Sam Winder

Working from life and painting with oils

My color palette consists of seven colors (including black and white). The colors from the top left corner and going clockwise are: titanium white, ultramarine blue, ivory black (or mars black), alizarin crimson, cadmium red, yellow ocher, and cadmium yellow light. I have two yellows and two reds. Yellow ochre is used when I mix flesh tones, while cadmium yellow is usually used for greens and light yellows. Alizarin crimson is cooler than cadmium red. I will mix either cadmium red or aliziran crimson depending on the lighting. For example, while painting a human face the light can make the flesh tones very warmer (use cadmium red) or cooler (use alizarin crimson). I mix blues and blacks with my yellows to get my green colors.

I don't need to have yellow ocher on my palette because I can just mix that color, but it makes much easier to have ready to go. I use yellow ocher in many flesh tones. To mix browns such as burnt sienna and burnt umber I mix different amounts of cadmium yellow, alizarin crimson, and ultramarine blue.

Value is color. In other words yellow already has a value with it.

I painted with my Grandma back in April. She wanted to paint the way I do, so she payed me for some lessons. We painted my brother, Andrew. It was great that he was willing to pose for us.

Above is the end result. My painting is the one on the right and her's is the one on the left. She has worked on her painting since and it looks a lot better. I was emotionally done with my painting after this day. I looked at it more as a sketch and not an official painting.

Above is a picture of when I painted with my friend and mentor Mitch Baird in West Linn, Oregon. He has a brilliant website at: http://www.mitchbaird.com/. I have learned so much from him. The above picture was a head painting session that took three or four hours. We painted my friend Jennifer. She was so awesome about it! She posed for free. My painting is the one on the left and Mitch's is the one on the right. This piece I was working on seeing the main shapes and then add detail later.

Sketchbook

Above is a collection of my sketches. A lot of them are straight from my imagination. I will sketch people while waiting for the bus, in school class, or at church meetings. My sketchbook has a lot more head drawing than figure drawing.

It is best to draw from life, in the classroom or in the field. This is because drawing from life forces me to draw the subject matter in a constrained time limit. If I am outside then I have only a couple hours or minutes before the light changes. When the light changes both the value and color changes. If I am drawing a running horse from life have but a few seconds to capture the image in my mind and then sketch it onto paper. Working from a picture of a running horse is not as effective because I will be focusing more on the details of the photograph instead of the basics. It is more important to me that I understand the shapes and forms in the action of a running horse than copying a photograph.

The above computer illustration is titled, 'The Lost Mods playing outside.' I did three drawings and then scanned them into photoshop. I did an individual pencil drawing for the guitarist, bass player, and the singer with the drummer. I combined all of them together to create a band. I then added in color and shading in photoshop using the following tools: paint bucket, gradient, pen tool, and the brush tool.

The above computer sketch is titled, 'Kyle Scoufield: Mod Guitarist sketch.' Kyle Scoufield is a character in a story I'm writing. My sister took a picture of me playing guitar and I did a pencil sketch of that. I wasn't wearing my glasses and the sketch didn't look exactly like me, so I decided it would be Kyle Scoufield. In this piece you can still see the pencil drawing. This was the effect I was going for. I wanted the texture of the graphite to impact the rest of the piece when I added in color in photoshop.

Rite of Spring

Graphic Art

Click picture to enlarge picture

Above is a picture from a book I wrote and illustrated titled, 'How Eye Learned to See.' I put the illustrations to music and made a video on youtube that can be found at: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y2HeLKRN7Fg&feature=channel

The character's name is Zoey Joey and I did this piece using multi-media. I did a pen and ink sketch and scanned it into Photoshop. I then added in the color and shading digitally in Photoshop. The background is a painting I did on illustration board with acrylics. I used drips and splatter techniques to get an abstract and ugly looking background.

Here are some of the picture I have been working on for the past month. I actually did all of the sketches for these over a year ago. The Darth Mal piece I did the original sketch about two years ago. It hasn't been until recent that I have put them into photoshop. I used the pen and brush tools to create these pieces.
-Sam Winder

Michael Jordan and James Dean

This is Michael Jordan of the Chicago bulls. The painting is done in acrylic on illustration board. The good thing about the painting is I captured the iconic presence of MJ. The bad thing about the painting is I could have added more detail and value. Originally I wanted to do a caricature of MJ. Funny how things change in the process.

(Above)I think James Dean is a very iconic figure. That is the reason I did a painting of him. The piece above is done with acrylic on illustration board. It is trying to mimic a photograph, but I did add a bright stripe of cadmium red in his hair. It was supposed to me monochromatic, but I couldn't help adding in grays, browns, and purples to my color pallet.

Pen Tool Portraits in Photoshop

This is a portrait I did of Tegan from the band Tegan and Sara. I've done this style before. I did this with the paint brush tool on photoshop, but I could have easily done it with the pen tool as well.
-Sam Winder

Bajio Caricatures

(above) amilio, memo, and jeff:

(below) gary, john, and melody:

santiago, hector, joey, and ryan:

esau, elizabeth, and sam:

-Sam Winder

Haiti Earthquake

This is one of my favorite conceptual pieces I have ever done. I am telling the story of the Haiti earthquake of 2010. I did this piece in acrylic, pencil, pen, and marker. This was a triptych piece on value. I used three different value schemes for this piece. The first is domanintly white with gray and a little black. The second panel is mostly gray, and the last piece is primarily black.

The first panel is extremely large and the next two get progressively smaller. The first panel is of a Haiti native with exploding eyes to show the terrible impact of the earthquake. I made the border of the piece white and have the exploding tears go onto the border to represent the drama and impact of the earthquake. As the panels progressivly get smaller it represents the the destruction and fading hope for Haiti and its future.

The second panel in the triptych is of a politician with money, a UN car, a camera (for the press), and a newspaper coming out of his head. This represents how people from first world countries, including America, try to help Haiti durning it's time of struggle. It also represents how people (mostly politicians) aren't necessarily helping, but just reporting about the issue and arguing about the what to do.

The last panel is of a crying stars, and its tears are falling on a Haiti native holding the countries flag. This represents the little hope for Haiti. The white star contrasts with all the black that surrounds the issue. This means there is hope but it is very small. The star looks like it is crying to represent the mourning that comes before the light of hope shines on the country.
-Sam Winder

Subject Matter Is Important!

This piece is done in acrylic on illustration board. It is a study of a female guitarist. I was focusing on value and color for this piece. Everything is fairly monotone accept the bright orange color on the guitarists' left arm. This adds emphasis to the piece so it isn't so dull.

Rock Band Illustration

Here is one of my first illustrations of a rock band. I did most of this in photoshop. The characters were done in pencil and then scanned into the computer. The background was mostly done with the pen tool.