Macpeters

Web Developer and Artist

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A Look Back - 2019

It's December 31, 2019, and it seems like a great time to take a look back at the past year, and see what I've been up to, maybe think about what I'd like to do or experience in the coming year. Take a look at my Instagram for more pics: https://www.instagram.com/macpetersart/

New Ventures

  • Cartoons

    I've been heavily focussed on simplifying my art and working more on fundamentals. Cartooning seemed the ideal style - I can ignore the details and keep my mind on form and expression. I still think I need to push that a lot further, but I've started to get a little more comfortable with it.

  • Colours and Eye Training

    I'm really keen on a weekly drawing challenge called Animal Alphabets (on Twitter and Instagram) that chooses a theme and then goes through the alphabet with a new prompt for each letter. Previous themes included Extinct and Underwater, ending the year in the midst of Birds. Underwater and Birds especially have allowed me to start finding my footing in digital painting. I've been doing quick 'pencil' sketches followed by 'airbrush', and a quick 'erase' near the end to clean it all up. Next year I want to put more time in getting used to using the pressure sensitivity.
    • Robin Red Breast drawing by Mac Peters
    The weekly Animal Alphabets challenge keeps me working on training my eye - and lets me work with tools I wouldn't normally use, while encouraging consistency within each alphabet.

  • Healing Visions Retreat

    I took the Healing Visions workshop at Katari Center - led by Chris Dyer with guest artist Mauro Perez Reategui. Of all the art workshops I've taken, this one had the least amount of actual art being done or art specific learning scheduled. That being said, I definitely think it was a worthwhile venture. A big part of what I get out of visionary art workshops is the opportunity to meet other visionary artists. Time spent creating together and sharing ideas is never wasted.
    • Mac Peters with Mauro Perez Reategui
    Mauro did a quick workshop on one day of the retreat so we could see his process. I tried following along for a bit, but he starts with opaque paint, and I use exclusively UV, so it doesn't work the same way. It was neat to see how he goes from dark to light, though, and I started a painting that I'll hopefully be able to finish early in the new year.

Drawing Projects

  • That Rat Bastard

    I have continued working on the character I started developing over October, and I've taken to calling him That Rat Bastard, and I've continued sketching him with more dynamic poses and facial expressions. I still think I can push that expressiveness a lot more, so I want to continue working with cartoons.

  • Draw 9

    As part of my work on improving fundamentals, I've spent some time on focussed studies of things I think I need more work on. I practiced drawing darker skinned ladies, partly as a study for my Blue Face painting. I practiced babies and children because their proportions are so different from adults, they require special attention. Then I tried goats and mice/rats. I found the mice and rats super easy compared to the goats - part of the reason I chose a rat as my Inktober character, but also a call to spend more time on hoofed animals, which are trickier to draw.
Warrior Girl by Mac Peters

Paintings

  • Red Eye (working name)
  • Green Eye (working name)
  • Purple Eye (working name)
  • Yellow Eye (working name)
  • Warrior Girl
  • Cactus Guy (working name)
  • Cosmic Dancer
  • Serenity
  • Festival Frog