What I have Learned this Week

1.) Blogging is hard.  The actual process of writing things is pretty simple.  Sitting down and posting pictures and what not.  I find that very easy.  What is difficult is making it interesting.  I have to ask myself if anyone really wants to read this. (I'm asking it right now actually.)  Also you really have to work to get people to read your blog.  Getting people on here is not easy. (Hint hint if you like anything here or know someone looking to read about or buy art please share my blog on facebook.)  I also really enjoy writing this though.  It's fun putting some of my pictures out there for people to see.

2.) Google Adsense is cool.  If you notice I have a few ads here on my page.  Those who already blog probably know these are from "Google Adsense".  If you are starting a blog I would really encourage you to apply for this.  They put ads up that are actually legitimate ads up so people can view the products.  If your viewer clicks it doesn't mean they have to buy, but there are very good products on the ads.  Also, you get paid by google per click on the ads.  It helps make blogging worthwhile.  There are several things you don't do.  1.) never ever click on your own ad.  You will get banned for this.  2.) Do not beg other people to click on ads.  3.) Don't use any software that will click on it for you.   That's pretty much it as far as I know.  You just need to work really hard to increase your page views, and try to put your ads in a place where people will see them.

3.) Keyword search.  This means try to include words in your posts that people may type into google.  Man of Steel, Father's Day, Superman.  Those are keywords, and if people type them in, they may see my blog. Yes, that was absolutely ridiculous, but it may work.  Who knows, I am still very new to this, but definitely enjoy it.


That's it for now.  3 things that I have learned blogging this week.  Maybe next week I can put a few more things I learned on here.


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Here comes the wedding

I can't help but sit here and think about how in 15 days I will finally be getting married to the love of my life.  Now I know I'm a guy, but I still am just completely overwhelmed by how excited I am.  All these little things keep popping into my head.  I am just so excited to have someone to share moments in life with.  I'm excited to have someone to share in my Christian ministry as well as we continue to serve as a Youth minister and wherever else God calls us too.  Although we have been engaged since October, it seems only now that reality is starting to kick in.  Buying wedding gifts, bow ties, booking hotels, and seeing my wedding suit hang in my closet just blow me away as  I realize that this is actually happening.  My life is about to change in a really big way.  I think that in the middle of this we can become focused on so many different facets of a wedding, that we begin to lose sight of why we are getting married in the first place.  I know why I am marrying Kirsten, and I know why I will always be by her side.  It isn't the butterflies that I have in my stomach when I think about her, it isn't the way that I feel.  As a matter of fact it has absolutely nothing to do with any kind of emotion (although I am filled with so many.)  It all stems back to the fact that first God loved me.  He showed me what true love is.  It isn't based on any feelings we may get in return, but it is completely and utterly selfless.  True love is a love that gives and gives constantly.  It expects nothing in return.  It is draining, but then God fills us up again.  It is exhausting, but then God lifts us up.  I do not love Kirsten because of what she does but because of what God has done.  Thanks to that I know that I will never leave nor forsake her, and the vows I make to her in 15 days on the beach will be vows that I keep for the rest of my life.

Tutorial: 8 Supplies You Need to Draw

This is my first tutorial and it is going to be pretty basic.  Before you can seriously get into drawing or painting you need to have the basic tools to do so.  Like I have said before, drawing is not based on natural skill.  You can develop skill by knowing techniques and having the right tools, and a little  patience wouldn't hurt either.  As a general rule of thumb, the slower you go while drawing and the more time you take the better your drawing will be.  It's elementary (sorry, I'm reading Sherlock Holmes right now so it's kind of stuck in my head.)  so I know you can do it.  I'm not a master at any of this, and I don't pretend to be one.  There is in fact a lot I do not know, but I hope to be able to share the little I do with you.  With that being said, let's look at the supplies we will need to get started.

1. Paper

I know this one seems pretty obvious, but this is very important as you begin.  What kind of paper will you be using.  There is a lot of debate to this, but there are two that I really love.  One is Strathmore 400.  You can find these in Hobby Lobby and Michaels I know for a fact.  I use these mainly for sketching or every day drawing.   For a beginner I would say this is the best paper for you to use.  You can find them in notebooks at different sizes for around $10.  It holds anything from graphite to pastel very well.  I used this for the longest time myself!

The other paper, and I would recommend this to more seasoned artists, is arches watercolor paper.  I use this for both watercolor paintings and any kind of drawings.  It is thick, sturdy paper with great tooth to really hold in your medium.  If you are trying to put down permanent drawings that you would like to sell I would say this is the paper to purchase.  The only problem with this is that it can be a little pricey, so definitely not for beginners in my mind.

2. Graphite Pencils

If you want to be serious about your art work, then don't use the same mechanical or wooden pencil for the entire drawing.  It just doesn't work.  You will need graphite pencils of different hardness to get the job done.  I generally use a 2h, hb, 2b, 6b when I am working.  Very rarely will I need to use a 4h, or an 8b.  If you are confused let me clarify.  The harder the graphite in the pencil, the finer and lighter the mark.  A 2h pencil will make a very hard, light mark on your paper.  As you go from hb to 6b the graphite becomes lighter.  This gives you a softer, darker mark on your paper.

I generally use my prismacolor set of graphite pencils, but the General's Kimberly Graphite set is cheap and works well for beginners.  As you continue drawing though I would encourage you to get different pencils and find what you like for yourself.  We all have different styles!

3. Ruler
A ruler can come in handy in a thousand different ways; from measuring proportions, to drawing  the straight lines of a building, to graphing out your paper.  A ruler is an absolute must and dollar to buy one of these will save you a big headache down the road.

4. Q-tips

Yes, like the things you clean your ears with.  I use these constantly to blend small areas of my drawings, like around the nose, mouth, and eyes.  Once again, these are really cheap and are a good tool to help make your drawing look great.  Some people are against blending in graphite drawings, but I am not one of those people.  If you don't know how to blend, I will teach you in a tutorial very soon.








5. Cotton Balls

Much like the q-tip, you will use these while you are blending.  These are for larger areas though.  I use these to help blend large areas of background, foreheads, cheeks, etc.









6. Blending Stumps

You can find these at hobby lobby, and I use them to blend the extra fine details in my drawings.  Mainly if I need to blend inside of an eye.  I don't use them often, but trust me they are invaluable when I do need them.










7. Eraser

There are actually two different erasers that you will need.  The first is just a regular block eraser.  Get a good one from an art store, and please don't try to use the eraser at the end of your pencil.  These erasers work much better and really help to pull all the graphite out of your drawing.

The second is a kneaded eraser.  This are fun, stretchy, and really cool to have around.  What I love about these though is you can stretch them into any shape you need them to be in and lift color out of your paper.  You don't use these like a regular eraser to completely erase something, but to lighten up or pull a highlight out.

8. Pencil Sharpener
Get yourself a nice pencil sharpener.  I'm fond of the cheap handheld one's.  I have an electric one, but I'm pretty frustrated at it right now.  So, just have a decent cheap pencil sharper so you can keep all of your tools around.


Well, that's all that is really necessary.  There are several other things that are really to have, but for me aren't absolutely important.  I'm just going to list these below.

Drafting desk
Lamb
Money
hours and hours of free time
Money
Good camera
Scanner


These things will help.....but aren't 100% important.  Maybe one day I can actually take pictures of my supplies at home.  That would be nice......maybe a camera is a need after all..

Two paintings that I did yesterday

In case you were wondering, I decided yesterday to pull of a Lord of the Rings marathon.  It didn't really end up working.  I watched Fellowship extended with the directors commentaries, and then watched disk one of the appendixes.  I found that it was relaxing and very easy to do art work with that playing.  Anyways I did 3 pieces yesterday.  2 watercolors and one for another special event.  I can't show you the last one, but here are the two watercolors.

This is of a Italian balcony watercolor I saw on the internet. I've never done one quite like this so I  thought it would be interesting.  I used a mixture of deep yellow, burnt siene, cream, black, and french marine blue.  I started out by taping the paper down to my board and wetting it.  This is called stretching.  I then really just sat back and waited for it to dry.  When it dried I sketched a quick outline, and then laid a wash of a mixture of deep yellow and cream.  I began working in different mixtures of yellow, creme, and burnt sienna to do the outer wall portion.  For the window sills and lantern I first laid down some mask for hightlights and to preserve my railings.  The bricks are a mixture of blue and black, the window sills deep yellow and burnt sienna.  I removed the mask and painted on my railings and there I was.  I liked the way this turned out.  In retrospect there are a few things I would do differently,but here you are!  Now onto the next one.

I have seen portraits kind of like this one, and I really want to do some of Ray Charles and B.B.King.  With that being said this is my practice for doing one of them.  This painting happened really quick.  I stretched my paper the same was before, and then quickly sketched an outline of a face, two eyes, a nose, and lips.  I painted the details of the lips, nose and eyes, but everything else is splatter paint mostly.  I loaded by brush up with color and splattered it onto the paper, then used a spray bottle to spray it around.  I thought the result was interesting, and I'm looking forward to doing a few more like this.  I liked the way it turned out.  I alway really like using a limited color pallete.  just using the primary's makes for an interesting picture.  

Well that's it for today!  Hope you enjoy them.  Like always, email me at artbyjeremiah09@gmail.com if you need to get in touch with me.  Talk to you later!

Going to Be An Art Kind of Day #moviemarathontime

Well I woke up early this morning, headed to the church, and got some work done there. (I'm a youth minister if you didn't know).  Anyways I'm getting ready to head home where I will spend the rest of my day working on some different works of art.  Some practice, some for an actual purpose.  I will post some of what I do on here.  Anyways one thing that I absolutely have to do while doing a big art session like this is put on some kind of movie.  I guess it would stem back when I read an interview with Akira Toyirama, who is the creator of Dragonball Z, when I was like 10.  He mentioned that he always played Jackie Chan movies while working on his stuff.  Well I took that and ran with it and now I have this thing where I always have to have a movie playing while drawing or painting.  Since my fiance is with her family finishing up our wedding planning and I'm all by myself I think today is a great day for a movie/art marathon.  Yesterday I posted 7 movies that kind of deal with art.  This list is just me brainstorming what movies I want to watch today.  There isn't a list, just some good examples of movie marathons.


Lord of the Rings extended

Any Lord of the Rings fan knows there is only one way to this: extended blu ray with surround sound.  That is it.  To me when I think of movie marathon this is the movie that comes to mind.  It's like watching a 12 hour movie.  Everything flows.  The story is beautiful, the acting and visual effects perfect.  This is a movie that will still be watched and loved 50 years from now.  In my opinion there is no better trilogy, although one comes close.  This could definitely be a winner.





The Bourne Trilogy

Let's face it.  These movies are awesome, and they only get better with each entry.  One thing you need to know about  me is I tend to pretend movies don't exist if I don't like them, so the Bourne Legacy in my mind was never made.  I will not include it here.  Just  Identity, Supremacy, and Ultimatum.  My only thing with this is I'm not sure I would want to paint while watching them as much as  I would like to go pick a fight.  Regardless, fantastic






Indiana Jones Trilogy

But there are four you say.  Not in my mind.  Only three.  I posted this yesterday, so you can probably tell that I really like Indiana Jones. He is the man!  He is my second favorite Harrison Ford character.  Anyways these movies are just long enough to really work well with an art marathon, plus they encourage respect for the arts.  This one sounds pretty good.





Star Wars: Original and Only Trilogy

There is no episode 4,5, and 6 regardless of what George Lucas says.  Also Han shot first.  Also I don't know what people mean when they talk about midiclorins or whatever you call them.  There is Star Wars, Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi.  These movies are classics and always make for a good movie marathon.






Marvel Phase One

These movies are just fun.  I mean Marvel did something here that no one else ever has.  Do I think someone could do it better.  Well yeah.  (I'm looking at you Justice League)  They are awesome though with their own stand alone movies culminating into one big adventure.  This is one I've never done so I would be interested to see how they all work together.  Could take a while though.













The Dark Knight Trilogy

Batman.  It doesn't get any cooler than watching the biopic of my crime fighting adventures.  Yes, my family's inside joke is that I'm batman.















Harry Potter Series

This is a great, consistent series.  I like every movie.  If you can actually finish them in one sitting though I believe you deserve some sort of major award.  These are like 20 hours of movie watching.










Well, that's what I've got to work with.  Yes I know Planet of the Apes, The Matrix, and many more weren't on here.  These are what I personally own.  Now, I'm off to draw and paint while watching some awesome movies!  I will see you back here tomorrow to show you what I accomplished.  Have a good day!

7 Best Movies that Are About Art(kind of)

I'm trying to branch out and make this blog more than just me posting my art (which is still on here and still for sale.)  Maybe some of you visiting are artists's yourself, or maybe you know me so you visit wondering what in the world I could be writing about.  Well this morning I just wanted to share some thoughts about my 7 favorite movies that are about art in some sense.  My qualifications are that art has to at least play into the storyline.  Just because someone has a nice painting in their house does not qualify it to be on this list.  At least one character needs to revolve around their art.  I'm trying to show you actual popular movies.  There are tons of small indie flicks about artist's that bore me to death.  These are movies that you may have seen, but didn't realize just how much art was actually in them.  If you disagree with this list, that's great!  Maybe there are movies out there I haven't seen.  I'm taking a little bit of a reach today. I haven't posted a blog like this yet.  I just figured "hey, why not".  I love movies and I love art.  Let's see how those too go along with each other.






7.   The Voyage of the Dawn Treader

While not the best movie, I have a soft spot for this Narnia movies.  I'm not sure if it's because it has a dragon in it, or the great theological statement at the end.  I do know that it has something to do though with the entire movie being about a painting though!  I mean here they are just a couple of British kids and all the sudden they are sucked into a painting.  Next thing you know they are going on sea faring adventures, battling dragons, and going to the end of the world.  It shows kids that there is a lot more to paintings than meets the eye.





6. 50 First Dates

I admit, this is not on any greatest movies of all time list.  It's Adam Sandler and maybe I'm the only one who likes it.  Come on though, how could you not fall for its story.  Art passing through all barriers including accident induced 24 hour short term memory loss to bring two people together forever.  That seen where she is in the hospital and has painted the egg head picture of Adam Sandler.  Classic.  That and we get to see Samwise Gamgee eating spam and Reese' cups.












5. Catfish

If you haven't seen this movie, then stop reading this blog and rent it.  I'm not going to offer up any spoilers here because that just ruins the movie.  What I will say is art has a particurly important role to play in this movie.  Grab some popcorn and have fun.








4.  Bean

Bean is in my opinion one of the absolute funniest characters ever created.  His brand of comedy will have my sides killing me by the end.  I have to thank my beautiful fiance and soon to be wife for introducing us.  The beauty of this movie is that he is made to watch over an art gallery.  I'm not sure who thought that was a good idea, but come on now.  This guy, around priceless art.  Maybe that is why its so funny.  You just have to see how this turns out.













3.  Dead Poets Society

  Poetry is art too guys.  Besides, you who didn't cry at the part pictured.  Oh captain my captain.  This is one of my absolute favorite movies.  Fantastic acting, fantastic story, and such a great lesson on the importance of art in our lives.  This movie makes me wish Robin Williams would do more dramatic movie parts.  Between this and Good Will Hunting he has done some mighty fine pictures.


2.  Midnight in Paris

Let me clarify that I am not much of a Woody Allen fan, but I love this movie.  It's funny, but enduring at the same time.  I love how we get to see the main character explore the 20's of Paris.  He meets Picasso, and Hemingway.  Ah, what I would do to have done the same thing.  This is a movie about a young writer who goes to Paris with his fiance on vacation.  He is not crazy about her lifestyle, so while they are out he decides to walk around Paris.  While walking he is dreaming about what Paris must have  been like back in the 20's and he longs to be in this generation.  Next thing he knows, at midnight, he is in a random vehicle and is transported back to the time of his dreams.  He comes in contact with the greatest artists and writers of the day, but learns the importance of living in your own time.  Fantastic movie, and nearly my number one except.......













1. Raiders of the Lost Art

Not about art you say!  Who else would risk life and limb to save valuable sculptures and the art of long past civilizations!  Indiana Jones is one of the greatest lover of arts I have ever seen.  Yeah, he may not have been much of a painter,but the movie teaches us a valuable lesson.  We should do whatever it takes to save the arts, and don't let the Nazi's get anywhere near it!  One of the best films ever made in my opinion. That's just me though.  Agree, disagree with this list?  Let me know in the comments!

Everyone Can Be An Artist

If you are viewing this blog I would hope that you love art.  Behind God, soon-to-be-wife, family; art is my greatest passion.  I find so much joy sitting down and creating new pieces from blank sheets of paper.  That moment who put pencil or brush down the possibilities are ceased only by your imagination.  One thing that I found daunting when I first got into serious art was the fact that I was just not very good.  I looked at my heroes and just stared in awe of their works.  I knew that I would never have the skills to compete with these people.  I had the wrong picture of their works though.  I viewed art as a natural talent that some are born with, and others are not.  While it is true that some people are born more artistic, I believe that natural skill is not very important in becoming an artist.  It pales in comparison to a hard work ethic and patience.  You may begin as one of the worst artists in the world, but if you work hard and have patience you can become an artist.  It's less about natural talent and more about technique and vision.  You need to learn little techniques, and how to SEE what you are actually drawing or painting.  I want to use this blog to help with that.  I don't want my readers to just see what I am doing, but to actually be able to grow through visiting this blog.  I want to show people how to graph, how to outline, circularism, perspective, and many other's.   I want to go step by step on how to paint with watercolor's and how to draw portraits.  I am definitely not saying I am great, but I think it would be a shame to not and try and help others as well.  Drawing is a great way to let loose those creative juices or to just pass the time.  Get ready them because I am going to begin working on some basic tutorials for you.  I would absolutely love feedback on these.  Comment here with some tutorials you would like to see or email me with any questions or suggestions that you have.  Thank you so much for your support!