mikeberryart.com

Busy, Busy, Busy

Mike — Sun, 07 Jun 2009 18:45:18 +0000

We’ve been so busy lately, its been hard to even think about this blog, or even my art. We bought a new house April 30th, and repairs, packing, and moving have consumed our lives. Jacob developed an ear infection last weekend as well. He seems to be better, but he was generally inconsolable for roughly a week. My father-in-law has discovered he has prostate cancer and just began treat at MD Anderson in Houston. He’s going to be fine, but it’s still put a lot of additional stress on the family. Speaking of a stressed family, my sister is still out of work, and is getting low on savings, and my mother’s new puppy died. …and I think that’s about it. My art just hasn’t been able to be a priority. Of course, not having a space to work in, what with the move and all, has taken it’s toll as well.

Bryan Larsen… at it again.

Mike — Fri, 03 Apr 2009 05:09:02 +0000

www.bryanlarsenfineart.com" class="thickbox" rel="singlepic55" >

www.bryanlarsenfineart.com" class="thickbox" rel="singlepic54" >

Well, it appears Bryan Larsen has started a new project, and it looks intriguing. Two models, one clothed and one nude, dramatic lighting, lots of warm wood texture, and a back-story rooted in

www.bryanlarsenfineart.com" class="thickbox" rel="singlepic53" >

Greek mythology. Sounds like a winner already. The image to the left there reveals his block-in drawing. I’d recommend you check out the rest of the post on his blog, www.bryanlarsenfineart.com.

Also worth noting are the two figure studies he’s posted. Simply amazing, as always.

Meet Jacob

Mike — Sun, 29 Mar 2009 22:13:19 +0000

Here he is, Jacob Daniel Berry. Not only is he my brand-new beautiful son, but he’s also the primary reason this blog (and my art) have all but vanished lately. Taking care of him is a full-time job, which is tough, because I already have one of those. He is absolutely worth it though, as any parent would tell you, and I’m told it gets easier with time.

In mid-to-late January my wife’s pregnancy got rough. She was constantly exhausted and started having blood pressure issues, which I now know can be pretty serious during pregnancy. I did everything for her that I could. I took over all the shopping, cleaning, and cooking. Finally she was induced and gave birth to Jacob February 3rd. I had hoped the hard part was over, since now I would have my partner back to help out with things, but instead I found that the hard part was just beginning. How naive we were. There is absolutely no way anyone can communicate to you the trials (or joys) of caring for a newborn. It’s just something that you must experience to understand.

Things are getting back to normal though. He is nearly 8 weeks old, and he’s starting to sleep better, smile, giggle and coo — it’s wonderful. Lisa and I have settled in to this new way of life as well. I’ve been back at work since he was three weeks old, and she plans to return soon enough. We’re beginning to take an interest in our hobbies again too, and take a little time for ourselves now and then. I hope to get the house cleaned up, and return to my artwork and this blog as soon as possible.

David Malan’s Latest

Mike — Sun, 04 Jan 2009 00:06:35 +0000

Brilliant Anyway" class="thickbox" rel="singlepic50" >

I am so impressed by this guy’s work. His name is David Malan,

Brilliant Anyway" class="thickbox" rel="singlepic49" >

and he works as an Illustrator and professional Artist out of Utah. I check in on his blog from time to time, Brilliant Anyway, and I never fail to be amazed by the breadth of his talent.

Shown here are just a few of his more classically styled works, but he is also a very skilled surreal cartoonist and character designer.

Brilliant Anyway" class="thickbox" rel="singlepic48" >

I’d say he’s as skilled with the classic mediums, oils, pastels, and charcoal, as he is with digital painting. Most artists, myself included, struggle to have such range, just as a singer or guitarist would. Practice, practice, practice…

If you’d like to see more, check out his official site by clicking here (and his blog is linked both above and on the right-hand sidebar). His official site really shows off some of his more impressive works, but I as an artist, I really enjoy reading his blog.

On a Roll

Mike — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 05:42:46 +0000

I think I’ve got my blog completely up and running. I’ve got the galleries working, random artwork on the sidebar, the ability to post pictures within my posts, a blog roll, and all elements skinned (or “themed” as WordPress says) with html and CSS control of it all. All that is left is regular updates and maybe a few extra pages here or there.

I found some more of my work while looking through the art room, so I took some pictures and uploaded it here. It’s just a few works from a session with Natalie Nicole, and two gesture drawings with another model, but it’s something. I’ve added some of them to this post for fun.

I hope to start drawing again now that things are looking more stable at work. It didn’t make sense to hire and pay models when my income was in question. It should be easier now that this blog is out of the way as well. Getting it “finished” in my eyes has really consumed all of my efforts, but I suppose it was good timing seeing as how working on it is free and I was worried about my finances.

At last… Live Galleries

Mike — Mon, 24 Nov 2008 06:12:49 +0000

At last, my gallery is finally live! Every two steps toward this goal seemed to be followed by one step backward. It's this NextGen Gallery that I'm using. It has an amazing back-end (just like your mom, -- zing!), but it's just so overly complicated and difficult to tweak. I feel that I have managed to massage it into working with my theme, but there are still a few bugs and features that are not yet working. For instance, I haven't yet tested attaching a single pic to a post such as this one. All things in due time though. First, I want to finish notating the works in my gallery, and then I want to get my blog roll going. Following that, I might work on the rest of the gallery functions. We'll see.

Oh, and also take a look at the page I created covering the details of modeling work. I send something similar to every model that expresses interest in working with me. I've built up its contents over time by just writing down the answers to the questions I receive, so really it was nothing to port it over to html, and give it a bit of a navigation menu.

Almost there…

Mike — Sat, 08 Nov 2008 21:17:02 +0000

I’ve made great progress on my galleries. I’ve completely skinned them to match my theme, and I’ve added room in the layout for a description. The only remaining tasks are to make the css work with IE6, and tweak the “album” page. Once those are done, then I’ll be able to install the gallery plugin here on my main blog. I’m not quite sure how to solve the IE6 problem, so even though there isn’t much left to do, it might take a while.

Slower Than Expected

Mike — Wed, 05 Nov 2008 02:06:13 +0000

Well, this gallery thing is going to take longer than I thought. I’m trying to modify it somewhat to both match my theme, and to allow me to post longer descriptions with my images. Unfortunately the javascript that loads the images is kicking my ass. I may have to call in the big guns on this one (meaning Seth).

Gallery in Progress

Mike — Sun, 02 Nov 2008 05:58:48 +0000

I’ve found a gallery manger/generator that I think will meet my goals. It’s the NextGEN Gallery by Alex Rabe. It’s extremely popular, and integrates exceptionally will with the WordPress backend. I have to say that I’m impressed. It doesn’t do everything my heart desires, but I can’t imaging anything will unless I make it myself.

I’m testing it on my test site now, and I think it will work for me. Before I make it live though, I’ll need to tweek it a bit to get it to mesh with my theme better. Then comes editing and resizing the images that will live in the gallery. Once that is all done, the gallery will go live. I’m guessing it will only be a few days, depending on how well this project holds my attention.

It’s Finally Live

Mike — Thu, 30 Oct 2008 04:17:46 +0000

I decided to build myself a theme before beginning my blog, as I hoped making it feel like mine would encourage me to post. There is still a lot to do here, but this is a start. First and foremost, I need to find a way to build a gallery page. Sure, I could write the hole thing outright in html and css, but I would far rather have a script build it for me dynamically. I hope to find something that will allow me to freely change or expand the gallery’s content without having to rewrite any code or formatting. I know I’m not the first person to have the idea, so I’m sure there is something out there that will meet my needs. I just have to go look for it. If you happen to know of anything, please leave it in the comments to this post (just click the link below).

I’d like to thank my good friend Seth for all his help, and for being patient with my unending php, css, and html questions. Also I’d like to say that W3Schools proved to be an absolutely priceless reservoir of website building knowledge. I think I read the majority of their html, xhtml, and css content from cover to cover. Good stuff indeed. I highly recommend it.