ryanbarnesart

[ryanbarnesart]

Galleria's People 2025 exhibition is live and my Girl with Birthmark artwork is on display! The exhibition is online so go check it out and rate not only my work but the work of other artists too that resonate with you!

[ryanbarnesart]

Art Club Summer Assignment

Blue Period is one of my favorite anime and manga recently. I really enjoy the story as well as the real lessons built within the narrative. In the story, Masako Saeki gives her art club students an assignment to complete during summer break. This challenge is something I've wanted to try myself and I figure other artists might want to give it a shot too.

Time Limit: 6 weeks or 42 days.

The time limit is roughly based off of average length of high school summer breaks in Japan which averages about 6 weeks.

10 Still Lives

7 drawings and 3 watercolor paintings.

For support, I recommend no smaller than 9x12 inches and no bigger than 18x20 inches.

Use at least 3 items made of different materials or have different properties.

Do NOT spend more than 5 hours per still life. ("The deadline is part of the challenge." - Masako Saeki)

1 Scrapbook

The scrapbook is for you to use as you like.

Draw, write, add photos of whatever sparks your imagination or you find interesting.

This is a book of treasures, a cabinet of curiosities.

I recommend the Ranger Dylusions Creative Journal as it comes with a built-in storage for loose scraps.

1 Photo Diary

Use your cell phone to take at least 1 photograph per day.

The focus here should be on framing and composition.

Print your photos for display. (I recommend 8x6 inch for 4:3 photos or 10x8 inch prints for 5:4 photos.)

You can use an alternative camera if you want or if you don't have access to a decent phone camera (at least 12-megapixels). If using a DSLR in manual mode, try not to get too bogged down in exposure triangle. The point is to capture snapshots of your day with a focus on framing and composition.

Full auto mode is ok here, just get the framing and composition right in camera rather than cropping after the fact.

1 Full Piece

This artwork can be made of any material at any size.

3D, 2D, video, comic, photograph, painting, cartoon, digital or traditional, whatever you want to do.

The only rule here is to have fun with this piece.

That's basically it for the challenge. A big rule that I feel goes without saying but will say it anyway to be clear: absolutely no AI. The point of this challenge is to put in the hours and the work to advance and hone our skills and discover our voice. Delegating these tasks to AI or generative image program is NOT putting in the work.

If you fail to complete the challenge, that's ok. Review what went wrong, take a break, and try again when you are ready. Better to have put in the time to finish half the challenge than to have put in no time at all.

[ryanbarnesart]

I was a guest on Hoorf! My first interview and publication as an artist.

Elle sits down to talk with artist Ryan Barnes, whom she knows from the Spoonie Studio virtual gatherings. They dig into Ryan’s art practice, and he shares the ongoing development of the "void" series, which explores themes of disconnection and change. Ryan also talks about balancing his art with his role as a parent and student, and the impact of his service dog, BlackBerry, on his work. He emphasizes the importance of self-compassion and personal growth in art. Links to connect with Ryan, and all other resource links, are in the full show notes at hoorfpodcast.com [Quote from the Hoorf! podcast website.]

[ryanbarnesart]

Koi Carp Part 2, 2025, acrylic on canvas

This is the second painting as part of my journey exploring the lessons in Art Academy: Lessons for Everyone (Nintendo 3DS) and applying the concepts to real world mediums.

In Koi Carp Part 1, I tried to follow the instructions as closely as possible. However, for Part 2, I used the instructions as guidelines more or less. I used the skills that were discussed but I mixed the paint differently to get the effect I wanted, for example.

[ryanbarnesart]

Koi Carp Part 1, 2025, acrylic on canvas

I'm working on a video comparing lessons and skills learned in Art Academy: Lessons for Everyone! to real world materials. This is the result of following the lesson as close as possible. The next painting I'll do will be of the same subject but free to mix my own colors how I see fit using the same 10 paints from the game's tutorial.

[ryanbarnesart]

Ground painted and masking tape removed.

Today, I was able to get some studio time in and start painting the Koi lesson from Art Academy. I’m reminded yet again that I REALLY need to get a lighting solution for my easel. The photos don’t show it as well but, in person, it’s hard to see the different colors on the canvas in that room for whatever reason.

Yes, even that last picture where you can see the whole canvas with the masking tape removed shows more color than how it looks in person. It’s like my walls were primed with black holes or antimatter or something.

[ryanbarnesart]

Art Academy Mixing Chart

I’m finally getting to the point where I can make a documentary sort of thing about Art Academy: Lessons for Everyone.

There are some aspects of the game and applying it to real world materials I won’t be covering. Namely, dry pastels. Mostly because I don’t want to deal with the mess, I don’t want my dog or daughter accidentally inhaling cadmium, and I don’t have the space to dedicate to use of such materials.

I do want to cover the drawing techniques and painting in the very least. The painting is an interesting one because it does require some adjustments when applying to real world materials. For example, in-game uses Yellow Ochre whereas I’ll be using the close proximation paint Yellow Oxide. Color mixing seems easy enough since it deals largely with “parts” units. The glazing is another story…

For glaze in-game, you add or remove water in 4 different levels I’ve currently documented as “0%”, “33%”, “66%”, and “100%”. This still doesn’t give exact measurements. I am also opting to use a glaze medium instead of just water for easier and consistent measurements on the palette. I’ll have to play with it more to find the close proximation but in respect to the previous order, I’m almost thinking it’s 0:1 part, 1:2 parts, 1:1 part, and 2:1 part, possibly more. Probably WAY more.

This has been a really fun research project no one asked for and I really find the journey intriguing. I’m still on the fence about whether or not to do lessons in order or to do it my own way since the earlier lessons have the paints already mixed for you. I might also might just mention things taught in previous lessons as I use the technique for the one I am actively recording.

[ryanbarnesart]

Mental Health, 2024, acrylic on canvas

Originally I wasn’t going to release this painting when I first made it but now I think it just needed to wait for the right time.

I did this painting mid-November last year while grappling with my generalized anxiety disorder, major depressive disorder, PTSD and coming to terms with my disabilities. A lot of the time, it feels like my peace of mind is a water balloon hanging over shards of glass, especially this past week.

I’m ok. I got my service animal and support group. It’s just hard.

[ryanbarnesart]

Thank you all for getting me to 10 reblogs and 50 likes!

Ya'll, it's been like… 3 days since my first post on my art blog. Seriously, it has been such a warm welcomes and I am looking forward to what the future looks like for my art here on Tumblr. This is a great start.

It has been a funky week to say the least and honestly difficult to get in the right headspace to work in studio, to recognize goodness, to celebrate anything, but this helps.

Stay safe, hold your cousins close, help each other out, share resources, stay strong.

[ryanbarnesart]

Finished Art Academy (Nintendo 3DS) Introductory Course Lessons

In between projects, I've been doing some research for a video I want to produce on my YouTube Channel. Recently I have rediscovered my New Nintendo 3DS (yes, "New" was actually part of the name in the last line of 3DSes), fell in love with it, and wanted to experiment with Art Academy: Lessons for Everyone.

The thing that attracted me to Art Academy was that it was a game that promised to teach real world art techniques for beginners and experts to enjoy. Though my video idea is still in a valuable state, I want to see how well they translate over but, rather than jump in blind, I needed to do basic research and experience some of the lessons myself to help guide how I would do this. I'll probably speak more on this when production actually starts but for now, this is where I am at.

I wanted to share some of the pieces I created within the Art Academy game, following along with the lessons, and what I have found. The most difficult part for me was not so much the rather small screen size but how the screen is NOT pressure sensitive and I would have to stop myself from literally stabbing the stylus into the screen to make the brush stroked bigger/bolder.

That said, I am actually impressed with not only the lessons but how well the game performs as a digital art software. It is no Photoshop or Procreate but, in many ways, I almost prefer it over those programs. Rebelle 7 is probably the closest app to how Art Academy's drawing program functions. While in both Rebelle 7 and Art Academy you paint in a very real world way to get the color you want, Art academy allows you to add water directly to the paint where Rebelle 7 only allows you to increase or decrease the amount of water if using the watercolor brush tool. If there is a way to add water to paint using the Acrylic / Oil brushes, I haven't found how to yet.

[ryanbarnesart]

Untitled Koi, 2025, digital art made in Rebelle 7

I wanted to play around with Rebelle 7 and create a digital painting utilizing the powerful traditional art too simulation features it offers. I was able to mix colors as I would have mixed paint rather than picking from a color wheel which was nice.

I think the most difficult bit for me was trying to decide between using my Intuos Pro tablet or my iPad via MacOS Screen Mirroring. The Intuos Pro tablet felt closer to how it feels when using procreate on iPad in fluidity and functionality BUT the nibs were wearing down fairly fast (might be a me problem and I need to adjust pressure used). iPad felt a little clunky but I wasn't getting the terrible feedback of a nib being worn down (Apple Pencil + Paperlike Nib + Paperlike Screen Protector) so overall the experience of making strokes was a lot better even though I had to largely depend on my mouse and keyboard hotkeys for selecting tools, colors, etc.

I ended up going with the iPad even though it felt more clunky having to switch to keyboard and mouse for everything that wasn't a brush stroke just because it was worth the tradeoff to feel comfortable when making marks on the digital canvas.

[ryanbarnesart]

Untitled Void, 2025, acrylic on canvas, 16 in x 20 in

This painting further experiments with the emotions that inspired the earlier Hero's Return work. Here is an experiment of using a geometric shape for the void floating in the city streets of Seattle, expressing a hole that was left behind and cannot be filled and yet the city moves on around it.

Both this painting and Hero's Return uses Mars Black, Titanium White, Burnt Umber, and Yellow Oxide. However, unlike Hero's Return which used Naphthol Crimson, Light Hansa Yellow, and Ultramarine Blue (Green Shade) to make all it's various colors, this painting used Quinacridone Crimson, Cadmium-Free Yellow Light, and Phthalocyanine Blue (Green Shade) to make it's various colors. These primary colors used give the overall painting a more print like quality by using hues closer to cyan and magenta instead of blue and red.

[ryanbarnesart]

Ryan Barnes, Hero's Return, 2024, acrylic on canvas, 20 in x 16 in

In this acrylic painting, I really wanted to connect landscape painting with my icelandic heritage and what I have been feeling. I began painting mountains that can be seen on an island in the Norwegian Sea and added to the ocean a norse "picture stone" like depiction of vikings returning. While the two fit in theme, they don't fit in style which is representative of how I feel returning home as a veteran struggling to fit where I once did.

[ryanbarnesart]

What niche means to me as a visual artist.

There is something I want to put out into the universe and say largely for myself as a reminder but also for posterity's sake. As I start to transition out of academia and into my career before entering into academia once more to work towards my MFA, I want to express in detail what my niche is plain and simple:

My artistic journey and the art is produced from it is my niche.

There is a lot of talk in the creation world about niching down to a singular point to differentiate and, to me, that just sounds REALLY limiting and not what I am about. I enjoy character design, comics, games, and visual storytelling. Much of which inspired my tastes and me to get into the game of visual arts. I also enjoy more fine art things and painting expressionistic portraits, still lives, and landscapes.

Niching down gets taught as if I have to pick on thing over the other and I don't believe that to be true in the slightest. I love working on several different genres of visual art separately or combining them and sharing the results with the world. Cutting off large parts of the art world that I am interested in exploring is a thought that makes me really sad. The whole point of art, in my view, is to explore these worlds for ourselves, grow as people from the experience, and share the results.

We all stand on the shoulders of giants, all the greats did too. But we all stand on different giants for different reasons. I think we, as individual artists with our own tastes, histories, interests, and abilities makes all of our art unique in it's own right. It is my belief that if we were all sitting in a room together to create art based off the same still life, every piece would look vastly different regardless of if we used the same medium as one another or could choose anything to work with.

Sure, if I stop making expressionist paintings and still life drawings and start posting illustrations and character art, I expect to lose a group of followers because that's not what they followed me for. But those new artworks will attract a different group of people altogether. Then, there are those who are here for the journey, to see what I do and how far I go.

I welcome those who choose to follow me be it for the art or the journey. I thank them for coming along for the ride. For those who choose to leave, I thank them for being here as long as they have been and hope they had fun while they were here.

[ryanbarnesart]

Peppers & Onion, 2024, mixed media, 20 in x 18 in

A mixed media still life drawing of peppers and an onion. Ripped up news paper and paper bag glued onto 18 by 24 inch drawing paper, each surface using a different medium: colored pencils on paper bag, conté crayon on news paper, and graphite on drawing paper.

[ryanbarnesart]

Untitled Still Life, 2024, acrylic on canvas, 16 in x 20 in

A still life, acrylic painting on canvas of a bust, book, and flowers. For this still life, I wanted to challenge myself so I filled the shadow areas with yellow light using a multicolored LED light. This created an interesting effect that I really liked.

[ryanbarnesart]

Water, Life, Death, 2024, ink on paper, 18 in x 24 in

This still life drawing gave me an opportunity to play with brush ink drawing. Using almost exclusively Sumi-e brushes, I was able to explore stylistic drawing along with realistic proportions overcoming creative obstacles the medium provides. I was able to further extend playing with the properties of ink by making different textures on a separate piece of paper and collaging them onto this composition.