12-15T22:35:00.007-05:00

Here's pics from the little day trip me, matt, and dad took. Working with models... BAH! such premadonna's

Everbody should know that Cafe Racers were bikes that were built to be stripped down, low weight, fast as snot motorcycles. They were typically owned by younger guys that weren't old enough to get into bars and so they would race eachother to the surrounding Cafe's... get it? It became quite a trend and that's where the name came from (I think, makes sense) So we begin our post with some coffee from the Bean Hollow in Ellicott City, MD.

The bike in the pictures is now for sale on Ebay, click here if you're interested

Coming Along...

2010-12-09T23:01:00.003-05:00

The Yamaha is coming along nicely. Last week I had three full days in the garage and the last two days as well. I had cut and mounted a piece of sheet metal to match the frame for th new seat pan and then kinda didn't know what to do or how to make the rest of it. Between Matt and Dad helping me out and looking around at different cafe styled bike online, I figured that something traditional would be easiest to fabricate and would probably look best. Sooooooo...

The yellow Yamaha 360 tank that some may have seen before was cu up and is now the tail piece, the seat back is bent sheet metal butt welded to the new pan. Still need to trim the top and grind the welds down, but for my first time I'm happy with it. There's still quite a bit of work to be done but I'm having fun and can't wait to get riding this bike again soon.

Three days in the garage...

2010-12-02T22:02:00.004-05:00

made a speedometer mounting bracket

made new pieces for the frame, spot welded them and the Daddio finished welding them in

made brackets for the tank... it's getting there, I like motorcycles and really want to finish this project for February... paintings, be good, i will return soon :)

On The Road Again... or... One Last Ride

2010-11-14T23:47:00.004-05:00

I'm on the left, my friend Mark is on the right. I'm the good looking one tee hee :)

Mark and I met in elementary school and have been friends for a long time. Around our sophomore or junior year of high school Mark's parents thought that their 1963 Dodge Dart would be a cool car for Mark to drive around so they handed him the keys and gave him and I permission to work on the car. (Really he just needed something to compete with my devilishly handsome 1986 Ford Escort EXP, a much more superior vehicular contraption, duh...)

The only hole in that plan was where you give the keys to two 17 year old boys with a garage full of tools and a service manual from 1963... Bear in mind neither of us could weld, bondo, paint, fabricate, or read wiring diagrams.

I lied, that was the second hole, the first hole was that the Dart had less than 40,000 original miles on the car, was in perfect running condition, had great paint, excellent interior, and a "refuse-to-die" 4.0 liter slant 6 cyl with an uber-badass push button transmission. The car really just needed tags, but we were ambitious! We were young and good-looking! We are so dumb...

After a few weekends of doing work, learning about cars, machines, and tools, we hit a couple little snags. No matter what we did or tried we just seemed to get more and more confused, so the car sat for the past 6 years in the garage untouched until this past weekend. While it did make a pretty awesome shelf for things like blankets, tools, and lawn equipment, it had to go bye-bye the way that most cars do.

One thing that we did do right however was label every nut and bolt that came off the car. That came in handy when we remembered that we tried to take the engine and trans out in one piece and left it sitting on the steering box (a few hundred pounds on the steering box and column makes it very hard to tell the car to go straight onto the trailer). So we found the parts we needed and put it all back, freed up the steering and started getting it ready for it's last day on the road.

Label everything... even the most insignificant crush washer or 13mm bolt, you'll thank your dumb high school self years later.

Onward! We did take out the front bench because its in perfect condition, still original, and would make a really cool man-couch, so thanks to the fisher-price-playskool company for making our new racing seat. Ben-jammin' got to be the lucky driver for the Saturday festivities.

Thar she blows... man that was sad, honestly if we hadn't let this thing sit for so long, it would maybe take two weekends to put it back together and it would probably fire right up, but still, having an old car and no desire to be married to the garage every weekend don't mix well, so bye-bye.

Rest In Pieces buddy, as many as the weird, new wave-druggie at the junkyard cuts you into. We still kept a few mementos of course :) Mark and younger brother Ben took the headlights, front bench, tail lights, and gas cap, I took another headlight that was a replacement for the car. I don't know what they'll do with the souvenirs, but the headlight that Mark and Ben gave me will be going on my Yamaha, along with my Dad's old front fender from his '58 Triumph Pre-unit. I can't wait, that bike will be very sentimental with all the parts and help going into it.

Although that was kind of a bittersweet adventure, several actions and comments were made just before leaving the junkyard and returning our rental trailer.

Let's review...

Mark: "Where's the cinder block?"

Me: "I used it as a wheel stop, it's behind the back tire"

Mark: "What?! I want that block! It's our only cinder block!"

Me and Ben: "HAHAHAHAHAHAHA"

Then we gave the car a big group hug (seriously, not a joke, it was the manly thing to do)

Me: "Well now that everyone in the junkyard thinks we're gay, let's all get into the truck together, heeeeeeey."

Ben: "HAHAHA"

Mark: "Ben get in the middle so we can make a Bensandwich"

Mark, Ben, Myself: "HAHAHA"

It was a good weekend, we celebrated with ice cream and rainbow sprinkles.

Fantastic

2010-10-18T14:03:00.003-04:00

I remember seeing this movie on some public broadcasting channel when I was about 12 years old, I had no understanding of what it was about but I do remember being really interested and couldn't look away.

I'm gonna go back and rewatch this movie, apparently it won the Cannes Film Festival in 1973 among some other very prestigious awards.

"Fantastic Planet" - 1973

Painting is Cool

2010-10-12T22:10:00.007-04:00

I was poking around on youtube and saw this video of a time-lapsed painting an artist named Louis Smith. I thought it was really cool being able to see the blocks of different colors change into shaded areas and highlights and then into something almost photographic. It's insane, I need to learn to paint like this.

I think he has a new site or blog on wordpress, the link is www.paintaportrait.org

Here's the video :)

(the video may be cut off on one side, so it's probably better to watch it on youtube, or on his site along with a few other nifty things he has there)

Yama-LOL

2010-10-09T00:39:00.007-04:00

The past few days I've been doing art work and trying to branch out... I've done a few political sketches for painting and brainstormed a few ideas, I'm still working (or need to work) on the heart tattoo for my friend, CB Matt from Draft Cycle needs designs and stuff, trying to do linoleum prints, blah blah blah.

My Dad builds motorcycles in the garage at night, then we met Matt from Draft Cycle Works... now my Dad and Matt build motorcycles in the garage at night... Then I bought an old Yamahahaha early this year and decided that building motorcycles is easy and I can totally do it too! :)

HA!

Here's what the bike looked like originally (random google image pic)

So I guess I'm now branching out into the motorcycle thing as well :) lol

Me, my Dad, and Matt have all had our hands on this thing since I started taking it apart. Matt's been keeping me entertained and my Dad is walking me through how to do things. It's like a little tiny garage of manly love... for motorcycles... HA! Matt's gay, get it?

Here's me and Dad scratching our heads

Righteous!

2010-09-30T21:38:00.002-04:00

There's a local coffee shop on Main Street here in Mount Airy, MD and the owner and I have talked a little bit over the phone and online. She's really nice and really enthusiastic about art of any kind.

The deal with her is that she met my Mom in Wal-Mart (we're rednecks, don't judge) and they talked for a bit. She told her about my Dad building motorcycles and our friend Chris being an airbrush and pinstripe artist, then made sure to mention me and the whole drawing and painting thing. The owner of the coffee shop (Vintage Coffee) Michelle was really interested and got my Mom to tell us all about taking some pictures and emailing her about hanging up artwork in her shop.

After about a month of going back and forth and people's schedules getting hectic and topsy turvy, I finally got an appointment with her today and she took five paintings! YEAH I KNOW RIGHT?!

Haha, that made my day This weekend is Fall Fest too, so she's gonna put the artwork out on the street to try and A) bring people to the coffee shop and B) sell my junks and stuffs

I love that woman, it's the first time since high school that I've been able to display work in public and the first time EVER that I've been asked to sell! If you're in Maryland this weekend, send me a note or an email or something if you're interested in seeing all the local music and artwork from Mount Airy

WOOT WOOT!

New Tattoo

2010-09-27T01:29:00.005-04:00

Not for me, but for someone else. Hope they like it, should get colored soon. Not sure whether to do full color or black & white though, that's up to the client :)

Saturday Morning Cartoons

2010-09-17T19:48:00.004-04:00

I have a big problem with doing artwork, mainly that i like doing it but i can't wait to see it done. So in some cases I get a little impatient and give up, and in other cases I get into a weird manic mood and just work til its all done.

Today was one of the latter situations. There's a group on Deviant Art called "Battle Artist", which is kinda of an online jam format. Artist Jams in the past have generally been two artists on a stage in front of a crowd have the same theme but have to come up with their own interpretations, and based on a panel of judges or audience applause, a winner is decided. Battle Artist does the same thing, and you have one week for the kind of battle that I typically enter. So legally I can't make any money off this because I would be blatantly ripping off DC Comics, but hey, I like my Saturday morning cartoon characters :D here's what i had to do this week...

Finished a New Painting

2010-09-06T22:03:00.004-04:00

So I finshed a real painting haha. It's been awhile since i"ve done one and it was more just to get back into the swing of it. But I'm gonna put it up on the Etsy Store tonight and hopefully someone will buy it :) I didn't base this off anything that belonged to me, it's based off the picture below it. A girl in Romania posts up pics of herself and this is one that is slightly more wholesome for the kids and whatnot, she's over on the deviantArt site, you can find her by looking up myBlueLight on dA or myBlueLight-Stock on dA

Zombie pic FINISHED!

2010-09-05T11:18:00.004-04:00

I'm sure everybody knows this, but you can click the picture and it'll goto a full view page (should be 800 pixels wide by 1000-ish tall)

Mwahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

So I stayed up for a bit last night and finished doing a few thngs like adding buildings, fire, clouds, a moon, drawing in a few gestural details, and removing the blue tape. I really like how this thing came out and the vignette is actually a lot lighter than you would normally see, but it's kinda cool, has a sort of foggy effect to it.

I'm really happy with this and can't wait to get it up all over the interwebs and see what kind of a response it gets, and the new owners of this little piece I think will be super happy with it, they're all into this sorta thing. So cross your fingers!

Don't Squeeze the Baby Sister's Head

2010-09-03T22:18:00.004-04:00

i think i have been lazy the past few weeks not posting up as much new artwork as i did in the past few months. i dunno why, i figure that i've actually been kinda busy and trying to do some artwork for real and make some money off of it. so this past week i talk to the Draft Cycle guys about logos and artsy stuff to do for t-shirts and business cards, awesome... i sold a painting a week or so ago, bitchin'... and i'm finishing the zombie killer illustration for a little bit of dough this week, tubular... monday before work i'm going to a local coffee house and hopefully will be dropping off several paintings to be hung up for sale, potential righteousness :)

the zombie chick, black and white ink, has been gradually getting some color over the past few days and by sunday she'll be done and off to the new home with some friends. i don't wanna jump the gun and add pics just yet, so once it's done i'll post them up. i need to color the left-most arm completely and vignette the background in watercolor (pray... i don't normally do watercolor, especially not over top of, around, or even in the same room as the expensive colored pencils i had to buy).

the other thing i'm realizing is that the pricing that i have set up for these art projects is ridiculously low. i mean, everybody has got to start somewhere, so i figure i trade profit for making a reputation, and keep a few bucks here and there but it all goes back to buying materials anyhow... this is quite the conundrum. once i set a price for something i don't raise it or lower it, but i feel like somebody is gonna come across my etsy store and see something they want and not know why it costs more than the big fancy oil painting that they saw listed for half. ugh, art is silly at times, especially once money gets involved, BAH!

anyways, i'm tired and thinking way too much about things that i shouldn't worry about until they come up in real life. good news though is that i went to a comic book thing and two girls were walking around with their butts hanging out, high five :) haha

ps. bethany hates this picture, mwahahahaha :)

Zombies!

2010-08-31T22:17:00.003-04:00

so this is what i did today, woot! it's a zombie pinup slayer girl person fighter for a friend, it took long enough to do but i wanted to make sure i got it right since they need it for this sunday... apparently going slow and doing things right the first time helps a lot lol

that is all... as you were :)

SOLD!!!

2010-08-28T13:53:00.005-04:00

...selfless plug... Visit my ETSY STORE!

I have currently 4 paintings up for sale, which used to be 5 until Tuesday. Thats's right! One of them was bought! I thought something was wrong with my computer at first or maybe I owed money to Etsy for unpaid listings or something, I honestly didn't think anything was going to be sold so soon, so it was a nice surprise :)

Say goodbye to the "Four Guitars" painting, it's on it's way to Texas! HOLLA!

Dude, this guy is awesome

2010-08-14T13:57:00.005-04:00

I watch the art channel, it's called Ovation TV, and on this channel they have very interesting documentaries and old movies, and lots of other cool things that are very educational in the artistic persuasions. A show I caught the other day called "Driven by Vision", a half hour documentary about the ongoing artwork of one person or group, featured a guy named Jim Bishop. Bishop is a castle builder by hobby, ornamental welder by trade, and what really caught my attention was the first sentence the narrator said after introducing Bishop. "When he was 15, he had saved up enough money from odd jobs to buy a 2.5 acre plot of land in Colorado Springs and started building a one room stone cottage." I looked up and saw this castle, the project is freakin' incredible. This is one guy's project over the past 40 or 50 years and he has taken no help except for donations and visitors, everything here was built by, hand by him... right on!

www.roadsideamerica.com/story/2047 <---one of the few articles I could find on this, not a bad read

Comics... the other other dork thing

2010-08-09T23:40:00.005-04:00

I like comics and that style of artwork. I always have since I was little and it just appealed to me. Probably because the idea of being able to do super things sounded cool, or that being such a badass that no one in their right mind would call you a sissy for wearing spandex... personally, I'd do without the spandex, but to each his own.

About a year ago I though of an idea for a story, and since I draw everything anyways, I figured why not make it a comic book. So I started drawing pictures last December and then dropped it... fast forward to last week when I couldn't sleep. I thought about the comic book again and started writing a script, and an outline, character information, storyboarding, the works. I'm going to get this done dammit, even if it never sells, no one ever reads it, has any interest, or cares about it except me. So HA! Take that brain! You thought of something and now I'm going to do it so you'll be quiet! MWAHAHA!

*Ahem* I did manage (somewhere throughout my inner dialogue) to get done with an ink drawing of the bad guy in the comic... don't laugh, it's cliche to the max power all right, but it's mine and I like it. This guy is also up on my dA site too. I know it looks lame right now but once I add color it should be just groovy...

Back to the Artsy Stuffs and Junks :)

2010-07-30T00:25:00.005-04:00

I've been given a break over the past few days and have gotten three new thingys done in the Photoshop :D

YAY!!!!! I really wanna move away from just doing graphics and be able to do that and traditional painting and drawing also. The traditional stuff just takes so damn long, and graphics are like, dog-with-half-a-brain-simple... sometimes haha

anyways, here they are, two of these are just tattoo designs and the other is a self portrait

When I'm Not Doing Art Stuff....

2010-07-20T12:03:00.003-04:00

I bug my Dad until he helps me fix things I don't understand... Mwahahahahaha!

This is my new/old bike, it's an '81 Yamaha XJ750, also known as a SECA 750. Picked it up in Silver Spring, MD sometime around Memorial Day and it sat in the garage while the Texas bike was getting done for Trent at BikerMetric. My Dad rebuilt the starter, I changed the spark plugs, and then BOOM BABY!! With the exception of it idling at 5000 rpms, this was a great day, we later fixed the idle problem by putting the boots back on the carbs from the airbox, and Daddio messed around with the throttle cable.

This past weekend it got some new chrome handlebars that aren't retarded like the stock ones, and a new throttle cable... This thing will easily burn my 2007 suzuki in a straight line (100 cc more and 2 more cylinders will do that I reckon)

Thanks Dad!! I'm not going to say anything mushy, but yeah, you're cool :)

Demotivational

2010-07-19T15:06:00.005-04:00

So lately I've been running around and being the social flutterby, which means less time with art and doing blog/deviantart/etsy... BUT! I did come across a cool site that has nothing but the demotivational posters running in a constant thread! These are just a few that I liked but everything on this site is hilarious :D

http://www.verydemotivational.com/

Enjoy!!

Online Store!

2010-07-12T16:24:00.004-04:00

So I opened up an Online Store today at http://www.zenangel13.etsy.com/

For the love of all that is good and holy, buy something. Send someone else ou know to the site and make them buy something! Anything! Get the artwork out of my house so I'll have room to make more of it! LOL

Anyways, please definitely check that out if you haven't heard about it already, everything on the site is handmade, vintage/antique, or supplies for making your own arts and crafts and junk :) it's cool, and a good group of buyers and sellers.

The "American Flag" painting, and the portrait of Dave Matthews I did are up there, along with these three pieces....

Enjoy!

The Second Pic in the Series

2010-07-06T18:37:00.005-04:00

Okay, so the main idea behind the blog header was that the artist gets pulled into a million different directions because of their ideas and all their interests, that's why the dude looks all like he's melting and stuff... I hate explaining my artwork, it always makes me feel like a condescending douche bag... ANYWAYS! So I really like that header and thought the idea was kinda cool, so getting away from that, the next thing I thought of was doing a series of paintings that have that same setup and all share a similar theme. So this next one is about Sleep and Dreams and fruity things like that :)

I still need to finish adding in the rest of the frou-frou things in the Background, but this is pretty much what the finish drawing will look like on canvas, just repeating images of a night-time sky with different phases of the moon and some nice calm flowers and butterflys... ya know, sleepy things. Hope you guys like it!

Old Stuff, then New Stuff

2010-07-06T15:46:00.005-04:00

I've had these two paintings up in my room for a few years and never really thought about them after I hung them up. But I think I really need to start selling off all my artwork and just trying to make a living at it outside of having a "real" job. Anyways, these are officially for sale along with any other paintings or drawings I may have :)

There are a few tattoo designs that I did, all but one of them was for fun really, the other is for a friend. They'll be getting colored and added here shortly as well. The new header for the blog gave me a good idea, I just really like how it turned out so I think I'll be making a series of paintings and trying to keep the same theme throughout with the colors and the overall composition. I started drawing one of the paintings out today on canvas since I had nothing better to do hahaha

Also, if anyone knows of any artist that wants some free advertising, let them know to email me at www.zenangel13@gmail.com, I said it before (I think) that I want this site not just to be about me me me, but other artists and friends also, so send in the stuffs :) mmk?

New Art Finished and UP!!!

2010-07-03T18:20:00.003-04:00

So I finally got done with the colorizing on the new header, which is up on the top of the page, YAY!! GO ME!

That was my big accomplishment for the day, and the slideshow is gone because compters are gay and too complicated for me to tell them to do something and listen to me. There are a few pics up instead which I'll rotate new and old art into them and if anyone wants me to show their stuff I'll post up the name of the piece and the name of the artist too :)

I wanted this blog to be for lots of people, not just myself, art is not a very easy living, so if there's anyone that needs more exposure then they can certainly get some here once people start looking around.

That's all for now, I actually thought of a new idea for a painting and should probably start that since that's what I like to do and all.

My New Favorite Toy

2010-06-30T15:32:00.003-04:00

Nice Monkey.........

BAD MONKEY!!!

I stole my girlfriend's sock monkey and of course the first thing I thought of was how to make it not-so-wholesome :)

That was probably the most important thing I did yesterday was that, followed by showing everyone how easily amused I am and then chasing her and the dogs around the house with the monkey bone hahahahahahahaha

My Little Brother... The Evil Genius

2010-06-26T19:20:00.005-04:00

My little brother asked me a few years ago to teach him guitar. So I taught him how to play the beginning of "Wish You Were Here" by Pink Floyd, which was also one of the first songs I learned how to play. The he started asking my Dad how to do other things with it, then learned to play Bass as well, started taking lessons and now he's a little Rocker child with a mastermind sized brain.

He and a friend wanted to start recording after their garage band broke up over someone shooting another kid in the eye with a BB gun (Christmas Story? Anyone?)... They're all still buddies so it's cool. To have a recording business you need bands to sign with you and a recording studio... they already have three bands signed and it's been only 2 months, soooooo I started building the studio today and we have almost all the framework done in 5 hours :)

New Art for The Blog?

2010-06-25T18:41:00.007-04:00

So in the intention of making my blog something fancy and maybe making some cool artwork in the process, I started playing with some ideas for a nice header image. I started drawing this image in pencil and later traced it with Staedler Pigment Liner pens (0.3 and 0.7 nibs were pretty frequently used), and now I'm gonna take this into Photoshop and colorize it :)

Hope you like it, I'll probably redo the header images from time to time if I do something really interesting though, so maybe there'll be another one up here shortly...

Texas or Bust

2010-06-22T02:06:00.003-04:00

for those of you that are curious, or have maybe heard me talk about my Deviant Art pages before, if you goto my profile http://www.zenangel13.deviantart.com/ there is a new journal entry up that explains the whole Freedom or Death Machine, Rot Rally, Saint Motorbikes thing.

just my end of the story, there are certainly others out there that did far more to make this trip happen than I did lol

Visit my Deviantart pro for my story, http://www.bikermetric.com/ for Trent's story and http://www.saintmotorbikes.com/ or http://www.saintmotorbikes.blogspot.com/ for my Dad's story... everybody decided to be a shutterbug too, so there are plenty of pics up as well :)

Yay for Bad Ideas that Go Well!!! haha, g;nite

the grand master plan

2010-06-19T15:35:00.002-04:00

okay so i just started this and have been a little swamped lately. however, i intend on basically making this site full of artwork and generally cool artsy or artisan-esque type cool things :)

there are a million projects that will be uploaded to the interwebs here in the next few days once i can finally get some time and find my files... and get the girlfriend to explain to me how this blog thing works... don't make fun, my girlfriend is cool!

alright, for anybody that reads this, thanks, and everybody peace out!

test

2010-06-16T19:01:00.001-04:00

this is just a test. it is only a test. kthanks