An update:

In the Works: Surfing Fairie

In contrast, I went to a sunny happy pic. One is a quick value, color study, the other an underpainting.

Here it is: Sulee and LeoPardine. I am overall disappointed in the way it turned out. It appears to be painted with mud. I think it shows my weaknesses--I really need to work with color better, lighting, and atmospheric effects. That is supposed to be fog in the background, not grey cotton. I may do another color study in photoshop--then take another crack at this one but not in the near future.

This painting is now available at ebay: http://cgi5.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll

Sulee and LeoPardine:

I have been working on some paintings so the posts will be slower in coming. Here are some details of one that is almost finished.

I am working on some fairies and dragons for the next posts!

In the Works:

Value and light source study for LeoPardine painting.

Prehistoric Arboreal Cat

Been working on this for a while now. Special thanks for fantasy artist, Christopher Moeller, who helped me establish a light source for the painting and for all his encouragement and patience. I met Christopher at the Comic Con this year and peppered him with questions for almost an hour.

This is about 12x7.5, acrylic on canvas paper and lots and lots of glazes.

And here is a drawing study I forgot to post.

Head "Centaurion"

I have been drawing centaurs lately and this one is actually a caricature of Greg. He is very fun and easy to draw.

Done. Finally. Little Brandon came out better than expected; expressive, buttery, fresh. And if Amy looks labored over--she was! I had to paint her over and over and Greg kept looking over my shoulder, thinking I was insane. Brandon was painted in a tonal values first, then flesh tones were applied. This was very successful, but for some reason, when I tried it with Amy, (I think I got too opaque with the washes) it did not work.

A free logo for Sienna's school. This will be printed on t-shirts. Greg helped me with the props and picking and placing type.

Creatures

Someone at Greg's work asked if I could draw creatures. I dashed these out this morning--got other jobs I need to get a handle on. These were fun, fun, fun. I love drawing animals and people and these are a strange mix of both. These go hand in hand with John Quinn's and Danbob Thompson's "Big Foot" drawings (see John Quinn, right).

Portrait exercise, a combination of layered transparent washes and opaque applied paints. All acrylic. Started turning out kinda Bouguereau-esque, which was not my intentions, but learned a lot anyway...

Lately I have been messing around with opaque paints. Yesterday, at Steve and Becky's 4rth of July bbq, I irritated Greg, Becky and Steve by staring at them and sketching them in acrylic. I am concerned about different skin tones.

I still have a G-4 and it is slow. One of these days, I will update to a faster computer. This means that in between actions, I sketch characters to make the most of my time. Here are some pro bono sketches for a character I am creating for my daughter's school.

Here are some of the other cowgirl concepts I did for a designer. Each one could be worked up into something really nice...I just don't have the time. I am getting better at doing the cute girl art tho.

My client flew to China for a few days, so I picked up the paints again. The first is a quick value study, which is going into color. The second is a quick portrait exercise, with more of the same subject to follow.

Animals are a blast to illustrate, but it is people who are the most challenging and rewarding.

I did a quick cowgirl job for another client this week. Here is a rough drawing of the cowgirl, done without picture reference. I like the rough the best because it really has a nice flow. The final drawing was done after some picture reference and the concept pose was provided to me by the client. It will be placed on a young child's t-shirt.

I digitally inked about 42 characters for Cartoon Network this spring. That and being a stay at home Mom prevents me from really getting serious about painting. I am currently back on the religious toy figurines again.

Ellie the Elephant

I was helping Greg design some plush and started drawing this character. Once I started, i could not stop. I don't usually draw this style and thought I never could. A lot of the concepts are from our 6 year old daughter.

"Wrecks" is based on our neighbor's dog, whom we walk almost every night. The "real" Rex is somewhat a terror, a Jack russell "terror", who, in the same day, picked a fight with another dog who was on a walk, pooped all over the field where he was running, and bit our daughter and gave her a big bruise on her fore-arm. He loves Greg and wants to live at our house.

Another warm and cool exercise; same image as the tiger down below.