Gizmo

Do you remember this little guy? This was one of my first attempts to paint a furry creature. I chose to paint little Gizmo from the 1984 movie "The Gremlins".

Once I finished that painting I could not help but think he needs a cup of coffee and a 

burrito... Thanks to Photoshop's AI this is the result. I love Adobe !

From the age of 7 I suffered from insomnia. Decades of sleepless nights later I was determined to do anything to improve my sleeping.

I read about Feng Shui and I wanted to replace one of my comic art posters in my bedroom.

The koi was meant to help me. Halfway through the painting I wanted to give up, I was convinced I just can't paint. But friends kept encouraging me to carry on. Countless hours and layers of watercolour later I had to admit that I don't always have to be perfect. I liked the result.

Did I sleep better? I did eventually. The Silent Angel was watching over me, I got more sleep and my art journey began.

My friends and I keep sending each other little videos of otter whenever we want to calm down. 

It's our insider joke. 

When one of us gets upset about some daily challenges someone else always says: 

"I think it's otter-time" or "You need the otter video now". 

In order to cheer up my friends I decided to paint our favourite otters cuddling and floating... just watch and relax.

For the ones of you who are not familiar with the movie "Fight Club": At the end of the film we learn that the main character has a split personality played by the two actors Brad Pitt and Edward Norton. 

Browsing the internet a double exposure photo of the characters kept popping up again and again. It inspired me to try some overlay effect with watercolours. This is my interpretation of this idea. 

Fight Club is one of the movies I had to analyze over and over back in design school. It played a big role in my art journey. The movie is a piece of art itself and I'm not tired of watching it again and again. By the way, I highly recommend to watch some of the interpretations you can find on YouTube.

This friendly dog's name is Jasmine. She is a big dog with a big heart and a big smile. So I titled the painting "Jolly Jasmine".

Give me pain and I give you art. My way of coping with pain is to create beauty. I tried to visualize that by painting a waterfall of sadness and tears. And then the magic happens. Tears start boiling into bubbles and out of that pain beautiful fantasy flowers start growing.

The original sketch for this painting was more powerful in my opinion. Next time I won't overwork the composition. However I am quite happy with the result. The goal here was to practice with the translucent effect of the paint. I focused mostly on the technique and the lighting. In the future I might be tempted to repaint that one and stick more to the original sketch.

See the original pencil sketch and the vector drawing below:

My first ever portrait painted with watercolour is the portrait of my partner who I call Panda because of his martial arts skills like the "Kung Fu Panda" and because he is my cuddly teddy bear who loves the food I cook. 

The painting is based on a photograph of him I took a while ago.

When I started to paint this I was not aware that it is a difficult thing to paint portraits with watercolour. Had I known that, I would have never tried. I'm glad nobody told me, because I love it. This one painting caused a complete shift if my confidence and made me realize that I am an artist although since childhood my mother told me that I lack any artistic talent.

First attempts not always turn out great... but sometimes they are pretty funny. My first painting of Panda playing PlayStation turned out a little too green. I did not intend such a comic style either. The result is still interesting but most of all it makes me laugh... I call it "Hulk-Panda".... some of my friends suggested some other funny titles like "Werewolf-Panda" or "Wolverine-Panda".

A selfie I found somewhere on my phone was the drawing reference for this painting. The goal was to paint quickly and not to overthink it. I like the splatter here... I guess I'll experiment more with splatter in the future.