PROJECT: Willy's Room!

There's nothing better than a great excuse to get some art done!  With the anticipation of our 2nd child, William Bradley Patenaude, I set course to fill his walls with my imagination like I did for our daughter Lily.

One of the creatures that inhabit Lily's room

After a little debate on the theme for our new son's new room decor, Jen & I finally decided on a spacey direction filled with little green men.  Because I'm a big fan of the creative freedom and potential for education that a space provides, in addition to wanting to put some existing alien designs to use...  space won out!)

So!...  After scavenging through a couple of sketch pads from the past few years and reworking the pieces to fit better in to the theme + a couple of new ones from scratch, here are the designs that made the cut...

Next up comes printing the designs to trace down on to the wood.  Because I like to keep the designs nice and simple with their initial spontaneity intact, they're scanned, magnified, and printed straight off of the original sketch.

The final sizes that they're printed at are essentially sized just to feel "right", in addition to taking into consideration how the characters look in relation to their neighbors.  I do this through a very painful process [made even more painful, if the sizes turn out wrong] starting with printing out small sections of the final image with the cheap printer on 8.5"X11" paper-  I make sure that each section of the piece "bleeds" onto the next section, so that I can tape them all together on a large window in my house.  After they're all put together , I then trace them on to sheets of plywood with graphite paper.

Next up was the color picking, which was a bit random in the selection and type of paint.  Most of the paint consisted of acrylic valspar samples [that didn't make the cut for the main wall colors] we'd bought for the kids' rooms' walls (which were coincidentally colors that we already like;)).  + I added yellow & green liquid acrylics left over from previous projects (I LOVE their flat finish], tons of gesso, and a bit of spray primer.

I then cleaned up the lines, in addition to laying in how thick the white "halo" surrounding the characters will be.

Next up to bat, is the scroll saw-  I always love firing this sucker up-  It brings a few things to the project that I sometimes miss from the art I do @ work:  "manliness", "realness", chaos, a pinch of danger, and of course NOISE! 

After the edges are sanded and smooth, a couple layers of gesso [just because it's cheaper than acrylic... and white is white;)] go on the halo.  For smaller shapes [like the stars], I use spray primer [SOOOooo much easier and even], but because there's a danger of it covering the lines, the more important pieces' halos are all hand painted [BORING!].  Knowing that it's the color that really finishes the pieces [essentially "bringing them to life"], I really like what they look like after this step because of all the potential they have.

...  And here comes the color!...

One of the final, and most important steps is applying the outlines.  For this I use a brush to lay on Indian ink, sometimes mixing in a bit of black acrylic-  ALMOST DONE!

The finishing touches include ~5 coats of sealant before having their mounting pieces [which I prepare before hand using scrap pieces of wood cut into varying-sized squares] attached with wood glue.  The mounting process is something that I'm particularly happy with because A]  It makes use of scraps that would otherwise be tossed ["green" point;)?], and B]  because I prepare the mounting pieces with varying depths of thickness giving the relative flatness of the compositions a little punch of that 3rd dimension.

In an attempt to bring the pieces together, I decided to "sprinkle" stars around the room in the same fashion I used flowers in Lily's room.

One of the many characters that hang out on walls in Lily's room

And finally, here my friends, are the finished pieces mounted in the room [which I'm hoping will come to life even more, once his room is all decked out with more space-themed decor]...

All for this little bugaroo, William "Willy" Bradley Patenaude...

I hope you like it, little buddy!  ...  And I hope the rest of you like it too!

...  Patenaude

UPDATE: NEW JOB, etc!...

A]  Yes.  Another non-art update-  Well, I suppose it's SORTA art-  I landed a new gig @ [Snowblind Studios] as a Senior World Artist!  Can't say much about the project yet other than that it's already fun AND beautiful!
As far as [Loose Cannon Studios] is concerned...  Might post on that later, when I decide how much of it, if any, I want to rehash.  'Twas quite an interesting ride-  I'll leave it @ that for now...

B]  Still settling into the new routine, but as marathon training starts winding down I should have a bit more time for art in the next few weeks-  Will start by posting a few sketches from the last...  HALF YEAR+ before figuring out a new series or some such.  Be sure to stay tuned for that!

C]  ALSO.  Coming up on 35 years old this year [dear lord], so I've finally decided to come up with my 1, 3, 5 and 10 year plan-  Assuming that they will all involve art;), I'll be sure to post a bit of that on here too.

D]  About to head out to fire up the house hunt again now that prices are settling to within striking distance of where they should be-  Hoping to find a new place by winter time, so we figured our future home might be coming onto the market right about now before dropping another 50-100k before we nab it-  Fun, fun!

E]  Really looking forward to our trip to Los Angeles next month for the [L.A. Marathon].  Jen & I are already working on our itinerary of restaurants, spots, and people to see + really looking forward to Lily being able to finally play on a _real_ beach-  Wondering how weird it'll be "vacationing" in a place that we used to live-  Can't wait!


That's all,
Patenaude

happy birthday to me...

SO I decided to start my birthday off my posting a few baby [how appropriate] sketches that I whipped up for jen's pre-mother's day card a few months back...



... celebrating the rest of the day with a nice walk with the family [jen + lily+ hounds], hopefully picking up a much-needed removable HD @ costco [ugh- costco on my birthday!?], then off to woodinville for a bit of wine tasting, followed by a nice dinner @ [the barking frog].


... patenaude

JUMP START!...

after reading "firefly fred" [the book that i illustrated (poorly) ~a lifetime ago] to lily this morning, i realized that i really should do at least another one. unfortunately every time that idea pops in my head [which happens quite frequently], i get overwhelmed with and stuck on the theme/ idea [which i want to be able to be developed into a series (like i assume all children's book creators are supposed to shoot for)], and fizzle out.

well [hopefully] not this time! i've decided to kill two [actually quite a few] birds with one stone, and use the book[s] as a JUMP START in helping to develop the look and stories for a few game ideas that i've been tinkering with over the years. i have several of them [like most game developers] at various stages of development [yet all quite early], and it seems like this may just may be what it take to nudge them along.

even the simplest games can benefit from a nice little story to guide their development. and because i intend for the artistic style to be a huge part of each of them, i might as well test them out in a book- especially with as easy as they are to print these days!

so there!

... i promise there will be no more talk of this until there are actually IMAGES to post along with the news.

... patenaude

cutouts: round two [in progress]...

now that the game is just about done, and i've had a bit more time for my ART art again, i've been spending a bit of time on another round of cutouts- this time, just making a batch of some of my favorite characters that i've drawn over the last year-ish...

like i mentioned- varying degrees of done-ness...

... a bit more to paint, and of course add those black outlines that i just can't live without;)

i like this green dude so much, that i made two of 'im:)

not sure exactly where they'll end up, since they don't quite jive with the rest of the animals in lily's room & i'm running out of wall space in my office- will probably have to wait until we move into a bigger home for them to take up residence on a nice big wall.

ps. photos courtesy of my iphone [it's just too dang easy not to use].

... patenaude

Update: LILY!

In lieu of a painted or drawn art update, i'd like to kick a link over to jen and my adventures site, to our [warning: cheesy art metaphors ahead] most beautiful collaboration masterpiece of all: http://theadventuresofjenandbrian.com/

ily Robin Patenaude! born on may 5th @ 8:09 aM, weighing in @ 7lbs. 7 oz. if you don't believe me, just look!




... Life is wonderful.

... patenaude

CUT OUTS II sketches...

more sketches on their way to becoming wood cut outs- some were originally created for game designs, some for if she was a boy;), but i figured i'd milk a bit more use out of 'em.

starting to introduce a bit of text again- something i've started doing to some of them, is naming them whatever sounds i think they might make.

"uniphant"

"tweeb"

one of my fav.s- starting on him right now.

"jimmy 2 pockets"

"floating harold"

started added carrot noses to a few of my beasties- something i rather liked and decided to rip off [something i _rarely_ do] from my good friend [junkyard samuel].

... figured i might go in the robot direction if she was a boy- only whipped up a couple up before finding out the good news:)

will be posting progress shots of these + the last two i just finished soon!

in other news, we just finished up the alpha deadline on our game, heading towards beta, and finally found out when it'll be on the shelves- SEPTEMBER 15th- yee hoo! will be sure to post when the press release on the game & company [finally;)] is published.

AND!! only ~1 more month 'til the baby arrives- can't wait!!

... patenaude

baby's room part V...

i'm still planning on adding another handful of flowers- scattering them mostly around the edges, but... for the most part- here it is. walls painted, crib & changing table are put together, the cut outs are _securely_ mounted to the walls... all we need is the baby;)

the "main" wall- again- they're fastened quite securely to the wall:)

here's one that rob retouched in photoshop [thanks!]- quite a bit more accurate ['cept for the lamb is whiter:)]- really makes me want to retouch them all or do a reshoot [possibly after i finish the rest of the flowers]... and figure out the white balance on my camera;)

this little dude _really_ needs some more flowers- i figure i have about 20 more to whip up.

the big pink bunny hangs out alone in the corner- i have NO IDEA what he's up to...

see! lions and elephants CAN get along...

SEE!! lions and elephants CAN get along [yes- the baby is turning me corny]

... and last, but not least, here's where all those diapers that i've been warned about, will be changed.

... all in all, i had a _LOT_ of fun whipping these up. so much so that i'm dying to try this with some of my characters not-so-appropriate for a baby girls room- hopefully jen will let me hang them SOMEWHERE;)

... patenaude