tar zombie

i made a super quick last minute piece for the RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD charity show this weekend. i decided to practice some more woodburning, with stains and touch of acrylic, illustrating the hilarious TAR ZOMBIE!

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1. sketch  2. woodburning.  3. acrylic  4. stains

Mini art show based on the cult-classic 80s movie "RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD" (http://youtu.be/wylpeAXYcBQ). The show is being set up as a charity fundraiser for actress, Jewel Shepard (who played Casey in the movie), who has been recently diagnosed with breast cancer. This show will take place on October 22nd @ Dark Delicacies (Burbank, CA).  Clu Gulager (Burt) and Jewel will be at the show, and rockstar Illustrator William Stout (www.williamstout.com) will be donating an original illustration as well.

overtaken woodburning

woodburning! as i mentioned, woodburning is a new fun experiment i've fallen in love with. this is my second woodburning. i knew i wanted to do a one-eyed girl of some sort, but i wasn't ready to go crazy this new tool. i decided to keep it a woodsy-tree-ish 1eg, thinking it would look neat on the piece of bark. it's crazy how different it felt to burn on this piece of wood than my first attempt, considering how different each piece of wood was. i assume it will feel different on every new piece i use. or maybe after a while of getting a good feel for the tool, they'll all feel the same. i don't mean for that to sound dirty.

maybe (definitely) i'm just a crappy photographer, but i find these pieces really hard to take photos of. i attempted to take little detail photos, so i hope you can see better in these how the piece should feel, but i still think the brown burnt-ness is much prettier in person. i would really like to work on my lines: on thickness, deepness, lightness, darkness, and any other ness you can think of. my shading clearly needs a ton of practice. i'll get there. this one's also for vsa of nj's upcoming auction!

first wood burning!

woodburning! ac moore is basically my home away from home, and i started eyeing down the woodburning tools some time ago. seemed like a cool thing to try out, so my delightful surprise on christmas eve (i asked for it, but it's more magical if i pretend it was a surprise), i opened up a wonderful woodburning kit. the tree above is my very first attempt. i absolutely love everything about woodburning: it's easy, incredibly fun, it smells amazing, and it could make for some really beautiful artwork. i started off simple, but i am very motivated to really practice this enough to make some awesome (and detailed) work.

here's my first attempt at the outlining and drawing by woodburning pre-shading:

the tool comes with several tips, all can be used for different things. one of them was made for shading, which i attempted on my tree. i found the shading to be tricky and it will definitely need the most amount of practice.  i love the fact that it's even possible. i have never learned or researched anything about woodburning before, but i would have never thought you could shade so nicely by burning. i love new toys.

when i was done with the tree, the piece felt unfinished. i burned all around the edge, thinking that a darker edge would make it look more complete. it still wasn't enough, so i stained it around the edges, attempting to have it fade into the lighter wood color for a nicer finish. the woodburning is beautiful in person, there is more depth to the lines where you can see and feel the lines sunken into the wood.

this tree woodburning is for an upcoming auction with vsa of nj. more soon!