Hand drawn fire...

... is just dandy! 

One of the reasons I was disappointed in my last piece is I didn't learn anything... and I was so afraid hand-drawing the little fire that I resorted to Photoshop trick which depicted a mighty fine fire, no doubt, but was a bit of cop-out.

Other than learning a little more about Photoshop I didn't learn anything from the last piece.

I put this picture up once before; it's Drake Brodahl's contribution to the Eaton Gallery tribute to Hanna-Barbera:

I love the colors and the shading.  i love the textures.  This is the product of an extremely experienced artist.  I'm very jealous, quite frankly.

But one thing I really love is that fireplace.  So I decided to isolate the fireplace and just draw it, nothing else, including hand-drawing the fire.  This is what I came up with:

Such simple shapes.  And such great colors and textures.

This was a lot of fun to draw and although it looks very simple, getting the textures to look something like Brodahl's was a lot of work.

All drawn in Photoshop except for the fire which I drew in ArtRage that, when it really comes down to it, wasn't entirely necessary... Photoshop has brushes with a chalk texture... but it's fun to switch between programs.

Lesson for today: you draw with shapes.  Once your shapes are committed that's when you go nuts with the colors and textures.

Shapes.  And the simpler the shapes, it seems, the better.