Pudgy?

This little bulldog is getting in shape with style! This was done for a class to accompany an article about doggy fitness & obesity. I'm not going to complain about what I wish I'd done differently, so I'll just say that I love her little face - especially her crooked teeth! And I love her little fat rolls :)

Me

Digital self portrait for a class. My hair is quite light right now :) Photoshop.

Mad Rush

These were really quick studies, like the fastest things I've ever painted. The one on top is going to be my final for Adv. Illustration so we'll see how it turns out! It has some photoshop-ing (is that a word...) to help it look like she's surrounded by notes.

Do Something About It

March is over?!?

Okay - so where did March go? I drew about a zillion pictures, some of which I will try posting next month... trust me there's only a couple worth sharing - you're not missing out on anything. This was a really fun painting - It has gesso applied unevenly on watercolor paper so when you paint on it a cool texture appears. Oh ya, I didn't bother stretching the paper before-hand, so if you were to see the original it has a lovely ripple-effect... I should really know better!

More Faces

These were fun! - they're acrylic with gesso texture on watercolor paper. Here's the assignment: On the top, a brown under-painting with color dry brushed over it. Next, vivid colors. Then a high-key painting with neutral colors mixed from complements & white. And finally a low-key painting which has many colors, but all very neutral with grays and no value lighter than a 3... (okay I sort of cheated with the eyes.) They're all stylized, which I love doing :) I think I'm getting the hang of acrylics, but I still feel a little out of control when I'm painting, like I just don't know how things are going to turn out (or even if they'll turn out sometimes.) So I've got a lot more practicing to do.

But I'm happy with these :)

You guessed it.

The colors went a little weird & dull...

More School Paintings

No Time!

Well, I shouldn't have spent any time doing this... But there you have it!

Brown Sketches

These were so much fun to draw - even though they all kind of look the same... I was going for that classical renaissance face. (That baby seriously had this Mac & Me quality - but in a cute way!!)

Nothing Special

Just some pink sketches - I have to apologize for some of my scans recently. One of the scanners I use is very nice at accurately scanning & the other one is just awful & wants to auto-correct everything for you. (It's like a little kid that cuts their own hair thinking they're doing mommy a favor...)

Anyway, I got the new James Christensen book & I love it! I actually met him over the summer at the Twiggs & Moore Gallery & he's such a nice person. He drew a picture while he was there & gave previews of some of the paintings that appear in this book. (I don't quite know about his whole "well-dressed man/hunchback" characters, but I love his figurative work, details & textures.) I think he also figures that you can never paint too many profile views! (or fish...) I wonder if he does teaching workshops...

Nicole & Matt :)

One of my very good friends from work, Nicole, is getting married this January & asked me to draw a picture of her & her fiance. They were so much fun to draw & I'm so happy that she loves how it turned out! They are the cutest couple ever :) I even had that song "So Happy Together" running through my mind while I was drawing it (& I'm sure they will be)!

One more for the road.

I think we all feel like this sometimes. I'll probably do a finished version of this someday.

MONSTERS!

Well, this is definitely not the best thing I've ever done, but it's also not the worst. I wish I could carry the energy from the sketch stage through to the finished piece. (Wow, check out that rustic-looking chalkboard - looks like it was pulled out of a lake!) I was a little concerned about the chalk boxes looking like they were cigarette boxes for some reason... apparently Goobley's a two-pack-a-day monster! (But he's trying to quit.)

Anyway, enjoy these monster sketches:

Yep, more sketches...

The Birds

Start with an abstract shape - then make a bird out of it.

Comin' at ya in 3-D!

That's right folks - break out the old 3-D glasses & take a gander at them snowflakes! -
Thanks to Jake for the idea! :)

Poindexter

I think this chair is an optical illusion.

Blair Style

I have been pretending to be Mary Blair today. Heard of her? She was an incredible concept artist for Disney during the 1950's & worked on films like Alice in Wonderland, Peter Pan & she designed the characters from It's a Small World! She has the cutest way of drawing children - So I drew up a little girl in footy-pajamas. It reminds me of Christmas when I was little, although I never actually had footy-pajamas, but I did get a brand new pair of pajamas that my mom sewed for me. They were so special, I just loved them!


This is just something out of my head one night when I was really tired & couldn't get to sleep. :)

B&W!

I just love working in black & white! It's so much easier than color!! :)

These are from when I was young & naive... okay they're actually from a couple of years ago. I was digging through my old things and can remember how much I loved working on these two pictures.

The first is sort of a mechanical "unicorn" I drew while I was watching Aliens and the second is the interior of a car, both were done as assignments in illustration classes. :)

Just for Fun

Whoa - I just realized that if I had made this girl a blonde she'd look like Janice from the Muppets! (well, sorta...) weird.

Tea Party

Who hasn't imagined having a tea party with a dragon? This little girl is trying to teach a dragon the proper way to hold a tea cup - with your pinkie up! Well, this was done for an assignment and it was intense! -- I had to do about a zillion sketches & crank it out as fast as I possibly could. It was fun though. :) I was thinking of making the dragon more colorful at first, but opted for a more traditional looking one. I wish it looked a little more like the one from my thumbnail sketch. I need to work on carrying the spontaneity from my sketches through to the finished piece!

Foxy!

More col-erase sketches! I would love to do a children's story starring these characters! -- The bunnies were so fun I couldn't stop drawing them! (I think I have about 10 pages of just bunnies!!). :)

More charcoal dust!

Another charcoal on newsprint. I really struggled on this one - it didn't look like it was going to make it until the very end. I wish I'd been able to sit on the other side of this model - she had a few of these seashells throughout her hair and all I could see from my angle was the one on top. :( Great model though, lots of fun to draw.

Figure Study

I think this is my favorite figure study from last semester, although the bandanna she's wearing should have been much lighter and I wasn't able to finish the body (oh well...). I was trying to work the whole dark against light and light against dark thing, along with lost edges. Charcoal on newsprint.