traditional art – Tyra Oliver Art

Completed Painting

I have just finished my latest painting ” Escape From Babylon”. The concept is based upon this mysterious pair of sojourners who are aware of the carnage happening in the distance.

Escape From Babylon, oil on canvas panel 12×16

I wanted to use this painting as an opportunity to pull viewers into the universe that I’ve introduced. That being said, my current and future works do have an interwoven narrative. This narrative will feature standard fantasy tropes and Judeo-Christian themes that I hold dear. Seeing this painting is basically like watching a novelist write a book by the paragraph; or by the sentence as it’s being written. As I build my body of work viewers get a chance to piece everything together and explore the world as it’s being constructed….almost like a scavenger hunt!

If you want to look under the hood, this video shows me working on a portion of this painting. In addition to following this blog, subscribe to the YouTube channel. We are already working on more content so there will be some pretty awesome things happening there including more footage of paintings being created.

Thanks for stopping by!

Polka-dot Afro

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Adventures using my new-ish Prismacolor markers, grey Faber-Castell brush pen and black Micron pen. This was done in a tan sketchbook.

Figure study

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I just discovered that there is a group in my area that conducts weekly figure study sessions. I am very excited to discover this as I have been unable to actually do a nude study from life for the past couple of years. I look forward to learning more and meeting other artists. Here are a couple of the longer pose studies.

Intro Post

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I would like to kick off my first blog post here by being transparent about myself and my design process. I spend most of my waking hours creating things, talking about creating things, or consuming creative things. I just enjoy pretty things including hair and makeup, clothing, interior decorating…the list goes on. My aesthetic is typically reflected in my subject matter. I look forward to a long time of using this blog to share in my passion for making the world a nicer place to look at while expressing my own as well as the vision of my patrons.

Now before I get all Von Trapp and go into a tirade about my favorite things I’ll go ahead and post a Work in Progress (WIP). This particular item is created with pen and ink, and color pencil and will become my new website header and the basis for my visual identity. As an illustrator I would like to lean to this type of work as it’s more indicative of what I do.