Being the first of the series. I learned a lot about what I could and could not do in such a small time frame and size. Figures at a small scale, are more difficult than figures at a large scale. I love the idea of the "Virgin of Guadalupe floating in space" - I added a small element, she is a Russian doll now.

Trying: who knows what that means???

I'll do what it takes and try my  best to get commissions and work. Often resulting in NO work. I'm a little spammy, a little impersonal. Just like other situations in life, you only get better by trying. 

NOTE: You can not get better at dying.

We all see this, people try and sell their tweets, mentions in blogs. I get strangers off the street saying I should be in their gallery, or art something, trying to sell me stuff, overpriced prints, expensive thousand dollar colored pencils, tickets to events; trying to convince me it'll pay off. No one should ever have to convince you of anything. 

There are a lot of  awards you can buy, for example. You can get published in artbooks from $60-$2500, depending on how well they hide the bought space. A Raw artist nomination will cost you about $200, a lot of social media promotion, in the end, you look like an idiot at some event desperately begging for someone to look at your work. (My experience was a line of signatures, photos, and facebook friend requests, and of course being overly drunk)

There are lots of events and award ceremonies that do nothing for your career. Resumes are useless, experience isn't. Do what it takes... even if its cold calling, or copy-pasting some generic message all over the freaking internet. Trying is getting your hands in the freaking dirt, and pulling something good out of it, never giving up. Just doing it. It's no days off, no rest, no concern about people's opinion of you.

Thank you for your time,
Cedric C.

Painting Outer Space

This series has drawn a large influence from my past artwork. I realize now; that the separate stylistic choices I have made, were merely training. This series combines the techniques that I have learned. All the commercial styles that I have approached; pure experimentation. Each painting starts off by arbitrarily picking space scenes and alignments. I then divide up the scene purely based on intuition. Allowing the oils to dry, I return to the pieces individually. Adding more details, and glazes increasing the aesthetic quality. I love every minute of it. 

Final Image: Like the Romantic paintings of the old west, this speaks of the awe and grandeur of our universe. In the middle ground, we have battleships. They aren't the sci-fi versions, this isn't a real scene, they serve as symbols. The violence, destruction, it is so small. A minor part of reality.

I layed down the first layers onto this work, at first I wanted to paint a mountain scene floating on a platform, with a pretty sunset behind it. The two planets aligned themselves, and it felt like I had no choice. I painted the clouds in, and its reflection. The image came together as a symmetrical image. Now for the best part; the spice. Often a painter would stop at the image below, a pretty night scene, with water reflections. As I usually work, if something fits together too well, then I must ruin it, splatter paint on it. Things that are too right, are boring. I began adding in some ships, 3, as to stay away from even numbers. I made two of them come out of the clouds. It was still too boring. What makes sense now. Some vertebrae looking tendrils coming from the water? perfect.