Ye Olde Turkey

Thanksgiving!

Sketchbook post

I've been bad.

I haven't done much with my sketchbook.  Well, not the one that I might carry around with me when I go places.  I started a larger one to do studies in, but I've mostly neglected this other one.  I'm not really halfway through it, and would like to fill it before year's end.  might be a lofty goal at this point.

any way, I figured that I should post a few things.

Just some random portraits and a sidewalk with buildings, which I never draw because, well, perspective.

this started out as an india ink drawing, and then I decided to add acrylic washes to it.  

This one also started out as an india ink drawing but I chose watercolors.  I would have continued, but 1- I'm not too familiar with watercolors, and 2- the sketchbook pages were beginning to break down because of all the water media I was using.  There were some cool things that were happening with it and I learned some things.

Jack Planted Pumpkins!

I am submitting this for The Third Annual Cult of the Great Pumpkin Art Contest (2013)!  I used their font for my witch painting and he emailed me asking if I had considered entering a piece.  I decided to sit down today and create a pumpkin themed piece for the contest, just for fun.

The contest can be viewed here!  

I thought a Jack and the Beanstalk parody would be fun.

Happy Halloween!

I finally forced myself to sit down and finish this up.  I really like it for the most part.  I wish I were better at typography.  SinisterFonts is where I got my font, so thanks for that!

...and also a few other color variations that I played with and mostly liked.

I'm a mean ol' witch...

Well, it's that time of year again; At least that is what the stores say. I work at Lowe's and we are getting Halloween stuff in already. That's crazy! Anyway, every year I tell myself I will do something for the holiday and most years I don't. Mostly because I have been in school. but this year I don't have an excuse. I still plan on doing a better one, but this one was a 30 minute "sketch" and was a fun exercise.

 

Giraffe

I was commissioned to do an illustration for the background of a children's book website.  I have started doing the drawings.  I am going to put a couple giraffe in there, so I thought I would post some of them up.  This is my first paid commission since I graduated in December of last year!

I have done a couple of t-shirt designs for people, but I will have to post those later.

update bird king process

I received some gracious help from Bill Carman about how to go about adding color to this.  He really helped me get moving.  This is close to how I envisioned this, but not quite.  I'm going to do a few more of these to figure this out.  so far there are things I really like that I'm doing, and other things I'm still completely lost on.

anyway, here is this update, for now.

better boogar...a sketchbook post

Today's sketchbook topic was "something green".  I imagined blue trolls comparing green boogars.  I threw some color on this quickly, but I may paint the original piece in my book in acrylic.  we will see?

sketch book post

well, It's been awhile since I drew in my sketchbook.  I usually sketch in a sketchbook every sunday during church, but as far as my regular sketchbook goes, I haven't been faithful.  for shame.

I was doing a business card design for my father in law that involved cowboy hats.  I've only drawn a handful of them before so it was fun.  I couldn't help but draw a head under one.  

not sure what was going on with me here.  the face is weird, but somehow I still like this...

I'm committing to a themed drawing every day, and the first day happened to be a mythical creature.  I decided to recreate a gryphon.  no wings, but kept the lion body, and used an owl head instead.  Hadn't seen one of those yet, although I'm sure it has been done.

Bird King. again.

Thumbnails are fun.  I painted this thumbnail at this size.  I really enjoy thumbnails like this because I feel the most creative in this process.  For some reason my line-work is making little to no progress.  I seem to feel more comfortable with painting shapes.  I will keep working at it tho.  

I seem to be stuck on this "Bird King"  character that I posted earlier.  I would like to flesh this out more.  right now Adam Ford is one of my most favorite artists.  my style isn't like his at all, but he gets me excited about doing art.  I guess sometimes we need that.

Update: 30 March

I wanted his legs to be smaller like in the acrylic painting.  I messed around with this for 2 hours.  doesn't look like 2 hours worth of work, haha.

Logan

Well, I decided to take the time to "finish" this one.  He is being a huge fuss-monster right now so getting anything done is a miracle in and of itself.  He is usually pretty good...tomorrow he goes to the Doc, and I'm sure it will be the worst experience of his life for years to come.

Logan WIP

well, 1.5 weeks ago my wife gave birth to our baby boy, Logan!  He is a bundle of joy.  sometimes he is a Fuss monster, but for the most part he is pretty swell.  I haven't had much time, but I've started a painting of him.

It has been fun.  I usually try not to paint skin because it is pretty dang tough, but Im learning and thats what is important.  I haven't decided if I am just not able to make smooth shiny paintings or if I just really like the impressionistic feel...

The Bird King

I decided to start my "mobile" sketchbook for 2013.  I have one at home that I draw in all the time.  The paper in my "mobile" one is better and can take multiple mediums.

Anyway, I continue to study and learn, and drew this guy today and painted it using acrylic washes.  

I always see lots of issues once I put it down.  I like this a lot, but it isn't polished.  I would have to start over.  It was really fun to not care and just be really loose.  

I started out with a blue-violet ground and carved the figure out in white.  then used a yellow-orange mixture and went back and forth.  I added red at the end in a few places to bring it to life a bit more.

Abominable snowman

I found some "traditional" brushes online that I absolutely love.  I have tried to make my own, but hadn't been truly happy with them.  I decided to try these new ones out.

it is really fun to work with a limited color pallets, and I tried to be hard nosed about not using any layer styles or tweaks, and to paint it as if it were paint.  I was successful for the most part, but I did use some desaturation on the background and some layer opacity changes, but not much at all.  mostly on the background.  I did color pick at times, but it was minimal.

Foot soldier

This was a lot of fun.  I had made a texture brush a long time ago, and I decided to make a painting using only that texture brush.  I wanted to try and paint it only in greyscale and then apply color.

This is what I came up with.  I also used some dodge tools at the end as well as some color balance tricks.  I really like the feeling of this, and may do more.