Mr Will O' The Wisp

Jesus lived by the sea

A sketch of where Jesus lived in Capernaum.  I wonder how many people stop to consider that Jesus lived in a home in an actual town.  You can find this mentioned in the Bible, see Matt 4:13
"and leaving Nazareth, he came and dwelt in Capernaum, which is by the sea, in the borders of Zebulun and Naphtali"  ASV Bible

If you look closely you can find a few places where I put the seal of Melchizedek

Something for Summer

My art on Tumblr

Hi Everybody!

I've just started posting my work on tumblr....  http://markjarman.tumblr.com/

another assignment from class

A Plate

I'm participating in a class taught by the artists' rep Lilla Rogers....

This is for the lesson on home decor, we all did a plate design...

Abrasax

so I came across this article discussing early Coptic Christian prayer circles, and in the dialog of the prayer was this reference to Abrasax...  here is an exerpt:

Line 1. (The Tau-Rho sign).² Hail El! Fathouriel,³ who giveth
2. strength (comfort?), who gives replies [antiphonei] to the angels! ⁴
3. Hail Adonai (My Lord), Hail Eloi (My God), Hail
4. Abrasax! Hail Iothael!⁵ Hail
5. Mistrael (for Mizrael) who has looked upon the face of the Father ⁶
6. in the power of Iao! ⁷ KHOK.⁸

so I was curious about who or what this Abrasax character was, and I found this article on wikipedia...

Abrasax (Gk. ΑΒΡΑΣΑΞ, which is far more common in the sources than the variant form Abraxas, ΑΒΡΑΞΑΣ) was a word of mystic meaning in the system of the Gnostic Basilides, being there applied to the “Great Archon” (Gk., megas archōn), the princeps of the 365 spheres (Gk., ouranoi).^[1] The 7 letters spelling its name represent each of the 7 classic planets—Sun, Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn.^[2]
The word is found in Gnostic texts such as the Holy Book of the Great Invisible Spirit, and also appears in the Greek Magical Papyri. It was engraved on certain antique gemstones, called on that account Abraxas stones, which were used as amulets or charms. As the initial spelling on stones was 'Abrasax' (Αβρασαξ), the spelling of 'Abraxas' seen today probably originates in the confusion made between the Greek letters Sigma and Xi in the Latin transliteration. The word may be related to Abracadabra, although other explanations exist.
There are similarities and differences between such figures in reports about Basilides' teaching, ancient Gnostic texts, the larger Greco-Roman magical traditions, and modern magical and esoteric writings. Opinions abound on Abraxas, who in recent centuries has been claimed to be both an Egyptian god and a demon.^[3] The Swiss Psychologist Carl Jung wrote a short Gnostic treatise in 1916 called The Seven Sermons to the Dead, which called Abraxas a God higher than the Christian God and Devil, that combines all opposites into one Being

And this reference to Carl Jung is interesting, here is what he says about Abrasax....

God and devil are distinguished by the qualities fullness and emptiness, generation and destruction. EFFECTIVENESS is common to both. Effectiveness joineth them. Effectiveness, therefore, standeth above both; is a god above god, since in its effect it uniteth fullness and emptiness.

This is a god whom ye know not, for mankind forgot it. We name it by its name ABRAXAS. It is more indefinite still than god and devil.

either way kind of intriguing stuff, but I think the way this character was drawn was pretty weird and cool, so I wanted to do a drawing of Abraxas, I mean who can resist a character with the torso and arms of a male human, a chicken head, and snakes for legs, CRAZY!

Its a bit sketchy but I kinda like where its headed, if I have time I'll embellish it a bit more.

New Destiny

Destiny

Debbie D

Debbie D

Manu and the Great Flood

Many cultures have a deluge or flood myth, including India.  In this version of the story Vishnu appears in avatar form to a kind and wise man named Manu and warns him of the impending flood.

Katanga

Baldric Finish

finally found some time to finish Baldric

Boy and his volleyball

A cute triceratops

More Baldric

Just fussin some more with Baldric...

Sketching Baldric

I decided to change the sky color from tan to green, which I like a lot, it think its because the green sky is a complimentary color to Baldric's red skin.

I also added some color gradient layers set to "overlay" this adds some nice splashes of saturated color on Baldric.  I also put in some reflected green light coming from the sky color.  Still got a fair amount of work to do, and hopefully I won't mess it up along the way :)

Sketching Baldric

I'm almost done with the main character...  There is a lot of sky, need to figure out some cool clouds or something.

Sketching Baldric and finding "Flow"

I finally had a few minutes today to get back to Baldric, and, as you can see, made a BUNCH of changes.... for some reason I could just see where I needed to go with him better than before. 

I found today that I was enjoying some "Flow" which is an awesome state of mind to be in when you are creating.... I usually find myself in a state of "Flow" when I'm not anxious about the outcome of the picture... for more on "Flow" check out this link:  http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flow_%28psychology%29

Sketching Baldric

I like to use gradients to normalize tones....  I think it enhances the way the illustration looks and its a very quick way to smooth out otherwise kinda blotchy areas of the painting.  Its also a real nice way to quickly lay in lighting and begin to figure out light sources.  Of course gradients are kind of blunt, so you have to make them conform to surfaces by either simply "erasing out" the areas you don't want or you use a layer mask.  Layer masks are nice because you can continue to manipulate that layer as needed.


I found a great article by the master Paul Felix who gives some great instruction about the use of tones.... I HIGHLY recommend his entire article:
http://unofficialpaulfelix.blogspot.com/search?updated-max=2011-09-09T12:57:00-07:00&max-results=7&start=7&by-date=false

Here is a progress shot....  trying to stay uh, un-constipated

Sketching Baldric

I like the way this is turning out, thought I would post the work in progress... hope ya dig

Moving from sketch to finished painting... 
You know there is kind of a nice spontaneity to a sketch, lots of motion and energy is expressed in the lines.... but at some point you have to move to color, and the more finished and polished you try to make the image the harder it becomes to maintain that spontaneity.... its dang hard to do!

 When at first you don't succeed
I had an instructor in college named Doug Fryer.... excellent artist, and he used to look at my art and say something like "Mark, don't get too constipated"  I'm pretty sure he was not referring to my lower gastrointestinal tract... so I can get waaaay to wound up in a painting and get my head all out of sorts, usually because I'm looking at one of my favorite artists and I have this dialog going in my head that sounds something like, "how come he/she is sooo good and my picture looks like poo poo kaka!"  I think this is what professor Doug was referring to as being "constipated."  I've found that when I get caught up in the angst of my mediocrity, I can sometimes break out of it by just getting back into the sketch, which is what I have done.  Now I haven't made any real progress in painting, I've just kept the image from going down the drain.... I still have to paint the darn thing.  Well look for the next update in a few days, I really have to put this one down right now because I actually have paying customers to attend to.

Characters

for those who might be interested I took 5 hours per character

new works

more kids book images, I had a happy accident with the gradient tool on one of my more recent images and loved the way it looked, added a nice splash of color and gave an interesting geometric design element to the piece, sooo I went back and did the same thing to a few earlier pieces

Editorial Illustration

Hi Everybody, not sure if you are aware that I make art for the "editorial" market, basically illos for magazines.  If you need this sort of image for a project you are working on, please drop me a line....  mjarman1968@gmail.com

hope you like!  :)

This image is my latest promo piece.... this will go out to AD's this coming week

Here are a few I've done for Utah Business Magazine, my good friend Spencer is the AD there.... he gives me tons of work for which I am VERY grateful....

this is the cover for the October issue and interior spot

And a couple more, these were commissioned by the good folks at Scientific American Magazine...

If you are interested in seeing more of my editorial work, here's the link:
http://markjarman-illustration.blogspot.com/

goofy

This is what I come up with when I'm left to myself.... odd I know... comments welcomed :)