Anthology Vol.03

‘Anthology’ is a series of pieces made as stand-alone works of art, not tied into a larger series. These range from sketches and experiments to large scale and time-intensive works. Presented in chronological order, these pieces often represent a moment of discovery. Ideas explored here can come to full fruition in a future series. Vol. 03 is comprised almost entirely of digital drawings. My goal was to dive deep into this medium and see what new avenues for creativity exist there for me.

Table of Contents

Title: Ivan

Series Title: Anthology Vol.03: #01

Artist: Luke McCready

Date: July 2020

Medium: Digital Drawing

Size: 3600 x 2700 pixels

An old style in a new way

If you’ve seen art that I’ve made in the past, you’ll notice that stippling/dot drawing is a technique I like to use. This drawing is an exploration of what it’s like to recreate the process and final look using digital tools, specifically Procreate on iPad. I downloaded a brush pack as well as modify a default brush to get this to work. Overall it came out pretty good, with the primary advantage over physical media being the ability to apply many dots at once, making filling in tone way faster.

The subject matter for this drawing is an old photo of my great-grandfather. I’ve always liked this image and I would like to use it as reference again someday.

Title: The Night of the Hunter

Series Title: Anthology Vol.03: #02

Artist: Luke McCready

Date: September 22nd, 2020

Medium: Digital Drawing

Size: 3300 x 2500 pixels

Black-and-white-as-aesthetic

This is another drawing made with Procreate on iPad, this time experimenting with a more conventional black and white drawing. I actually ended up drawing only with white on multiple layers, then adjusting the mid-tone balance with the opacity of those layers, which worked well and allowed for a lot of fine-tuning to achieve the murky qualities here. The reference image is a fantastic photo of Robert Mitchum from the 1953 film The Night of the Hunter, which is on my Mt. Rushmore of black-and-white-as-aesthetic films.

Title: A Midsummer Night's Dream

Series Title: Anthology Vol.03: #03

Artist: Luke McCready

Date: September 27th, 2020

Medium: Digital Drawing

Size: 4000 x 3000 pixels

Reverse of normal

Another black and white drawing, which was an immediate follow-up to the last drawing, this one explores pencil texture. I’ve always liked drawing with white on a black background, the reverse of normal paper and pencil, as it gives such a different mood. Fortunately, that’s really easy to do in the digital world; in fact, any kind of color combination is possible, something I explore fully in my other series, 7 Colors, 1 Brush.

The reference image here is an obscure photo of actress Vivian Leigh from a stage production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Title: Grace Then & Now

Series Title: Anthology Vol.03: #04

Artist: Luke McCready

Date: November 15th, 2020

Medium: Digital Drawing

Size: 3000 x 4000 pixels

The changing nature of beauty and fashion

This piece didn’t start out as a 2-part project, but was simply intended as a portrait of Grace Kelly. My goal was to learn some more detailed techniques in Procreate and figure out how to get more photorealistic results. That was ultimately a cool and successful process, but what made it fun came after. I finished the normal drawing and was bored, so I added some extra layers to reimagine Grace Kelly within the context of contemporary fashion. The result is an interesting exercise with some commentary on the changing nature of beauty and fashion.

Title: Audrey Then & Now

Series Title: Anthology Vol.03: #05

Artist: Luke McCready

Date: November 19th, 2020

Medium: Digital Drawing

Size: 3000 x 4000 pixels

One more for good measure

Following on the success of my previous digital painting, I though it would be fun to do it again, this time with Audrey Hepburn. Once again, I made a true to reality digital painting as a way of developing my skills with details and photorealism, which I enjoyed quite a lot as a process. In order to mirror the previous project, I made an alternate version with a different and modern fashion sensibility. I took inspiration from goth fashion as I felt that was the most diametrically opposed to the era that Audrey came from and from what she represented in the fashion world of her time. The result is something I find intriguing and somewhat humorous.

Title: Girl with a Pearl Earring Remixed

Series Title: Anthology Vol.03: #06

Artist: Luke McCready

Date: April 2nd 2021

Medium: Digital Drawing

Size: 5400 x 7200

Reinventing a classic, again

Much like my previous piece, La Grande Jatte Remixed, This piece explores an experimental technique using classic art as the subject; ‘Jatte’ explored the use of drawing with CMYK markers in the physical world, while this explores drawing in RGB layers in the digital.

Using Procreate on iPad, I set up a canvas with a black background and 3 layers. I assigned a color to each of those layers, #FF0000, #00FF00, and #0000FF. Using a different brush or technique for each one (it could be anything) I drew from just the red, green, or blue channel only from my reference. Once finished, use the Lighten layer mode and the full-color image will emerge.

What’s neat about this technique is that it’s imperfect. Edges don’t line up exactly, colors aren’t exact, brush effects are noticeable, and that gives it a really unique looking quality in the final composite.

Title: NOISE BRUSH

Series Title: Anthology Vol.03: #07

Artist: Luke McCready

Date: May 29th, 2021

Medium: Digital Drawing

Size: 3000 x 4000 pixels

A bonus

I enjoyed working on my previous series, 7 Colors, 1 Brush, so much that I couldn’t stop, so I made a bonus drawing following all the same rules I set up for that series. Keen-eyed observers will notice that the color palette here is the same one used in the series graphic for 7 Colors, 1 Brush.

Brush & Palette:

Touchups > Noise Brush

#190A31, #4E0D2B, #133E7D, #268F6F, #00B8AD, #B0E245, #EEF7CA

Title: 12 Pilots

Series Title: Anthology Vol.03: #08

Artist: Luke McCready

Date: July 12th, 2021

Medium: Digital Drawing

Size: 14400 x 16200 pixels

Reinventing a classic

This piece started as a fairly routine sketch based on a neat old photo I found online. I followed the same technique/style used in my series 7 Colors, 1 Brush, but this time instead of 7 colors, I limited it to only 4. This was for 2 reasons: It would give the drawing a more graphic quality, and it would be faster and easier given the level of detail in the reference.

The idea to make a pop-art style grid came when I realized the transmutability of digital art. Exporting from Procreate to Photoshop gives you total control over the color of each layer, so I made a ton of variations. I took my 6 favorite color palettes and packaged them up into one piece.

Title: Sammy Rae

Series Title: Anthology Vol.03: #09

Artist: Luke McCready

Date: July 24th, 2021

Medium: Digital Drawing

Size: 3000 x 4000 pixels

RGB + Animation = Magic

Here is another digital drawing using the RGB technique described earlier for Girl with a Pearl Earring Remixed. I enjoy this technique and I’m still learning what I can get away with, for example I discovered that if one layer is really accurate to the reference (red in this case), then I can be a little looser with another layer (blue in this case).

An added effect for this drawing is that there’s an animated version. Below is a YouTube video I made to see that and see an in-depth explanation of the techniques used here.

Title: Smoke 'Em if You Got 'Em

Series Title: Anthology Vol.03: #10

Artist: Luke McCready

Date: August 13th, 2021

Medium: T-shirt, Fabric Paint

Size: Men's Large

Something different

Since everything in this series so far has been digital art, I figured I’d end with something completely different, a t-shirt design.

The idea actually came from playing the Jackbox game Tee.K.O. with my friends, where this exact idea came about. I loved the idea and wanted to actually own it. To make the shirt real, I started with a rough sketch, which you can see below. From there I transferred that to cardboard and cut it out as a stencil. Next, I used the stencil and some fabric paint on a t-shirt to finish the project.