Art of Jeff Haynie

New World of Warcraft cards

2011-12-18T22:40:00.000-08:00

It's been a busy year. Here are some new painting I produced for World of Warcraft card game. Fun characters in fantasy environments. I create a drawing first then scan it in to paint on top. The main focus of the drawing is to see the overall shape design and the breakdown of light and shadow shapes. It's not about making something look realistic but how do the shadow shapes create an interesting design. One of the most important decisions is choosing the direction of the light on the subject. Once you choose the direction of the light, the real magic happens as you design how the light falls off the form to create interesting shadow shapes.
art love

Jeff

New art from MCF: Escape from Ravenhearst

2011-12-15T21:18:00.000-08:00

Here are some paintings from my newest game called MCF:Escape from Ravenhearst. It's the 3rd installment in the Ravenhearst drama. A point and click adventure game on the PC and Mac platform. MCF is short for Mystery Case Files.

www.mysterycasefiles.com

Kitties of the Living Dead

2011-10-30T18:42:00.000-07:00

Just in time for Halloween. One of my new Cat paintings. Kitties of the living dead coming to a theater near you.

Gallery Show at John Brown University

2011-09-19T22:28:00.000-07:00

My most recent art show is hanging in the gallery at John Brown University http://www.jbu.edu/art/gallery/. It's a collection of 52 paintings, drawings and sculptures. The show is titled "Faith and Fantasy" which highlights pieces from the last 25 years of my career.
Art love,
Jeff

The love of the sketchbook

2011-08-26T22:48:00.000-07:00

A few years ago I did an article in 2d artist magazine about the importance of carrying a sketchbook. Here is the complete article.

Art love and happy drawing,

Jeff

My sketchbook is my “portable playground” of ideas and images. It is a book I carry around with me everyday, wherever I go. This wasn’t always the case, however…

In the first 10 years of my professional career, I struggled with the desire to draw, much less carrying around a sketchbook to do that drawing in. I hated that part of the art process. It was only a means to get me to the painting stage, which was what I really thought I enjoyed the most.

At that time, when I would meet artists who carried around these amazing sketchbooks with pages and pages of gorgeous drawings, I just couldn’t relate to how an artist could flow with that much imagination and produce such quality drawings without using photo references. Where did the desire even come from or the drive to want to draw? How do you even think that way?

To develop that habit seemed, to me, an unreachable goal, achievable only by the super talented. Only others much more gifted than I could output that kind of beauty. And yet, I began to realise that there was a time in my life when I flowed like that… those early years in the elementary school playground when drawing was not a precursor to painting, but a fun task in its own right.

Today I love my sketchbook and the whole drawing process almost more than the painting process. My sketchbook has become the heart of who I am as an artist. It’s my place to play. What changed and how did I get there? The biggest change was in my thinking. I slowly developed the habit of sketching in the little bits of spare time I had in any given day (the bits of time I usually wasted).

Then an artist friend got me started by having me make random shapes on a page without thinking in advance about what I would draw. The next step was to take the shapes and turn them into something that my imagination thought they looked like. It’s like looking into a wood grain or cloud pattern and seeing faces or creatures.

This is what I call a reactive process. You react to what you see, then push the drawing in that direction. The results were so revealing and exciting that this exercise made my imagination come to life (Fig.01 and Fig.02 are examples of this method). I also started to see shapes as design and pattern, so that when I started a drawing I set out to make beautiful shapes. It allowed me to not over-think the drawing, but just to start enjoying the development of the image. As a matter of fact, I found that if the shapes were interesting to look at, then the structural flaws of the drawing were not as distracting. The drawings took on a life of their own, instead of my pencil fighting them. I now prefer to draw more out of my imagination as I study life. Even as I draw from real life, I begin to stylise the shapes to make them more interesting. Each artist has their own shape language, or style of drawing shapes, which makes their drawings unique.

I have many sketchbooks going on at any one time. My main sketchbook I carry around everyday in my backpack; I draw on the commuter train or at any opportunity I get during the day. One of my other sketchbooks is themed with just fantasy fish drawings (Fig.03, Fig.04, Fig.05, and Fig.06 are examples from my fish sketchbook).

There are many forms of drawing and sketching that I produce in the sketchbooks: from compositional studies to gestures, ideas, notes, random thoughts and shapes. I also do a lot of study sketches for my paintings, to work out values or composition. The media I most enjoy are pencils, black pens with grey markers on top and black conté crayons. I use a click pencil with a refillable HB lead so that I don’t have to sharpen it. If I want a thick-to-thin line, I sharpen a 2B pencil with a knife to a chisel point. The wedge shape gives me a cool calligraphic line.

Fig.07, Fig.08 and Fig.09 show the progression from studies to drawing, through to the complete painting. This piece started as a drawing exercise with the theme of “Bullseye, My Favourite Pet from Mars”.

Fig.10 and Fig.11 are examples of the sketches and studies from my cat painting series. The studies are more about cat behaviour and my concepts of that than structural studies showing perfect cat anatomy. I love to stylise their forms into interesting shapes, and my four cats make great models – when I can get them to sit still!

Fig.12 is a study of the forms of trees, mountains and rivers for my oil landscape paintings. Again, I love to stylise the shapes to push more drama and movement into the environment. My focus in doing this is to break up the forms into patterns of light and shadow.

Fig.13, Fig.14 and Fig.15 are examples of character studies and drawings.

Fig.16, Fig.17, Fig.18 and Fig.19 show the process from under-painting to finished painting. “Dash for the Coral” is an acrylic painting and “Scary Fish” is a Photoshop painting, but you can see that my process is the same, whether I am working digitally or traditionally.

I can honestly say that I can now enjoy creating a drawing that will just remain a drawing, and never turn into a painting. The funny thing is that many of the drawings I am doing now, I get very excited about turning into paintings!

New drawings

2011-08-18T22:07:00.000-07:00

Here are a few new drawings of cats and fish. I've been busy preparing for a gallery show in Sept.

A retrospective of 52 paintings and drawings.

Art love,

Jeff

Into the Pixel award

2011-06-04T20:48:00.000-07:00

The swamp skull painting that I created for Mystery Case Files 13th Skull game won an award in the "Into the Pixel" show for the video game industry. There were 3 of us from Big Fish Games that took 3 of the 17 awards. This is a big honor from the video game industry. You can view the winners here www.intothepixel.com/artwork/2011_contest_winners.asp

More paintings from Mystery Case Files 13th Skull

2011-05-09T21:30:00.000-07:00

Mystery Case Files 13th Skull is a point and click adventure hidden object game. As art director at Big Fish Games, I work with a wonderful team of artists to produce games that the whole family can play. It's like playing an interactive novel. 13th Skull is a pirate story set in the Louisiana swamp. Since I grew up in Baton Rouge, the subject matter was like stepping back into my childhood minus the fishing pole in my hand. These are a few of the paintings I created for the game. I'll post more later.

art love,

Jeff

New Artwork in Spectrum 18

2011-04-20T23:06:00.000-07:00

My first cat painting made it into Spectrum 18 as well as the cover artwork for my latest game called Mystery Case Files 13th Skull.

Incatneato is painted in oil on canvas. 13th Skull is a digital painting.

Moving forward

2011-04-10T22:01:00.000-07:00

This piece was done for a friend of mine. It's about being a turtle. Turtles don't go backwards but always forward. They are persistant and not in a hurry. The shape of the sculpture is an arrow which symbolizes moving forward and heaven bound. The base was made out of sculpy with inset mosaic tiles, copper metal and handmade glass beads. The center tile is from Mexico. I used leather stamping tools to get some of the details. After firing the clay I painted it with acrylic paint.

May we all be more a little more like turtles.

art love,

Jeff

New Drawings

2011-04-01T21:48:00.000-07:00

Here are a few new pieces. The new cat drawing is called Tuna Dreams. It's about dreaming about what you love. I'm currently working on this painting in oils. Someone asked me where do you get your ideas. I carry a sketchbook around everyday in my backpack and jot down random ideas from my daily experience. It's amazing what you will see are think in a single day that is great content for a painting or piece of art. Most of my drawings just start as interesting shapes that emerge into something. I try not to think about it too much and just let God inspire me as I move my pencil around the paper. The focus for me is to try to make beautiful shapes and lines. Creativity is never the same. I don't completely understand but each fish or cat I draw looks different from the last. No two look the same. It's part of one body of work. For those of you drawing today, Happy drawing!

Art love,

Jeff

New cat paintings

2010-10-03T08:30:00.000-07:00

2 of my latest paintings. "Patron Saint of Salmons" and "Incatneato". Incatneato was created for Purrfect Pals cat rescue shelter. It's for the annual Black Cat Ball auction to raise money for the shelter. It was painted in oil on canvas.

Patron Saint of Salmons is the protector of Salmon. Somehow I think she is thinking about taking a bit.

art love,

Jeff

New fish drawings

2010-03-17T22:48:00.000-07:00

Here are a few new fish drawings. Each drawing starts as loose shapes in which I react and develop patterns.

Knowing

2010-03-08T21:45:00.000-08:00

Here is my latest fantasy fish sculpture.

Haynie Collaborations

2009-08-10T21:52:00.000-07:00

Sherri and I did a series of collaborations with a fish theme. I sculpted the fantasy fish with sculpy then painted them. Sherri took the fish and designed them into a box frame with embellishments.

The frames are cigar boxes. The fish have mosaic and glass bead inlays.

art love

Jeff

Luna

2009-06-30T22:44:00.000-07:00

This is my latest painting from my cat series. It's called "Luna". She has a sense of royality about her. The floating candles are symbolic of her thoughts, hopes, and dreams. As the lights move into the background they turn to stars. This is symbolic of her hopes becoming faith. Of course there is some fish jewelry around the collar. The patterns in her eye as you can see in the detail image are symbolic of vision.

art love

Jeff

My latest painting

2009-05-25T18:42:00.000-07:00

I've been working on this painting off and on for the last 5 years. Finally I finished it. The image is about believing in yourself. It's part of my Northwest landscape series. It's an oil painting wrapped in copper metal. Then I inlayed mosiac tile around the edge. Then I used leather tools to pound in shapes in the metal. The letter have been embossed in copper. The dragonflys are sculpted with sculpy then painted in acrylic. Check on my earlier post that shows the sculptures.

It's hard to explain how hard it is to live the life of an artist. What you do is put out there for anyone to say anything. So many creative people don't see their talent within much less believe enough to let it out. Our culture doesn't really encourage creativity unless it fits into a way to make money.

Sherri and I began years ago to allow our lifestyle, living space and thought process to be more conducive to creative expression. It's our individual voice that gives variety to life. Wheither it's the colors you choose, the shapes you draw or the idea, your creative voice belongs to you and nobody else. Treasure it. Nurture it. Don't be ashamed of it.

It's a joy to see each one of my friend's personal work. Each time I see a new piece I learn just a little more about them.

blessings and art love,

Jeff

New artwork in Spectrum 16 and Expose 7

2009-05-19T21:16:00.000-07:00

Two of my new paintings were accepted in Spectrum 16 fantasy book which will be publish in November.

The first one of my personal works called "Deep Dive" which is about a diver discovering a city hidden underwater. It is the moment of discovery.

The other painting was created for Mystery Case Files Return to Ravenhearst video game called "The cablecar". The painting is about a cablecar that has been converted into a gondola used to travel down the cliffside in the game.

Also my first cat painting will appear in Expose 7. I'm so excited about this opportunity to expose my cat paintings in an international annual.

Jeff

My mural days

2009-04-06T20:30:00.000-07:00

There was a period where I painted murals when I lived in Texas. I design 2 logos, signage and a mural which I painted with the help of an assistant for the Ritz building in downtown Mckinney Texas. In the back there was a coffee shop called the backstage coffee shop. Since the coffee shop was opened during the day, I had to paint the mural after hours. The owners would make fresh pots of any coffee that I wanted right before they would lock me in for the night as well as give me free rain of the italian ice machine. When the mural was completed, I signed it with a torn ticket stub.

Jeff

Being Self Aware

2009-02-26T20:10:00.000-08:00

Halibut, rock sole and flounder are strange looking fish in that the eyes are on one side of their bodies. When I did this drawing I was inspired by the halibut. The idea is that we only see in part or only part of what is going on around us. I've been learning a lot about being more self aware of my surroundings as if adding more eyes on my body to see more. See more, listen more and just be aware of what you do and how it affects other people. There are so many things in a given day that desensitizes us. I call this drawing "being self aware".

art love

Jeff

Another textured fish painting

2009-02-25T21:22:00.000-08:00

When I did this painting, I was experimenting using gel medium. Just a different texture. For the scales I used the head of a nail to get round scale like shapes in the texture. The fins I used a comb while the medium was wet. So many people have commented that this painting looks like stained glass. I guess it's because of the dark line around everything. The title of this painting is "Seize the Day"

art love

Jeff

Textured fantasy fish paintings

2009-02-22T00:34:00.000-08:00

In the early 90s, I started a series of fantasy fish paintings that had a heavy texture. I called the series my "Textured Fish paintings". After doing so much tight airbrush painting, I needed to do something that had a wild rough texture. So I got some modeling paste. Opened the jar and used my fingers to wildly wipe it onto hard board. It gave me a sense of freedom to just make a mess. Well I had to dig the modeling paste out from under my fingernails but hey I felt better. No cutting frisket to airbrush. The first painting is called "Blue Freedom" which described what I felt like with this new technique. The next painting is called "Moon Dancers". I took the shape of the shadow of the moon crater and just repeated it. As the shapes come forward they turn into fish. All of these paintings have been studies of shape, color and texture. I use acrylic paint to block in the underpainting and then do dry brush acrylic on top with light colors to just catch the top of the texture. There are a few closeups so you can see the texture. Freedom is a good thing.

art love

Jeff

Art and Soul workshop

2009-02-20T22:42:00.000-08:00

Last Fall, Sherri and I took our first art workshop together in Portland, Oregon. We took a class from an artist we admire. Michael deMeng. www.michaeldemeng.com

Micheal is an artist that takes junk and turns it into breathtaking art. Awesome concept. Take something that is trash to the average person and turn it into a treasure. Michael calls it Assemblage or Awesomeblage.

We learned so much about our perceptions of what can be put together to make a cool art piece. The focus of the class was to take a tuna can and turn it into something. I took my can and added a beetle in glass, door hinge, Altoids tin, metal tooling foil and a taxidermist's fish eye.

Sherri took her can and added a door hinge, wings, glass face, wire danglers etc.

We had a blast.

Art is a journey. We wanted to try new things and experience them together especially without the cats getting into everything.

I'm finding that as I grow there are two types of methods that are helping me open my eyes. One is reacting to something. Put things together and see what happens. Let it evolve.

Second way is by structured planning which tends to be additive by building on a strong foundation. Each method helps to keep me moving forward as an artist.

art love

Jeff

The Art Lounge

2009-02-18T20:44:00.000-08:00

So there is this closet that used to be a closet in my house. Sherri had a vision one day and said this is now the art lounge. Why not. It sort of like when you were a kid and you put a blanket over a couple of kitchen chairs and made a tunnel to climb in. Well the art lounge has that kind of feel. It's the place that I have my quiet time and pray. It's a place I go for inspiration. It's a place I can go to pretend the whole world stops for a minute so I can think.

We hung up art that inspires us and just made it a fun room. Sherri even made a sign.

Jeff

Fantasy Fish Sculpture with Mosiacs

2009-02-17T20:38:00.000-08:00

A few years ago I wanted to try inlay mosaics in something. So I took one of my fish designs and cut it out of wood panel. Then I used a dremel tool and cut into the wood the thickness of the mosaic tile. After gessoing the board, I wrapped the fins with copper tooling foil. I used leather tools to pound in designs into the metal (wow that was therapeutic). Then I inlayed the mosaic tile. The blue and cooper tile chemistry was what got me excited. I've been looking a lot at ERTE's work with the iridescent metal embossing on his prints. Last I used acrylic paint to do a faux finish to the fish body.

After Sherri and I moved up here to the Northwest, we started to see a lot of really cool glasswork. The translucent feel to the glass has really inspired me to think beyond the traditional surface of painting. All of these pieces are experiments, combining elements to get a visual chemistry. That chemistry of elements goes beyond words. It becomes part of the excitement of the artwork taking a life of it's own without me forcing it. I bought a kiln to start doing some clay sculptures and play with glazes.

Once an artist said to me " Why do this stuff?" basically asking me what is this all for. My replay was "Why not!" Ok this is going to sound artsy fartsy but I don't mean it that way. I feel like the work that I have been doing starting with the fish, cats and landscapes have been honest expressions of my heart.

honest art love,

Jeff

Dragonfly sculptures

2009-02-16T21:08:00.000-08:00

I love to play with sculpy adding glass beads, mosaic tiles and sometimes metal pieces. With acrylic paint, I paint patterns and details. These dragonflys will be added to an oil painting I'm working on to add a 3d element to the painting.

Jeff

Fantasy landscapes of the Northwest

2009-02-15T20:42:00.000-08:00

Several years ago, I began working on a series of paintings that I call "Fantasy Landscapes". This is the first of the series called "The journey home".

My biggest influences for these paintings are: Maxfield Parrish, Hudson River School painters and Evyind Earle. All of these artist focus on light and shadow, color and a fantasy element. Evyind Earle stylizes the shapes and perspective to a point of abstraction. Maxfield Parrish has a breathtaking breakdown of light and shadow. The Hudson river school painters like Bierstadt and Church have a beautiful play of atmospheric light which is this haze of color that makes the painting glow. I've been fortunate to have seen a lot of original paintings by all of these artists.

Jeff

Valentine's day book

2009-02-14T18:06:00.001-08:00

For Valentine's day, I made a book for my wife about our lives with our cats. It's called "for the love of little critters". Here are a few excerpts from the book. It was a blast to do. The cats have changed our lives or taken over it. Something like that. Anyway I think they run the house. You'll start to see why I paint cats.

blessings

art love

Jeff

Personal Sunshine

2009-02-13T21:19:00.000-08:00

This is my latest painting from my cat series called "Personal Sunshine". One of my cats Pumpkin, a brown tabby, posed for me. The idea came from my daily goal to live a life of faith in God. No matter what is going on in the outside world, let the sun always be shining in your heart giving you a place to rest. You know that might sound cheesy but the reality is, life is hard. Pressures of life push on us all the time much less if we have internal pressures to deal with. Sometimes when the storm is raging all around, you need to find a place of rest and not freak out. Let it pass and blow over. This painting is about this. The fish are symbolic of the internal joy so that's why they are dancing in the rain. This is my secret to life on a daily basis. Psalm 91 explains this. "He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty, I will say of the Lord, "He is my God, in whom I trust." Right now in my life, I'm the most blessed I've ever been both professionally and personally, however I've learned no matter what whether in blessing or suffering that I need the Lord's presence every day.

So take your umbrella it might rain tomorrow.

honest art love,

Jeff

Lino cuts and printmaking

2009-02-12T20:43:00.000-08:00

Over the last few years I've been playing with Linoleum block printing. The process is really cool because the end result is very bold and graphic. Shape and line become very expressive and dynamic. This image is called the "bowl of hope". We all need to eat out of it probably everyday. The print is a 2 color on a banana paper. I've been studing Gustave Baumann who was an amazing woodblock printer form 1881-1971. His prints look like impressionist paintings.

Eventually I hope to do fish prints this way.

art love

Jeff

Fish sketches and sculpture

2009-02-11T23:16:00.000-08:00

The fish form has always been fascinating to me. It started when I lived in southern Louisiana. My brother and I would fish in the Atchafalaya river spillway deep in the swamp. We would catch fish all day long. Sometimes the fish were ugly. Those were called shoepic or gar. The colors, the scales and the look left a big impress on me. In junior high and high school, I would hit the river almost everyday after school. The cutoff shorts would go on and I waded in the murky water for miles. There were sandbanks that help to define the river currents and edges. My calves on my legs are still huge to this day because of the workout to my legs. Water mocassions and copperhead snakes were everywhere. Yeah I was stupid but I didn't know better. Once I had a water moccician swim right between my legs. The water caustics were something etched into my brain since it was everywhere.

So these were some of the visuals that have defined my art sensibilities. That's why so much of my work has water in it. Fish was part of my life up till college. Ah now I live in the Northwest where the rivers are a heck of a lot cleaner. During the summer I fish for trout. Man the irradecent colors on a brook trout or a cutthroat trout look like someone took a magenta paint pen and painted dots on the body.

Here's an image I took from my sketchbook. The painting is still in works. The sculpture is made of sculpy. I inlayed glass beads, mosaic pieces and some metal enamel jewelery I bought in Praque, Chek Republic.

The fish are a study of pattern, shape and color. My focus is to get a chemistry of elements to create a mood. It's like placing different things together to see what you get. Patterns, colors, textures, details all make the fish forms take on a fantasy feel.

I never really had an interest in trying to do natural images of fish. There's a lot of great artist that do that type of thing. Even when I try to paint a salmon to look just like a salmon, I start pushing the form or put pattern on it.

More fish storys to come.

art love

Jeff

Northwest fantasy landscape

2009-02-10T20:47:00.000-08:00

I thought I would post one of the paintings I'm working on currently. I usually keep several going on at one time. This painting is part of my Northwest fantasy landscape series. The title is called "Place of Sanctuary" It's about my relationship with God and how his peace in my heart gives me a place to rest on a daily basis. At the top of the mountain there will be a house. Of course it will be a arts and crafts house. The water is a symbol of life coming out of an endless well. I am in the process of breaking up the shapes into light and shadow. Also there is a contrast between warm and cool colors. The sunlight will just be catching the top of the peak. For this painting I blocked in the big shapes with acrylic paint to get a base color. (see photo) Next I put an oil glaze over each area. Now I'm in the stage of painting the highlight shapes or what I call the light groups. This technique is great for me to relax. I don't have to think that much. I like that after a long day of doing fun game art and concepts.

art love

Jeff

2009-02-09T19:55:00.000-08:00

So here is part 2 of the sketchbook article for 2d artist magazine. Drawing in my sketchbook has really been a key process to my development as an artist. When I was doing a lot of illustration work, I would do layers of tracing paper refining the drawing each layer until the top piece of tracing paper was the final drawing. With the sketchbook, I lay in light lines to get big shapes and refine as I continue to develop the drawing. What this does is force me to think and respond to the shapes pushing to make each shape pleasing to look at. As I'm doing this I begin to break up the shapes in the light and shadow or what I call the light group and the shadow group. If you look at some of these drawings you can see where I made decision on breaking up the big shapes into light and shadow. Also I will add patterns of light and dark that sometime are just pattern like the body of the big fish with teeth. My landscape sketches are studies of light and dark pattern. It's the way our natural eye sees. I'll continue tomorrow on my rambling of light and shadow.

art love

Jeff

Sketchbook article for 2d artist magazine

2009-02-08T20:28:00.000-08:00

Last year 2d artist did an article on my sketchbook habit. This is part 1 to the article. My sketchbook is my visual playground that I carry around everyday. Through the day I find small moments of time to sketch stuff, write notes, ideas, etc. The commuter train is where I do a lot of my sketches. The train moves a bit while I'm riding so some of the lines get jumpy. I also carry a set of markers in my backpack that I pull out and put some tone on the drawings. Sometime I think someone is going to say "what's that smell" because of the marker smell.

art love

Jeff

My first blog post

2009-02-07T22:32:00.001-08:00

This is my first post in blogging. Thanks to two of my favorite people in the world, Dan and Ada Cole (hugs) for helping me set this up.