Category Archives: Uncategorized

Tylosaurus

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Tylosaurus 16×20″ $20.00 USD [wpepsc name="Tylosaurus 16x20" Print" price="20.00" align="center"]

Alrtight its finally done!  After quite some time, many sketches, revisions, and edits (ok and procrastination) I have finally finished my painting of the Tylosaurus!  There was alot of learning done in this one.  For starters I have never painted an underwater scene before.  Secondly, how does one go about painting a baitball of fish???  Then there was the tylosaurus!  But i feel that this art piece came out really well.  Here is all the in progress shots to go alont with it!

Finish is 9×10 watercolor on Aquabord, really awesome stuff.  This is the first painting done on that material and I really like it.

The Making of Amargasaurus

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Alright so Prehistoric times makes calls for dinosaur art pieces to post in their magazine.  He does not pay but hey its free publication and I so do enjoy a little excuse to do some dino drawings from time to time.  Naturally when the call was for the ever so awesome looking Amargasaurus, I was all but to excited to start the work.  I did some serious research this time into my dinosaurs overall build and anatomy.  I checked out several skeleton reconstructions online and other artists interpretations.  I also checked out the muscle structure of both Giraffes and Elephants.  With this in mind I decided to go a bit of a different rout with the dino. First of all, I wanted two of them, secondly I wanted them to not be from a profile but looking at the view.  So I started with my sketch:
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I was pretty happy with the sketches, they showed nice perspective and detail in the sail features on the necks.  I then redrew the sketches onto a 20×30″ illustration board.  I masked off the dinosaurs and started with the sky and background:
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Now time for the Dinos!  I used references from Iguanas and Alligators for the skin and coloration.  Its amazing how well the iguana worked for this one!  Go ahead and look them up and you would see why!
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Then Finally, the finishing touches!  Adding a bit of airbrush to the sun, some sand and lighting effects, white highlights, all the fun stuff you get to do at the end.  The final result:
http://www.jamescskinner.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/rsz_amargasaurus1.jpg

What!? Who is this James Skinner?

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Welcome to James Skinner’s artistic homepage of fanciful imagery.  A portal to all things artsy by me and of interest to me.

Currently I am a High School art teacher at Williston High School way up in the North lands of the country in North Dakota.  Since we have snow nine months out of the year here one tends to have time during our “winters” to work on art, and that is what I do.  If you are interested on this site you will find enough fantasy images that fulfill the passage of time over the winters of my beautiful state of North Dakota.

When I am not out shoveling the drive way or enjoying the few rays of sunshine of the summer, I am available to do illustration work, concept design, and other miscellaneous art endeavors.

RealityDysfunction

Some Works Coming!

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Alright so I have like 4 or so projects in the works. (really they have been in the works for awhile I just keep starting new ones) So my plan is to get them up here for you all to see soon. One is a dragon slayer, another is a good old figure work, a new piece of paleoart, and maybe some dancers. Hopefully a lot of finished work coming in the future along with some other new ones.
Here is a little peek at some stuff,


Until then I am hoping to do more Paleoart and some figure work in the future.  I may even try and venture outside of my comfort zone a little bit so we shall see.

Triple Goddess, Serpent’s Stare

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Would you like a little insight into the making of one of my favorite pieces I have done??? Well your in luck because I just so happen to have a little bit of a in progress viewing of one of my Triple Goddesses!

Serpent’s Stare was actually the first one of the three painted, and is by far the youngest looking one of them all.  When I first started it was all about the skin.  I felt her skin should by my first step since it was the lightest and furthest back part of her body.  I really feel this was one of my first big breaks in eye painting and delicate skin tones.  After that it was all about the fabric, and weather or not I could get the look I wanted. To be honest the lace did not come out quite as well as I had hoped but it was alright

 Then it was onto the snake and the hair.  Now I had a really good time painting the hair and had little to no issues with it.  But the snake was a different story.  Scales are hard!  I learned that they are not random but are arranged in a very geometric style and if I didnt do that they looked really cheep and clumsy.  Also the overall shape of the snake with the diamonds and the lay of it over here was a challenge and I feel i succeeded in some parts more than other but I was happy with it at the time.
After the snake I added the back ground colors and elements to really make the orange pop and give the whole piece its complimentary color scheme.  I have to say that while painting this piece it was my favorite thing to do and I was SUPER excited to see the end project.  I felt it was by far my best piece up to that date and was ecstatic to have such a nice painting.  Overall the around 40 hours of work was well worth it.
Watercolor 15"X22"
Serpent’s Stare  15″X22″ Watercolor

What!? Who is this James Skinner?

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Hello and welcome to my little neck of the internet.  If this is your first time seeing my work then GREAT/Awesome, here is a link to my gallery website Link, and my facebook page link.  On my blog here I will be talking about artsy type stuff that I find cool, new things that are happening in my world of art, and general posts of things that I have done with some WIP involved. 

As my lady in the woods beckons you deeper into the unknown mist please follow me here on my little adventure that is the life of an art teacher and artist in the great state of North Dakota!