Illustration Guy Blog – Page 77 – The Chad Frye

Step-By-Step: Yogi Bear’s Pic-A-Nic – Step 3

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date April 11, 2013

Welcome to step 3 of building my traditional watercolor painting of Yogi Bear & Co., The Pic-A-Nic on the Grass. Previous stages in the process that we covered were the drawing/research stage, then the underpainting stage. Today we begin to add color.

If the under painting is the foundation, then today’s application of color is the framework of our construction. The goal is to lay in thin layers of color for atmosphere and to fill in the divots of the paper with color that more detailed painting would not do later on. When you paint, you should always start from the back of the scene to the front. There are several reasons why, most of which have to do with helping you create depth in your work. It helps to build on top of what was done before to create a more lush look by the time the whole painting is completed.

Since this is a parody of a Manet painting, the color palette is somewhat predetermined. Manet figured out the color scheme, so this is just an interpretation of it. I’m not making a direct copy. If I was doing that, then I would be painting in oils and there wouldn’t be a bunch of cartoon bears in the composition. So, when mixing colors, I’m trying to get to the essence of the antique work that has come before.

This is primarily a woodsy scene, requiring lots of green. I mixed about three different shades of green for the trees. Also in the mix are two shades of yellow, and one shade of blue which, oddly enough, is for the sky.

By the way, the painting needs to lie completely flat on a horizontal surface. If you paint with watercolors on a tilted surface, the paint will follow the laws of gravity and streak down your paper. Since we are not creating a rainy day scene, use a flat surface.

I know that I want these colors to blend and mix right on the paper, so to do that, I start applying plain ol’ water with a large brush. I try to apply it mostly to just the white areas because if I get the purple underpainting too wet, that will start to smear. The empty dry patches will be filled in as I apply paint to the wet paper and all will smooth out without smudging the under painting too much.

In this stage, the base colors begin to be added all swirly-whirly like onto paper pre-soaked with deliberately placed water.

So, with my large #12 brush, I started dabbing in paint onto the wet paper, and spreading it around to my satisfaction. You do need to keep an eye on it while it dries just so that you can control any pooling of paint where it was too wet. If a pool dries, you will get sharp edges of color in that spot that may be undesirable.

You can see in the image above how the purple underpainting shows through. It still has a purple-ish hue, but also takes on the colors of whatever is applied on top. Lots of young artists starting out immediately think that shadows should be painted in with black, but that is not true to life. Shadows are usually darker shades of the color they are shadowing. In art, it can be fun to make shadows a color like I did with purple. There are no blacks in this painting at all.

You can see in the close-up below how the colors blend in spots, and have edges in others. It will all come together later. You can also see some of my original pencil drawing under the paint. If you leave your pencil lines too dark, this will happen. In this case I knew that would happen, and even in the finished art you can still see some of my pencil lines. This was intentional. In this age of so much art being created digitally, I wanted this to completely have that handmade look.

You can see how the greens blend in with the yellows and blues which is the result of painting with wet paint onto wet paper. Since the purple was pre-painted and dried, the green only covers the purple, not blend in with it. If you work it too much, the purple would start to smear and look “muddy.”

So, come back tomorrow to see how the background was finished up!

Step-By-Step: Yogi Bear’s Pic-A-Nic – Step 2

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date April 10, 2013

Welcome to the second step in our discussion of creating my Yogi Bear parody of Èdouard Manet’s The Luncheon on the Grass painting. Yesterday we covered drawing the composition and prepping the art for painting. Grab your smock because today it’s about to get a little bit messy.

I like Winsor & Newton watercolor paints. They have tasty colors that go down smooth. They also make waaaay too many colors. I only buy maybe 15 – 20 colors, then mix them to get what I want. Some artists like using paint right out of the tube, so they buy everything. Good for them. Better for the pockets of Mr. Winsor and Mr. Newton.

A selection of my Winsor & Newton paints. And yeah, I use a white gouache instead of white watercolor. That’s how I roll.

Many students want to know what kind of brushes you use. I like soft brushes that hold their liquids well. The brushes I often use MUST come to a sharp point when wet. A good art store will let you test this with some water. You dip the brush into the water, then tap it on the lip of the cup. If the bristles snap to a point, you have found a good brush. If the bristles are forked in any way, avoid that brush. Yours will fork in time with use. You don’t want them to start out that way.

Name brand brushes don’t really matter, though, so long as you like what a particular brush can do for you. I do have this one larger Grumbacher flat brush I have had for at least 20 years that I like for quickly swathing on water and color in large areas like skies. I used it on this painting for some general ambient colors in the green of the trees, and for the large tree bark on the right. Otherwise I used a nice Round #12 brush made by Princeton Art & Brush Co. for 90% of the painting. For some of the smaller detail I used a #2 Round by the same company.

My #2 (brush, that is), #12, and an old Grumbacher brush I’ve used for 20 years.

Ok, so when I started this painting, I wanted to do what is called an “underpainting” first. Underpaintings are when you paint down some color in areas where you want it to show through your final layers of paint at the end of the project. Since watercolor is a transparent medium, most of my underpainting will show through in some way.

The underpainting on this Yogi Bear piece needed to help the overall intended feeling of “fun”, so I chose a bright purple color for all of my shading. Then I began to paint a monochromatic image of various shades of purple that was going to help create a little depth for this very flat piece of artwork.

When I first tried this technique a few years ago, my tendency was to paint the purples too lightly, and most of them ended up getting completely covered which was a huge waste of time to have painted them to begin with. So now I paint them in a little more aggressively so that they can serve their purpose when the other colors are applied over them.

Sometimes you just have to view the world through purple colored glasses.

One tip about applying watercolor paint onto the very absorbent watercolor paper is to paint down a layer of water first, let it soak in a little, and while it is still wet, apply your paint. That way you can get colors on there with less chance of an edge starting to dry and causing weird lines to show up in the middle of your work.

Watercolor is kind of a living creature until it dries. It looks one way when you first lay down the paint, but as it dries, it starts to change. You can push it, pull it, wet it some more and it continues to change. It is your sculpture to play with until it dries the way you want it to, but know that it does still have a mind of its own.

Here’s a close-up of the purple wonder so you can see the nuances of the paint.

When your underpainting is all dry, you are ready for the next step of adding the rest of your colors. Come back tomorrow as we begin that step in the process!

Animals Art: Painting Art: Watercolor Illustrations Step-By-Step

Step-By-Step: Yogi Bear’s Pic-A-Nic – Step 1

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date April 9, 2013
1 Comment on Step-By-Step: Yogi Bear’s Pic-A-Nic – Step 1

Recently I created a traditional watercolor painting of Yogi Bear, his buddy Boo-Boo, his girl Cindy Bear, and the Ranger for inclusion in a Hanna-Barbera themed art show at Van Eaton Galleries in Sherman Oaks, CA. (Photos from the opening night reception are in yesterday’s post.) Van Eaton invited over 100 artists to participate in what is a spectacular display of creative interpretation of the Hanna-Barbera stable of characters. The show will be on display until April 20. (CLICK HERE for details if you would like to go see all the work!)

When I was first approached to contribute, I was slightly hesitant. You see, I grew up watching Looney Tunes cartoons, and even some Disney ones on the side, but the Hanna-Barbera shows rarely saw face time in our family room. So I didn’t have any childhood fondness from which to draw – literally.

I did, however, help my pal Dana Thompson paint a Yogi Bear children’s book back when I was a young illustrator. The book had been penciled by famed Hanna-Barbera designer Iwao Takamoto, and I remember how we enjoyed looking, with great admiration, over Iwao’s very precise and brilliant pencil lines. So, with fondness for that experience, Yogi Bear was destined to be my subject.

Penciled by veteran Hanna-Barbera designer Iwao Takamoto about eighteen years ago, Dana Thompson recruited me and fellow illustrator Julie Speer to help him paint this Yogi Bear children’s book on a tight deadline.

To make it interesting for me, my mind wandered into the realm of parody. Exactly one hundred fifty years ago in 1863, Èdouard Manet created his massive 105 by 85 inch oil painting titled The Bath which later became known as The Luncheon on the Grass. He had created his piece for a group artist show in Paris, but the jury rejected it. Its subject matter was deemed unfit for the tastes of the day, and they didn’t care much for his technique and seeming ignorace of perspective by having the figure in the background appear far too large to be natural. So, Manet entered it in the Salon des Refusès which was a show of rejected paintings put together to spite the big show. Many pieces from the rejected show went on to define the modern art of their age.

While I don’t anticipate any controversy with The Pic-a-nic on the Grass (my parody title of course), it seemed like a fun way to portray the Yogi Bear cast in that natural setting along with the picnic basket that was always the focus of Yogi’s energies.

So, as with any artistic process, it must begin with a drawing. These days I generally do my preliminary work on a Cintiq tablet (a fancy monitor that allows you to draw right on the screen with an electronic pen). I work in layers in Photoshop so that I can resize and redraw bits and pieces here and there to get my composition just right. In this case, the setting was already figured out for me since I was doing a parody of an existing piece of art. I don’t often do this, but I imported Manet’s painting into Photoshop, and literally traced his environment.

Then I drew, and redrew Yogi Bear, Boo-Boo, Yogi’s girl Cindy Bear, and the Ranger along with the picnic blanket containing elements from Yogi’s world and Manet’s painting.

You can see that my drawing closely follows the layout of Manet’s painting.

The next step was to get that digital drawing onto actual watercolor paper. After figuring out what I wanted the final size to be, I printed out the drawing in two pieces onto Strathmore Layout Bond paper, taped them together, then traced them down onto my watercolor paper using homemade graphite paper (same concept as the old time carbon copies one might have done in the days of typewriters).

On top is graphite paper made by rubbing a soft pencil lead on one side of tracing paper. The graphite side faces down onto the surface of the final watercolor paper, you place a drawing on top, then trace down with a pencil.

The watercolor paper I used was Strathmore’s rough textured Watercolor Block paper. The paper comes in a stiff stack that prevents the paper from curling up when you apply wet media to it. I actually prefer Arches brand because I feel I can have more control over the paint on Arches, but I still have some of this Strathmore in the studio and decided to use it for this piece.

Once the drawing is down on the paper, you can erase the graphite and redraw areas if you feel it is necessary. I then taped down the borders of the image area with white Artists’ Tape (low tack so it peels up easily later, but also helps give you a clean edge to your painting if so desired). It is now ready for paint!

Come back tomorrow to see the first steps in the painting process!

Animals Art: Drawings Art: Preliminary Sketches Art: Watercolor Illustrations Step-By-Step

The Hanna-Barbera Art Show

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date April 8, 2013

This past Saturday night, April 6, Van Eaton Galleries in Sherman Oaks, California hosted a group art show where over 100 artists created a piece of art within the theme of cartoons from the Hanna-Barbera Studio. This was the first group show of which I have ever been a part, and WHAT A SHOW!

The opening night reception was attended by a staggering amount of people. When I first inched my way into the gallery, the first person I said “hello” to was Janet Waldo, the original voice of Judy Jetson. Even Rose Marie from “The Dick Van Dyke Show” was in attendance. You couldn’t see the art because of the sea of people! You almost needed to take some Dramamine as you waded through.

Below are some highlights of the show:

This was the scene on the sidewalk outside of Van Eaton Galleries where folks were trying to get some air while the inside was shoulder to shoulder with art enthusiasts.

The crowd continued indoors! On the extreme left is the great character actor Ed Lauter (“The Artist”, “The Rocketeer”) whose mother-in-law was Bill Hanna’s secretary.

Yours truly posing under my Yogi Bear painting with friends James Lopez (Disney animator) and Chris Bailey (former Disney animator/director who now supervises animation for live action films and recently the “Despicable Me” ride in Universal Studios FL).

The “Pull My Finger Fred” – naw, I’m kidding. It’s “The Viewmaster Fred” by Lance Smith that was one of the pieces sold on opening night.

Here is my friend David Derks standing by his piece that wins for most obscure Hanna-Barbera show reference based on “Wait Till Your Father Gets Home” that aired in the early 1970s.

Here’s a shot of contributing artists all posing with Gerald Mendez at his terrific Droopy Dog piece. From L to R: Psycho James, Javier Soto, Enrique Pita, Gerald Mendez, A.R. and yours truly.

The crowd was whipped into a frenzy.

The gallery had this gentleman (on the left) building some of the most elaborate balloon sculptures I have ever seen. This one is of Shaggy and Scooby Doo being frightened by a monster.

This woman acquired a Huckleberry Hound from the balloon artist.

Dave Nimitz with a balloon version of “The Flintstones” Dino. Dave loaned a selection of his H&B toy collection for display at the show.

Orful Octopus from Hanna-Barbera’s “Laff-A-Lympics” made by Matthew Dutton topped by Alan Bodner’s charming Yakky Doodle painting.

The delightful Margaret Kerry (Walt Disney’s live-action Tinkerbell model for the original “Peter Pan” film) was also on hand to take in some of the evening’s fine art.

So, if you are in the Los Angeles area, please come see the show! You actually will have an easier time viewing the art without the opening night crowd blocking your view. This unique show will be hanging at the Van Eaton Galleries until April 20, and ALL ART IS FOR SALE!

CLICK HERE to see all the art and its availability.

Artwork is on display until April 20, 2013

Van Eaton Galleries

13613 Ventura Boulevard

Sherman Oaks, CA

Please come back tomorrow when I will begin to show a step-by-step progression of my Yogi Bear painting!

Animals Art: Animation Chad About Town

Lounge Lizard

It has been awhile since my last post. Things have been swamped at the office with the imminent debut of an animated television show I have been working on for the past fourteen months, and the schedule has not lightened up one bit. Spending all day every day drawing in someone else’s style can wear on you a tad, so every now and then you need to let a little of yourself out on the page.

Last night I wanted to do something fun to break in a brand new sketchbook. As any follower of my blog knows, I enjoy drawing monsters, and if I have to draw a real life monster, reptiles are what come to mind first. This skeevy looking alligator fell out of my pen ready to prey on his next unsuspecting victim. Right now he has his eye on Ms. Animation Deadline.

Yeah, he thinks he looks suave, but he’s really all gut and no glory.

Animals Art: Drawings Art: Inking Character Designs Monsters Random Doodles Sketchbook

Happy Presidents’ Day – 2013

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date February 15, 2013

Here in the United States we used to separately celebrate the February birthdays of our two favorite Presidents, George Washington (February 22) and Abraham Lincoln (February 12). Somewhere along the way somebody got tired of paying people to frolic and play for two days, so they combined the two holidays into one (February 18) and called it the generic “Presidents’ Day” even though many Presidents didn’t earn the right to be celebrated.

Abraham Lincoln is definitely one who deserves celebrating, most notably for ending slavery and trying to mend a fractured nation. He is honored, along with George Washington, by being pictured on both coin and paper money. Towns, schools, cars, even logs are all named after Lincoln. He is a memorable part of Disneyland, and has been the subject of many books, movies, and television shows.

One of the earliest portrayals of Lincoln in film was by Charles Brabin for the short His First Commission in 1911, roughly a mere ten years after motion pictures were invented. Lincoln has been portrayed in films and television over 300 times by actors such as Walter Huston, John Carradine, Henry Fonda, Jason Robards, Hal Holbrook, Gregory Peck, and more recently by Daniel Day-Lewis.

For all these reasons, and the fact that he has such an intriguing face, I felt compelled to try a more grown-up approach to painting than what I am used to. Using red, white and blue as my palette, this piece came forth last weekend in watercolor with a hint of colored pencil here and there. While employing a more mature technique, I’m still a cartoonist. So this remains a caricatured interpretation of a President I admire greatly.

Abraham Lincoln in all of his red, white, and blue.

If you are interested in seeing my preliminary drawing for this painting, please come join my Facebook page where it is exclusively on display. You can keep up with my blog posts there, along with seeing extra drawings that get posted ONLY there. CLICK HERE to visit my Facebook page!

Art: Colored Pencil Art: Painting Art: Watercolor Caricature Illustrations

40th Annual Annie Awards – 2013 (part 2)

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date February 7, 2013

Earlier this week I shared with you some of my photos taken from the balcony during the 2013 Annie Awards held at Royce Hall on the campus of UCLA in Los Angeles. What made the evening a little more special is that it happened to be the 40th anniversary of the Annies.

Never to miss an opportunity to be a support to an industry that has supported her for most of her 95 years, the First Lady of Animation June Foray was in attendance. June is legendary for her many vocal roles in film and television. You know her as Rocky from Rocky & Bullwinkle, Witch Hazel from Bugs Bunny and Donald Duck cartoons, she was the meowing cat Lucifer in Disney’s Cinderella, Cindy-Lou Who from the Grinch cartoon, the creepy Talky Tina from The Twilight Zone, and Granny from Tweety & Sylvester cartoons among many, many others. She is one of a handful of voice actors to have a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.

June Foray is an ASIFA-Hollywood founding member. She and a few other folks founded the organization because they felt that there wasn’t much support for animation here in Los Angeles. In 1972, she thought there should be awards for the industry, and an idea was born that carries on to this day.

Below is a short film that was shown during the recent awards ceremony. Filmed in a documentary style, the short shows June and others (including Margaret Kerry, the live action model for the animated Tinkerbell in Disney’s Peter Pan) recounting the early days of ASIFA-Hollywood and the founding of the Annie Awards. My good friend Brian Joseph Ochab directed the piece. If you follow my blog, you might recognize Brian’s name from when he and I were trying to get a short Tim Burton tribute film off the ground. This piece was also produced by our friend and ASIFA-Hollywood board member David Derks, with an original music score by Peter Deneff.

Enjoy, and please check out ASIFA-Hollywood’s website when you have a moment!

Annie Awards: The First Forty Years Montage from ASIFA Hollywood on Vimeo.

Art: Animation Chad About Town Videos

40th Annual Annie Awards – 2013 (part 1)

Post author By Chad Frye
Post date February 4, 2013

The 40th annual Annie Awards took place this past Saturday, February 2, in Royce Hall on the campus of UCLA. Even though we love ya’ Tomorrow, the Annies have nothing to do with little singing red-haired orphans. ASIFA-Hollywood formed the Annies to honor the best and the brightest in the field of animation. They were conceived by founding member and legendary voice actress June Foray (Tweety’s Granny, Rocky the flying squirrel). So, when the lights went down in the auditorium Saturday night, the industry was on hand to honor the fantastic work unveiled in 2012.

I had a nice bird’s eye view of the stage from my perch in the balcony. It was great to see several personal friends and colleagues walk to the stage to accept their golden zoetrope trophies throughout the ceremony.

The Annies’ stage right before the festivities began. Also, the back of the head of the great animator T. Dan Hofstedt.

The ceremony was hosted by film critic and animation aficionado Leonard Maltin, occasionally aided by the voices of Pinky and the Brain Rob Paulsen and Maurice LaMarche. And there were many celebrity presenters on hand from movies and television, but all having worked as voice actors in animation.

Maurice LaMarche, Leonard Maltin, Seth Green and Rob Paulsen having a conversation on stage at the Annie Awards.

Rocky & Bullwinkle? Close – June “Rocky” Foray and Leonard “not Bullwinkle” Maltin just before presenting the June Foray Award to Howard Green of the Walt Disney Studios.

June Foray was surprised on stage by Reel FX when they presented her with their Texas Avery Award for her many years of work in animation. June was overwhelmed with gratitude, and regaled the audience with tales of having worked with Tex Avery as far back as on the famous “Red Hot Riding Hood”.

Chris Bailey accepting the Annie for Best Animated Special Production awarded to “Despicable Me – Minion Mayhem”, an immersive attraction that you can experience at Universal Studios Florida. Actor Sam Witwer (Being Human) stands behind him on the right.

John Eng accepting his award for directing on Dreamworks’ “Dragons: Riders of Berk” television show. John and I were working on a movie based on Zhu Zhu Pets (that strangely enough also contains a dragon) when he left to direct on “Dragons”, so it was exciting to see him win. And yes, that is actress Mindy Sperling from “Austin Powers” over his shoulder.

Voice actor Jim Cummings and “The Simpsons” creator Matt Groening. Jim helped present a couple of awards not only as himself, but also as both Tigger and Winnie the Pooh to the delight of the audience.

Actress Ming-Na Wen (voice of Disney’s Mulan) who presented the Winsor McCay Award for lifetime achievement to Mulan’s animator Mark Henn.

Mark Henn giving a very heartfelt and humble speech after accepting his Winsor McCay Award. Mark’s work at Disney includes animating Ariel, Belle, Jasmine, young Simba, Tiana, Oliver, Dodger, Pooh, and even all the dancing hula girls at the beginning of “Lilo & Stitch”. He also directed the very stylish short “John Henry”. The other two Winsor McCay recipients of the evening included Oscar Grillo and Terry Gilliam.

Cowabunga – it’s the cast from the latest “Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles” with Sean Astin (Goonies, Lord of the Rings, Rudy), Mae Whitman (Parenthood), Greg Cipes, Jason Biggs and Rob Paulsen.

Director Rich Moore (who won earlier for directing a feature) and producer Clark Spencer accepting the Best Animated Feature Annie Award for their movie “Wreck-It Ralph”. “Ralph” won four awards that night along with Disney winning Best Animated Short with “Paperman” the short film that played in front of “Wreck-It Ralph”.

There was plenty of time for socializing at the Annies with both a pre party where many “good lucks” were wished, and an after party where much back slapping was experienced by those who won awards. If you would like to see a full list of the nominees and winners, please CLICK HERE.

Simpsons creator Matt Groening having a chat with Mulan director Tony Bancroft.

Yours truly, actor Sam Witwer from “Being Human” and nominated that evening for voicing Darth Maul in “Star Wars: The Clone Wars”, Sam’s wife Sarah, their friend Daniel, and my friend and colleague Steffi Larson.

Art: Animation Chad About Town