video

Paint a Turkey

| Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}
How to paint a turkey

As I cleared the Halloween stuff off the mantle and setup up the Thanksgiving decorations I realized my selection was lacking. What to do? Grab a small canvas and paint a turkey of course!

Watch my process in the Youtube video below. Please like and subscribe!

Looking to follow along? You can find a list of my paint colors below.

Watch the video here.

View more fun Fall projects here!

Paint colors I used:

  • Tan – mixed from yellow and brown
  • Brown
  • Dark brown – mixed from brown and black
  • Black
  • Deep Red/Maroon – Alizarin Crimson or mix red with a little blue
  • Pink – mixed from white and deep red
  • Light blue – mixed from white, blue, and a little pink
  • White
  • Green – mixed from Phthalo Green and white

Filming Your Art Process

| Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

Filming Your Art Process #phone #stand
I’m really excited about the gift I recently received. It’s a stand to hold my phone above my work area so I can make a video of my painting process. The stand is called an Akron Kitchen Desk Table Stand.

Previously I would try to hold my phone or iPad in front of me so I could record a short snippet of my process. People seemed to like these videos and also like the posts where I showed the stages of a painting. Recording an entire painting from start to finish seemed like it would be interesting and helpful to share. And in timelapse you could see the entire process of a painting in a few minutes!

Click here to see one of my first videos with the new stand on Instagram. It’s where I add the foam of the ocean. What a difference from the starting point to the end!
Painting sea foam with white gouache #watercolor #ocean

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Have you visited my online shop? Prints of my seascapes are available on watercolor paper or canvas, in many sizes including the new “mini” canvas 11″ x 14″ at shop.eileenmckenna.com. Take a peek!

Exploring Animation

| Eileen McKenna {my creative resolution}

This year, I’ve started to explore animation. My interest was peaked by some really talented people, especially Rachel Ryle. Definitely check her out (all links below).

I first started playing with hyperlapse video and stop motion video and created videos that were a painting in progress. But keeping the camera steady while working was a challenge. And stopping periodically to film wasn’t any easier.

https://instagram.com/p/4SQ8saH6Rr/?taken-by=mycreativeresolution
https://instagram.com/p/1_O25En6Uk/?taken-by=mycreativeresolution

Next I played with adding motion to my illustrations by creating animated gifs. (Like the tire swing above and my skeleton below.) I was inspired by Illustrator Nancy Liang. (Check out her work in the link below.) I used Photoshop to create the “scenes” (saved as separate gifs) and then would put all the gifs together in imovie. This is a bit tedious because each and every step of a movement has to be a different scene.

https://instagram.com/p/9etNEFn6Yx/?taken-by=mycreativeresolution

I knew their was a better way! I found a talented animator, Emanuele Columbo, on Instagram and asked him what he used to create his animations (link below). How nice of him to share that he used After Effects. And I own After Effects! (It came with a bundle of other Graphic Design software.)

A twenty minute tutorial on youtube by Kriscoart Productions has given me the basics and I’m ready to try After Effects and create a new animation!

But first, as with any animation, you need the artwork to animate. I love the idea of animating my watercolor and ink drawings. My goal is to have an animated turkey by Thanksgiving. Since I’m not cooking this year, I should be able to pull it off!

Below are links to the Animators/Illustrators that have inspired me. What I love about these three is that they all have their own (very different) styles. I’m hoping my animations will be a reflection of me. Animation is definitely going to be a focus of mine in 2016!

Inspiration:
Rachel Ryle
Nancy Liang
Emanuele Columbo

After Effects tutorial by Kriscoart Productions