I’m streaming the work-in-progress creation of “Faerietank.” All the videos are posted, and you can also sometimes catch me painting it live.

Sign up on my facebook page for notifications of starting and stopping times.

Can you guess who this is?

Based on a portrait by Johann Zoffany (that ought to be a hint:).

This portrait study is of King George III

Fun Fact:
Many people wonder why audiences stand during the Hallelujah Chorus of Handel’s “The Messiah”.

It started on the first performance when King George II, father of this man, became so overcome with emotion he stood out of respect to God. Because no one was allowed to sit while the king was standing, the audience rose to their feet as well.

King George III, depicted here, continued on this tradition. George continued to hold Handel as his favorite musician throughout his life and frequently attended his performances.

[Study is loosely based on a portrait by Johann Zoffany]
http://www.bryanbeus.com/blog/?p=2378

For new readers just tuning in: You are invited to participate in this painting! It’s a faerie tank—like a fish tank, but with faeries instead. You don’t need any more information to start. Just look the drawing over, gather thoughts, and comment below. To see where this project all began, click here.

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Today we’re going to look at the value study.

First, let’s see what happened since last time. Here’s a link to the drawing we saw earlier:

Blog and facebook readers made excellent observations:

Nathan, Kim, and Lisa made the observation that the center fairy had lost her prominence, balance, and gesture.

Katherine, Christina, and beushome pointed out things that are working, such as depth and (crucially) that we’re having fun!, and that we can hope our other viewers will, too.

Kim and Christina both said that the fairy playing around in the castle is a little confusing. I’ve made a few small adjustments; we’re not going to do too much as the value perhaps clarified and I also like leaving a little bit of mystery for now. When it’s finished it may be entertaining to have to look closer to see if there’s a fairy within the folds.

Amanda added that during the drawing stage she felt the upper half of the image held all the attention, so watch to see if adding value helped.

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Now, here’s the final value study! This is left loosely painted. We’ll take it tighter on the final painting.

What do you think?

Here’s some talking points you may like to consider. Feel free to copy/paste them into your comment:

• What’s the mood?

• Does our eye enter into the picture easily?

• Does our eye flow around the painting well?

• Do the values feel balanced?

• Is there a pleasant exit?

• Did we make the image stronger?

Looking forward to your feedback:)

Note to new readers: You are invited to participate! This is part of a work-in-progress painting of a faerietank (a fish tank, but with faeries instead). You don’t need any other background info to start; just read through the instructions, vote on the images, and leave feedback in the comments. If you would like to see where it all began, click here.

Okay everyone, we’ve come this far, and now it’s time to make the toughest decisions.

First, here’s our finalized thumbnail drawing:

Faerietank finalized thumbnail
By Bryan Beus - Fine Art & Illustration  |  View on Facebook

Now, we have a dozen or so different options available for the faeries and you get to decide who makes the cut, and who does not. Voting closes at midnight MST on November 22 (Thanksgiving).

There are six spots available for which the faeries are competing:

Faerietank faerie map
By Bryan Beus - Fine Art & Illustration  |  View on Facebook

A – Playing in the bubbles in front of the foliage.

B – Behind the hill, either hiding or looking pretty

C – Sucking on the glass at front

D – Drinking ambrosia from the fountain

E – Exploring the castle

F – Peering above the surface

For each spot there’s two or three contestants.

Voting is simple. Use the ballots just below each image to select the ones you’d like to see.

At the end, if you have an extra minute and you’d like to participate further (and I’d love it if you do), leave me your thoughts in the comments section.

Let’s get started:

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Exhibit A:

Playing in the bubbles in front of the foliage.
By Bryan Beus - Fine Art & Illustration  |  View on Facebook

Poll Closed
Final Result:
Faerie #1 – 20 votes
Faerie #2 – 4 votes
Faerie #3 – 9 votes

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Exhibit B:

Hiding behind the hill.
By Bryan Beus - Fine Art & Illustration  |  View on Facebook

Poll Closed
Final Result:
Faerie #1 – 3 votes
Faerie #2 – 23 votes

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Exhibit C:

The suckerfaeries.
By Bryan Beus - Fine Art & Illustration  |  View on Facebook

Poll Closed
Final Result:
Faerie #1 – 22 votes
Faerie #2 – 3 votes

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Exhibit D:

Drinking ambrosia at the fountain.
By Bryan Beus - Fine Art & Illustration  |  View on Facebook

Poll Closed
Final Result:
Faerie #1 – 11 votes
Faerie #2 – 21 votes
Faerie #3 – 5 votes

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Exhibit E:

Exploring the castle.
By Bryan Beus - Fine Art & Illustration  |  View on Facebook

Poll Closed
Final Result:
Faerie #1 – 10 votes
Faerie #2 – 9 votes
Faerie #3 – 11 votes

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Exhibit F:

Peering above the surface.
By Bryan Beus - Fine Art & Illustration  |  View on Facebook

Poll Closed
Final Result:
Faerie #1 – 12 votes
Faerie #2 – 18 votes

Some suggested talking points for comments (feel free to copy/paste this into your actual comment for reference)

• How is the thumbnail working as a whole? 

• If you were walking through a gallery and saw this, would you stop and look?

• Do you think there ought to be more foliage? Less foliage?

• How much do you think the foliage should resemble a forest vs a coral reef?

• If you could describe the painting in one word, what would it be?

• Any other thoughts?

Thank you for voting. I look forward to finding out which ones we’ll see in the final.

Also, if you’re enjoying this, please share it with your friends on facebook, twitter, and elsewhere else:)

First of all, thank you, everyone who participated in the initial voting. I’m excited to see how the painting turns out.

As a token of appreciation, I’m emailing/facebook-pm’ing everyone who voted a link to an exclusive desktop-wallpaper download. Thank you!

Furthermore, using a random number generator, I’ve selected two people from the voters to whom I am going to send a signed print:

The first is a 5×10′ish [when I say, 'ish', I mean I don't have a ruler handy] glossy print of “Slithy Toves”, which is a character design set I did from the poem, “Jabberwocky.”

And a 12×17′ish giclée print of Rapunzel:

And, those recipients are: Tristen Lawrence and Allie Bond. I’ll be contacting you soon.

Thank you again.

There were a little over fifty people who voted. Because some listed multiple paintings in which they’d be interested, I wasn’t sure how to count the votes. I decided on doing it in two ways.

First, I counted up just the first title/number that each person said in their postings. Second, I counted up how many times each painting was mentioned.

For the first result: “Fish Tank of Fairies” came in first, and “Children Playing” came in second. [19/11]

For the second result: “Fish Tank of Fairies” came in first, and “Children Playing” came in second. [31/17]

Which means, FISH TANK OF FAIRIES! WOO!

Stay tuned.

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(p.s. “Children Playing” may live to see another day)

First of all, if you haven’t already voted on last week’s post, make sure that you do; voting ends tomorrow at midnight.

A few years ago I worked on a trailer pitch for “The Loch” by Pennyfarthing Press, under director Ryan Woodward. It was a blast to do matte paintings and work on environmental design with them. Here is one of the final products (at 1200 pixels wide for now, because I don’t know the policy on posting full size studio work done for hire; the actual size is around 5000 pixels wide).

CLICK ON THIS IMAGE to see it at 1200 pixels wide:

Crop of the bridge:

Crop of the house where Ness, the main character, would live:

The piece is done on about 120 separate layers, as it was supposed to be a pan-in shot, so as the camera zoomed in the different layers would spread apart.

NEW: All parts posted. Scroll down for Part 6.

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3:

Part 4:

Part 5:

Part 6:

I put this six-part video series together in 2009, wasn’t sure what I’d do with it, and forgot about it until recently. Hope you enjoy it:)

When I finished the film I deleted the high-res video files (who knew there’d be such a thing as internet HD?) because they were so large, but below you’ll find some ways to see the painting in full detail.

If you would like to share the images please link to this post. Please do not link to the images directly. Thank you.

A medium-res version of the full painting with options for prints:

Detail Crop 800 x 600:

1024 x 768:

1280 x 1024:

Recently Daedelian Press commissioned me to do a series of religious paintings. I’ve wanted to do this for quite some time, so when the opportunity came I jumped on the chance.

Here’s the cover. The upper and lower portion of the image have been left empty to leave room for the type.

For those who have asked, I put up a storefront. Check it out!