Gord & Jay went LIVE!

Man, after some incredibly frustrating technical issues, we finally got our Google Hangout going last night and we ended up having a good time with it. Here's the YouTube video of that momentous occasion...

And who know, we might do some more of these things!

Here's a few show notes too:

• All of this was, of course, to coincide with the 31 Day Drawing Challenge. Go check it and join in!
• Ladies and Gentlemen, the Quokka.
• Those elusive Staedtler blue pencils! Come on Galway!?!
• The return of Loviatar.

 Back soon!

Gord & Jay go LIVE!

Hey folks, we just wanted to give you all the head's up that we will be hosting an informal live drawing and talking session on Google Hangouts this very evening. This is to coincide with the 31 Day Drawing Challenge currently running through the almighty Galway Pub Scrawl. You can find all of the pertinents about the challenge here, and do feel free to join in if you are so inclined!

Today's topic is directly inspired by one of Gord's recent personal projects - depicting unusual animals beginning with a particular letter. So Gord will be working on an animal beginning with the letter C, Jay went with the letter Q for some silly reason... what a chump.

We're welcoming people that want to join in on the video chat, so don't be shy, come have a laugh and do some fun drawing with us too.

Hope to see everybody there later!

SketchCast #2 is here!

Hey folks, Gord and Jay are back with another edition of everybody's favourite alternative to the regular Gord & Jay Talk Art Podcast, it's the Gord & Jay SketchCast!

For those that don't know, the SketchCast is different to our usual Podcast in that it's just basically the two of us having a chat while we draw. It's much more laid back in this way and there's no real theme or topic to stick to. It's just good, clean, healthy art discussion. And here it is...

You can right-click here to download the episode.
Or you can go to our iTunes channel (Why does nobody rate and comment, darn it?!).

Apologies for the audio in this episode, there was a glitch. It may have even been a Gremlin. Possibly a Ghost in the Machine. We've got Steven Spielberg and Sting looking into it, anyway.

All of the musical additions in this episode are by Jay's crazy talented musician brother, Ryan Penn. Thanks Ry-Pie!

Jay draws naked ladies...

Hey folks, Jay here. As I mentioned in Episode 10, I've been really enjoying my Wednesday night Life Drawing class, and I promised I'd show some of the recent results. So here they are:

As you can see, I'm hanging on to that brown toned paper system for my very life! I used to use a white gouache for the highlighting, but I'm trying out various white pencils to see if there is another way to do it. And I have plenty of white pencils to choose from...

Catcha on the soundwaves!

Gord & Jay Talk Art Episode 10: Conventions

We've made it to double figures! Aren't we awesome! Yes. Yes, we are indeed.

So Episode 10's meaty topic is Conventions. We talk about our experiences while attending them and how they may play a part in what we have planned for the future. Here are the show notes:

• Gord's Robot Monster Girl can be found here.
• Jay's first 4-page The Circle story can be found here.
• Becky Cloonan's fantastic 'Wolves' one-shot comic can be found here and here.
• Jay mentioned Mike Allred. He wrote and illustrated Madman, amongst many other things.
• Use extreme caution when attempting to pronounce Bill Sienkiewicz' surname.
• Here is the Slaine convention sketch Liam Sharp did for Jay.
• Paper Wings host Lora Innes' webcomic is called The Dreamer. It is beautiful!
• Gord's 'Spotlight Artist' for this episode is the great Dave Mckean.
• Jay uses Illustrator CC for all of his logo work. He is not in any way affiliated with Adobe or its subsidiaries. But he thinks he should get a free month for all of the public praise he gives them and their products.

The three artists Jay interviewed are-

• Ruth 'the Champion' Campion.
• The always delicious Patrick Gavin.
• Katie Creaven. She's okay we guess.

and here's the important stuff like where to download the episode...

You can right-click here to download the episode.

Or you can go to our iTunes channel (be kind and subscribe, rate and comment!).

We use music and sounds by Setuniman, FreqMan, indigosierra, Goup_1, FoolBoyMedia, Timbre and Jay's brother, Ryan Penn.

Gord & Jay Talk Art Episode 9: Rigs

This episode is a monster! We didn't intend it to be, we promise!
But if there's a lesson to be learned, it's that bringing up the subject of tools and materials makes Jay rather talkative. Better watch for that in the future...

Anyway, here's the show notes from Episode 9.

• Gord mentioned a few pieces he's been working on, including his renditions of Jekyll & Hyde and Druss.
• Jay spoke of the two (1 & 2) bookmarks he made for his brother Daniel. The Stronghold fanzine can be found here, and The Other of One is here.
• Gord has a small, yet still substantial, hoard of these Staedtler Mars mechanical pencils.
• When shopping for fancy new artistic implements, Jay chooses JetPens for all of his obsessive needs. Here's the pencil sharpener he's a little too crazy about.
• Jay can very often be found every second Monday evening at Galway Pub Scrawl, he will also be attending the Mach 21st Dr. Sketchy event (which Jay got the theme complete wrong, it's Gotham Villains, sorry Scarlet) and will be running around at the 11th Annual ITZACon at NUI Galway. He'll be drawing things and selling prints and original art and generally causing a disturbance.

Here are the usual important bits about the podcast-

You can right-click here to download the episode.

Or you can go to our iTunes channel (be kind and subscribe, rate and comment!).

The intro music is by Setuniman, all of the rest is by Jay's brother, Ryan Penn. He'll do, we suppose...

On a serious note, as we discuss at the end of the episode, we are dedicating this particular podcast to the memory of the great Terry Pratchett. He will be missed in no small way by any of us involved or interested in the fantasy genre.

Talking... AND drawing?!?!?!

As was briefly discussed in Episode 8, the two of us thought we'd try our hands at doing a more loose podcast while we were drawing away. With no particular theme in mind, we'd just talk about what we were doing as we were doing it and get into some general art discussions when the thought struck us.

The resulting recording is the...

We had oodles of fun doing it, and we're going to make it a semi-regular thing on top of the usual, more structured podcast.
So here it is for your listening pleasure-

You can right-click here to download the episode.
Or you can go to our iTunes channel (be kind and subscribe, rate and comment!).

And as promised in the sketchcast, here are the accompanying pieces we were working on.

GORD

Picture 1: Them's a lot of stones to render.

Picture 2: Coming along...

JAY

Picture 1: A pretty typical warm-up page.

 

Picture 2: Working out a thumbnail

 

Picture 3: Getting the figure roughed in.

We're currently toying with the idea of doing these sketchcasts with actual, running video and doing it live. But we'll see how it progresses from here.

Enjoy.

Gord & Jay Talk Art Episode 8: Discipline

Here we are again for Episode 8 of what is rapidly becoming a fan-favourite podcast among people who are, in fact, Jay & Gord... we just love it.

We talk about a whole mess of things in this episode, so let's get straight to the show notes, shall we?

• Here's an early Picasso. Not too shabby!
• Mattisse... meh.
• The fantastic Chris Riddell, who is very prolific but maintains a really consistently high skill level.
• He worked on 'The Edge Chronicles' with PAUL Stewart.
• Here is some of Peter Mohrbacher's Angelarium work. Jay particularly likes Hod.
• Peter does a webcast thingy with the also awesome Sam Flegal, called One Fantastic Week. It's a great show and very informative.
• Here is PJ Lynch again, and here is the art class he often gives. Jay will put his piece from the day up on the Facebook page soon.
• The mighty Bill Watterson!
• The third of our challenges is for folks to try their hand at rendering this guy. So get drawing!

And here's the usual round-up stuff:

You can right-click here to download the episode.

Or you can go to our iTunes channel (be kind and subscribe, rate and comment!).

We use music and sounds by Setuniman, WebbFilmsUK, venicesurf, northern87 and indigosierra. We continually thank them!

Gord & Jay Talk Art Episode 7: Reference

In this episode, we get into the thorny issue of the use of reference for artists. It's a touchy subject, but we manage to get through it without calling each other names.
Here are the show notes from the episode.

• You can see both Gord and Jay's community challenge entries over on the podcast's Facebook page.
• Here be the mighty Druss!
• This is PJ Lynch, and here is the art class he often gives.
• Jay mentioned a few artists, including Norman Rockwell, Frank Frazetta and Donato Giancola.
• Here are those Tombow pens again, and this is the Bristol Board Jay likes to use.
• Here's the whole Nick Simmons plagiarism thing. It's pretty funny.
• The artist in spotlight for this episode is the great Calum Alexander Watt. If you haven't seen his work already, you simply must go check him out!

And here's the usual round-up stuff:

You can right-click here to download the episode.

Or you can go to our iTunes channel (be kind and subscribe, rate and comment!).

We use music and sounds by Setuniman, venicesurf, northern87 and indigosierra. We continually thank them!

Gord & Jay Talk Art Episode 6: Careers Day

Episode 6 is a whole heap of fun, as we discuss our current views on how our careers are going and where we want them to go in the future, both near and far.
Here are the all important show notes:

• Gord and Jay both talked about how their renditions of the mighty Slaine have fared. Gord's wins by not only being awesome in all sorts of ways, but also by actually existing!
• Jay mentioned his plans for the Realms of Faerie, an accompanying blog post (because he can at least sometimes be organised) can be found here.
• Jay talks a bit about his favourite all-round artist, Rien Poortvliet. You can see Jay's Poortvliet Bibliography here, and there are some images here, and some info here.
• Here's the DeviantArt jobs forum. It's great for entry level gigs.
• Concept Art has great weekly challenges that can be good for creating portfolio pieces. ImagineFX seems to have stopped doing them?
• This is John Bauer, Troll artist extraordinaire! Jay said that he and his family died in a train crash by mistake, it was actually a steam ship.
• And that's actually about all there is in the way of notes. We must have been talking about ourselves even more than usual.

You can right-click here to download the episode.

Or you can go to our iTunes channel (be kind and subscribe, rate and comment!).

We used music and sounds by Setuniman, venicesurf, northern87 and indigosierra. We thank them.

Slaine

As part of what will hopefully become a regular segment on the podcast we asked for our listeners/followers to suggest via facebook an illustration for Jay and me to do.  We narrowed it down to a choice between Slaine, Wolverine or Marv from Sin City.  The unanimous decision was for us to do a picture of Slaine the character from 2000AD.

I had a particularly tough time with this, I intended to try painting my version and the combination of inexperience and trepidation about using paint had a negative impact on the initial drawing.  I fell back into a lot of old bad habits and was not terribly happy with the result, the pose was stiff and the anatomy overworked in some areas while unclear in others.  I did attempt to paint it but have decided not to post this as it was not great.  In an effort to salvage the whole project I did a new illustration, just a sketch this time.

The main thing I have taken from this is that I still have a heck of a lot to learn, particularly when it comes to painting.  I will continue to work towards learning to paint, while this project was overambitious for my current skill level I am trying to use it as motivation to work harder. hopefully I will get my painting to a level that I would be happy to share with everyone.

I have posted below the initial sketch before I painted over it and the redraw that I did afterwards.

1st attempt

2nd attempt

I know which one I prefer.  This was both frustrating and rewarding and I know I am looking forward to the next one of these. We will be posting the next shortlist for things for us to draw on the facebook page soon.

Gord & Jay Talk Art Episode 5: Anatomy

We're back with Episode 5 of the Gord & Jay Talk Art Podcast.
In this episode, we get our hands grubby in the details of learning human anatomy.

Here are some things we mention:

• Jay mentions the mighty Alphonse Mucha, in particular his Figures Decoratives (must be said in a french accent for full effect).
• Gord mentions the big two anatomy instructors: George B Bridgman and Burne Hogarth. Basically, if you're going to learn anatomy, these two instructors are the masters.
• Jay mentions Andrew Loomis. He's not known for his anatomical knowledge, but he will always be the 'go to' artist for learning to draw faces.
• Jay talks about the workshop that he and Patrick Gavin attended hosted by the fantastic artist, Eva Widermann.

You can right-click here to download the episode.

Or you can go to our iTunes channel (be kind and subscribe, rate and comment!).

The music we used for the background in the intro is provided by Setuniman. There's some little interludes by northern87 and indigosierra, and the outro is by Setuniman too. (because that person does some great stuff!)

Gord & Jay Talk Art Episode 4: Materials

Welcome back for another round of hijinks and jocularity in the form of the Gord & Jay Talk Art Podcast!
The theme of this episode is the subject of materials. Here's some of the stuff Gord and Jay mention in the podcast:

• This is the Troll Witch piece by Jay that Rebecca from North Carolina bought.
• And this the Cthulhu piece that Erin in Canada bought (you'll all be happy to know that it has since arrived there safely. PHEW!).
• This is the Other Of One cover Jay did.
• These are the Staedtler pens Gord mentioned.
• This is the mighty Pentel Brush Pen.
• These are the even better (in Jay's questionable opinion) Tombow pens.
• These are the Moleskine Cahier sketchbooks Jay uses.
• This is what a watercolour half pan looks like.
• Ah, the Karisma pencil. Love heart.
• The rather interesting Cretacolor Aquamonoliths.
• THIS be Slaine! (not the tubby irish-american rapper, obviously) Slaine has been depicted by some truly great artists such as Simon Bisley, Greg Staples, Mike McMahon and Dermot Power.

if you don't know the drill yet...

You can right-click here to download the episode.

Or you can go to our iTunes channel (be kind and subscribe, rate and comment!).

The music we used for the background in the intro is provided by Group_1. There's some little interludes by FreqMan and indigosierra, and the outro is by Setuniman.

Jeepers that's a lot of links!

Gord & Jay Talk Art Episode 3: Getting stuff did!

Can you believe that we're back with another podcast for your listening pleasure so soon after the previous one? Sure, it may have something to do with us trying to sync up the time between when we record the episodes and when they are released, but we're also trying to get some momentum going and have plenty of content right off the bat. And with this episode, we're a little bit closer. Still not quite there, but we should be into a proper system with episode 4.

Anyways, here's episode 3's show notes-

• Jay went on about The Circle again. Some people may want him to stop doing that, but he isn't going to. He isn't particularly sorry about that either.
• This is the life-drawing class Jay goes to in Galway, Ireland.
• And this is Gord's one in Edinburgh, Scotland.
• Jay mentioned his 100 Heads in 100 Days self-challenge. Here's the video, here are the blog posts.
• Gord mentioned Akira's Tetsuo Shima, Jay talked about the great and rather attractive artist, Rebecca Guay.
• Jay talked about the little comic that Gord wrote and he drew a bunch of years ago, called The Void.
• Jay pretty clearly talks too much and is fond of name dropping. He IS sorry about that.

As usual, you can right-click to download the episode here.

Or you can go to our iTunes channel (be kind and subscribe, rate and comment!).

The music we used for the background in the intro is provided by Group_1

And don't forget to visit our Facebook page! We'll be having the poll we mention in the podcast in the coming couple of days, so go check it out and get voting on what you want us to draw.

We'll be back soon with episode 4 very soon. It's Jay's turn to pick a topic, and he's leaning toward talking MATERIALS. See you then (or, you know, sooner, if you come chat with us on FB....)

Gord & Jay Talk Art Episode 2: Foundations

We're back with Episode 2 of The Gord & Jay Talk Art Podcast.
This time, we discuss the importance of FOUNDATIONS.

Firstly, though, we talk about the things we've been doing (Jay not so much to show, but Gord's
Dark Souls piece will get its own post here very, very soon).

And then we get right into the topic.
Jay talks about the importance of basic structure when drawing forms in space, and the magic of the three basic shapes- the sphere, the cylinder and the cuboid.

Gord then discusses the basics of tone and value, how they are kinda the same thing and why exactly it is important to take them into consideration while working.

We finish with a quick chat about what we have on the drawing board for the next little while. Jay has/had the 24-hour Comic Day and a long life drawing session, and Gord has that pesky Faust piece to finish, along with some pixel art stuff on the go.

Apologies about the fuzzy audio, we're still finding our way with the technical stuff. As usual, the music we used for the background in the intro is provided by Group_1

We'll be back in about a week with Episode 3. Look how we spoil you! In the meantime, come chat with us on our Facebook page, we'll be having challenges, polls, discussions and all sorts of fun stuff. Come be part of the new cool gang in town.

You can download Episode 2 by right clicking here.

Gord & Jay Talk Art Episode 1: Beginnings

The entire universe can breathe a huge sigh of relief now, because The Gord & Jay Talk Art Podcast is finally here!

We would like to welcome all of you that make your way to our little slice of internet-land and hope that you enjoy your stay.

The Gord & Jay Talk Art Podcast is exactly that. It is a simple podcast where two artists discuss their artistic journey with each other. We talk about the things we are working on, what we are learning, how we improve, how we have failed... Every aspect of our artistic pursuits is covered.
But before we start to get too waffley, let's introduce ourselves briefly-

My name is Gordon Mackay, I am an illustrator from Edinburgh in Scotland.  I draw pretty much anything that takes my fancy.  My goal is to carry on improving as an artist and have fun along the way.  You can find some of my work at Gordon Mackay Illustration and I will be selling the odd thing on redbubble.com.

And my name is Jay Penn. I'm a freelance illustrator dealing mostly with fantasy, faerie and comic art. You can find my work over at Realms of Faerie. I also have an Etsy store, so go buy all of my stuff right away!

So anyway, here is the inaugural podcast episode- Right click here to download it.

We're on iTunes, too! There's a few kinks to iron out still, but if you have an iTunes account, you can go download the first podcast here. Don't forget to rate the podcast and subscribe to it too!

And we have a Facebook page too! You'll not forget to 'like' us, will you?

Finally, here are the show notes (links to stuff we talk about on the episode):

• The Will Kemp 'How to Paint a Portrait in Oil' online lesson that Jay mentioned is right here.
• The artists that Jay mentions are: Brian Froud, Rien Poortvliet, Dale Keown, Erik Larsen, Bart Sears, Frank Frazetta, Larry MacDougall, Alan Lee, Justin Gerard and Andrew Loomis.
• Gord mentions Frank Miller and Geof Darrow, Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell.
• Jay mentioned his old 8-page illustrated story called The Circle.
• The Tortoro picture Gord spoke of can be seen over at his own blog here.

Oh, and the music we used for the background in the intro is provided by Group_1

We'll be back soon with the next episode very soon. Feel free to leave any comments, suggestions or marriage proposals below.