Derek C Wicks: World Of Blogs

“Nu’thin Bruin” Grizzly Cub coming along

Fidel & Michelle Singh’s commissioned original is starting to come alive. Spent the last two days working out the colour changes in the main “meat” of the log. Wanted to make sure the the subtle tonal changes are in the painting, but keep it from looking busy. Two or three more working days and this painting will be complete. Hope to have a new post of the original finished early next week. Happy painting everyone.

Tree starting to come along.

“Nu’thin Bruin” progess report

Have had to put out a lot of “fires” around the studio the last three days, not much time to paint. Have made good progress on the cub painting for Fidel & Michelle Singh, the head is looking good and I will move on to the log on Monday. Cubs head is looking a little dull right now, but will wait until more of the colour in the log is built up, could change very thing. I will try to have new posts on Wednesday for everyone. Happy painting!

Head is painted and looking good.

Grizzly Cub in progress

“Nu’thin Bruin” Grizzly Cub started

Over the weekend I started a new painting for Fidel & Michelle Singh, it is the second painting to my Grizzly Cub set. The second painting is the accompanying piece to “Mischief’s Bruin” and is the same 12 x 12 size. I started with playing a little with the composition. Added a tree limb in at the bottom right to repeat the shape of the cub and give the piece a little unity and break up the background space a bit. I am going with the same gradated background as “Mischief’s Bruin” so the two paintings will have some unity or a common thread. I have posted the original photo, the photoshop composition study and the first two snap shots of the painting in progress. I will post progression shots at the end of the week. Happy painting everyone!

PTP – Derek C Wicks Enewsletter

2012 Waterfowl Stamp Ducks Unlimited has released their 2012 National Art Portfolio Artists list and I am pleased to announce that I am the 2012 Waterfowl Stamp artist. The piece selected is “Shallow Surfers” -Lesser Scaup. Some of you my recognize this image from the 2009 Wildlife Habitat Canada competition were it won second place, the original was named “Riding The Wave” back then. Ducks Unlimited asked me if they could change the name of the image as the 2011 Waterfowl Stamp was also named Riding The Wave and they did not want to get the two confused. You can view the image on my  wildlife art website.   2 New Art Instruction DVDs   I have finally finished the editing on the new rocks textures dvd and both new art techniques videos are now available. The long awaited and much requested Painting Water Textures is now available and is over 105 minutes long! They say a dvd should not be longer then 1 hour to 1 hour 15 minutes long, but I just could not get all the info on the volume I wanted to in under an hour. This dvd covers everything you need to know to paint reflective, translucent, cascading water and sea foam. Full details and chapter info is available on the website page Painting Water Textures. The second dvd is Creating Rock Textures and is over 75 minutes long. This dvd covers how to create texture in rock surfaces, painting smooth rock and how to paint clusters of rock. Again, full details are available on-line at the Creating Rock Textures page. As always The DVD’s will be at the lower price until November 30, 2011 for the VIP list. Happy Holiday’s Everyone!

Art Instruction Originals Available The two original pieces of art used to make the new Power To Paint art instruction video’s are now available. These two originals come framed and include all taxes and shipping to the purchaser. Click on the image above or below  to view the full details on the piece of art. These originals would be the ideal reference piece to accompany the art instruction dvd or a fantastic Christmas gift for someone who owns the PTP art instruction video. A payment plan can be arranged for anyone who is interested.

Painting Water & Rock Instuctional DVD’s released

PTP – Painting Water & Painting Rock now released!   Power To Paint Art Instruction Vol. 9 & Vol.10 now available     Hello painters, I am happy to announce that two new Power To Paint Art Instruction DVD’s are now available! The long awaited Painting Water Textures and Creating Rock Textures are both full length Art Technique videos that instruct in detail how to create convincing, realistic water & rock textures. Both DVD’s are information packed with over one hour  of in the studio step by step instruction, Painting Water Textures being over 106 minutes! Click the images to the right to visit the information page and get full chapter by chapter details on these two new exciting videos.   Enjoy the new videos everybody and Happy Painting!

“Surveying the Realm” Bald Eagle Painting Finished

The last two weeks since my last post have been  hectic ones. Last weekend was the Images Studio Tour here at my gallery, a four day event with approximately 5000 people visiting over the Thanksgiving weekend (Canadian). Had a lot of fun socializing with many people I have not seen in awhile. On Tuesday I stated to work out the way I wanted to handle the eagle in my new painting by colour coping the original and then adding a little paint to the colour copy. Once I was satisfied I painted the eagle on the original. Doing a quick study on colour copies is a good way to workout ideas before you go to the final original, I do this allot. Below is a photo of the final piece which I think I will name “Surveying the Realm”. Once the original comes back from being photographed I will post the final high res shot to my website. This painting is a private commission piece for Mike & Pattie Callahan and will not be for sale, but a limited edition Giclée will be available in the near future.
Last night was a very entertaining night in my neighborhood as a tree fell into a hydro wire and caused a whole transformer to blow! If you have never seen one go, it is like the fourth of July! Sparks and discharged energy everywhere. The fire department had to come and put out a fire in the woods started by the fireworks. I was without electricity for most of the night and my electric phones got zapped! We keep one traditional phone in my office in case of power failures so at least we have one phone for now. Scary night!
Final editing continues on the two new PTP how to paint DVD’s. The two videos will be ready for the November 3 release date. Happy painting everyone!

Surveying the Realm Bald Eagle Painting

Derek C Wicks Fall Enewsletter 2011

New DVD’s The new Moving Water DVD has been completed and is ready to go. The second video – Rock Textures is almost complete and will be ready in about two weeks. I have made the release date for both of these DVD’s November 3, 2011. Along with the two new DVD’s there will be a new free video clip posted to the free video area of the Power to Paint website on how to use an airbrush to create rays of sun. The new soaring eagle painting to  the right is the source for the demonstration on this new free clip. Those that are signed up for the Power To Paint Enewsletter will automatically receive information on all these new releases in the next week or two. Happy painting!   Visit Power To Paint.     Derek C Wicks News   Commissions, shows & workshops… I am so busy it is not funny! Right now I am painting like a mad man with 3 commissions on the go and DVD editing every night. When it rains it pours. I am very happy to be doing commissions for Mike & Pattie Callahan of Riverside, RI – Fidel & Michelle Singh of Mississauga, ON and Val & Dave Macdonald of Barrie, ON. All have asked for paintings I am very eager to paint. It makes my job so much easier when you love the paintings you are working on. I have been posting the progress of the Callahan painting on my blog and will continue to post progress on all upcoming paintings. here is the quick link to the blog. This weekend is the Images Studio Tour at my studio/gallery. I invite you {!firstname} to drop by to  visit and see what is going on at my studio. This is the one time of year I can guarantee I will be available and not painting! The Callahan original will be on display as well as two new Giclée canvas’s. One of those new reproductions is Legends Of The Mist. After 10 years of people asking I have finally made a new limited edition print and canvas of my favorite painting of all time (displayed below). The Images Tour also offers 23 other art stops with 39 different artist’s work on display. For more information on the Images Studio Tour visit the website. In November I will be back in St.Albert, AB to teach my “Racoon Portrait” workshop. St.Albert and Halifax are my two favorite places to have a workshop, everyone there is so eager to learn and gives 110%. This workshop will be three days long and focus on the creation of detailed fur painting. If you are interested in the workshop visit my wildlife art website or visit Carole Maxwell at Paint For Joy  www.paint4joy.com. My website offers details on the day to day instruction and Carole’s website is where you would sign up for the workshop. Have a great fall season! This Enewsletter will be posted on my BLOG.

Soaring Eagle Commission My new original of a soaring eagle is a commissioned work for Mike & Pattie Callahan of Riverside, RI and is untitled. I have been posting the progress of this original in  my blog and you can view the painting from start to finish in the various posts, view Derek Wicks Blogs here. Would love everyone’s help to come up with a name for this painting. If you have a good name for it send me an email through the contact page on my website. If I use the name I will tell the world it was you in my next Enewsletter!   Events Calendar   Images Studio Tour Wicks Studio Gallery October 7-10, 2011 Horseshoe Valley, ON (705) 835-5480 Paint For Joy Workshop November 11-13, 2011 St.Albert, AB workshop details SEWE Show February 17-19, 2012 Charleston, SC www.sewe.com

Eagle Commission in Final Stages

The more I paint this painting the more I fall in love with it. This commission for Mike & Pattie Callahan is now in the home stretch. When I designed this painting Mike Callahan mentioned he liked the shafts of light in the Soaring Eagle Comp in earlier posts. At the time I said that I thought it would be to much, but know I am thinking it is exactly what it needs! Tomorrow I will be doing some test paintings on a few colour copies to make sure I like the colour and position of the light shafts. I have uploaded a sample of what I have in mind, I will have to refine the light shafts so they are little more random and not so symmetrical. I will be filming the colour copy test painting and uploading it to my how to paint website in the near future so keep an eye out for it!

Painting in the final stages!

Photoshoped shafts of light for reference

Soaring Eagle – Mountain Detail

Long week at work on the mountains, allot of subtle plain changes and colour changes to work out. I am very happy with the mountains at this point and will be working of the sky and clouds next. Have to go into a different mind set to paint the clouds. Was using a very opaque, hard edged stroke for the mountains and the sky will be “light touch” dry-brush to get the fanned off, broken edge look of the clouds. Here is a couple of updated pics of the progress. Again nothing but rain and overcast here at the studio, makes for dull shots. Happy painting everyone.

"Mountains looking go, time to paint the sky"

detail of the mountain range"

Soaring Bald Eagle Progress

A week into my new Bald Eagle painting for Mike & Pattie Callahan and things are moving right along. Very happy with the local colour and have blocked in my large areas and made sure the colours are “singing” together (pic1). Now that I am happy with the local colour I can start to block in some shape and form in the mountains. Really have to make sure the purple and pinks vibrate off of each other in the mountains. The whole composition is based on the play of the analogous colour scheme and I will need to pick up more purples and pinks in the mountains so they will have some unity with the sky down the road (pic2). Really loving the mountains right now, the shape and sense of depth are already staring to show and I have not even started on the receding mountains where we can really establish some depth. I have shot the first two pics with my iPhone so they are not so great, the third pic is much better quality, but shot on a very dark and rainy day in my studio so the colour is a little pale. Hope to get some great shots for the next blog entry sometime this week. Happy painting everyone.

Pic3 - Mountains weell on thier way

Pic2 - shape and form staring to come around

Pic3- Mountains are really starting to come alive!