Let the Heads Roll!

This blog needs some meat on the bone. So for now, I'll probably shoe horn some bonus updates between the weekly updates as well. Now, besides comics I love, love, love doing portraits. If art is like drugs, then portraits are pure heroin. I don't know why, I just find drawing heads very satisfactory. However, it can be equally frustrating when you can't nail the likeness. Bad crack I guess. At any rate, what follows is a selection of portraits I have done over the years with a varying degree of success.

Hugh Laurie: I have to say, a few of these portraits were just tests of technical skills and was made long before I went to art school. As a consequence I turned myself into a very slow and inaccurate copy machine. At any rate, I am a sucker for noodling of details, so that's why I keep them around. There will be more of these to follow. But there will be pieces with creativity in them, I promise! Don't go!

David Gilmour: Same deal as above. Shitty copy machine. Hang in there.

Willie Nelson: Still the same. Have faith.

Roger Waters: Now this is becoming redicilous.

Steve Bushcemi: I promise, this paint study is the last of the copys! It was done quickly, as you can tell by it's inaccuracy.

Sees Something Disgusting/Funny: I told the truth, I am just copying my own photo's 100% instead. Thing was, this was for school. We had to practice doing value and be able to paint expressions. I'm off the hook on this one.

Into the Wild Red Yonder: See?! I have a concept to my portrait now! It's a self portrait in which we had to use variations of only two colors. It was meant to tell something about me. So I used the colors to imply I'm norwegian and I am looking rather spooked through a door to imply that I am heading into a new and scary world of art.

The Crooner: This is a charicature of Nick Cave, the awesome leader of Nick Cave & The Bad Seeds. His is an expert craftsman of words and his accute sense of word use has served him well as a lyricist, author and writer of screenplays. Therefore I thought I should have some excerpts of his work in the piece.

Winnie The British Bulldog: My favourite piece of the lot. It's about Winston Churchill and this portrait is a play on his nick name (given by the russians I believe) The British Bulldog. All the other elements are there to back him up as Britain's great leader during World War 2.

Thor Heyerdahl: The last one for this post. There are some more, but those I'll save for a rainy day. Here we have Thor Heyerdahl who set of on a balsa wood raft, called Kon Tiki, and crossed the pacific to prove that it was possible for South-American people to have migrated to Polynesia. A journey of 5000 miles. And he couldn't even swim. Balsy. Anyways, here's him and his journey as a stamp.

It's a bit of a faff

My last post did contain some old relics I had deep down in my cold, wet and moldy digital basement and I thought it would be a good time to give them some fresh air. However, I thought it might be best to show some of the latest and gratest within Kirkeberg-art.

I'll let you in on a secret.... artists don't come up with stuff from thin air. BUSTED! It's true, we're all a bunch of con men, and women.....con people. What we do is to make a bunch of cryptic 20-sek thumbnails that only we and some archeologists and linguistics, specializing in old pictorial writing systems will understand. Then, when we have settled on an idea out of those thumbnails, we go to a layout sketch, where we figure out what on earth we are doing. After that, we gather reference as well as shoot our own (with a camera, all other forms of shooting would be awful). After that you roll up your sleeves and get started on what will surely be the master piece of the century. Oh! And remember to do a color/value study as well.

So here follow some shitty examples of my process (the layout is very sketchy and none of my reference is uploaded, since the models may not take that too kindly.)

Anyways, here follows my process for the piece "Humanzees Fight for Union!" The final piece will be at the bottom. Nevermind the Giant Tortoise.

A Somewhat Silly Introduction

Hi!

My name is Thomas Kirkeberg an artist pupil at Columbus College of Art and Design, in Ohio USA. Welcome to my blog where I, with no shame or composure, will show of my art in all it's glory. This art that will shine like the brightest star and blight out all other on the sky of visual communication. The angels will fall from the sky as they swoon in it's magnificent glory. It will stand as the pinnacle of human expression for eons to come.

I'm not sure if my North-Korean guide "How to Write a Successful Press Release/Introduction" is working all that well, so I'll try to balance it out with some rather simple still lifes for now. I am actually just a small art peasant in raggedy clothes standing outside in the ice and snow, trying to get tall enough to look into the window where the art aristocrats are sitting in front of the fire place. There they drink brandy and tell jolly stories while they wait for the servants to bring in the roasted Duck. Perhaps one day, I shall have roast Duck.

(PS: Churchill is just a nick name)