Fishy Environments

This environment was done on location at the zoo. It is colored pencil on a piece of wood, I like how it looks in person because there is a certain reflection point where the colors seem to jump off the wood and show much brighter. These are all 8 x 10.

This one is a view from inside the coral homes. Powdered graphite on toned Canson paper.

These are all environment studies for my children's book, this one is done in powdered graphite on toned Canson paper. This one as well as the one above were both done without reference, "dream sketches" if you will. This one was a view from slightly above the coral.

Fishies

So I feel like this is just becoming my sketchbook blog with how all these last posts have been. None the less here are even more sketches, these are all character designs for background characters in the children's book. I was trying to start each fish with just a simplified shape like a circle or rectangle, then build the fish off of that. There is a whole bunch of fishies on these pages so enjoy.

New Children's book sketches

For our Illustrative drawing class we head to the zoo every week, these are some of the sketches done there. I am going to illustrate a children's book set underwater in the reef. The three main characters are going to be an eel, a little shark, and a jellyfish. These sketches are just from life but the next ones I put up will probably be the actual character sketches. I am pretty excited about this project so I'd love some feedback about the characters and environments as I start to put more of them up. 

Even more sketches

Still sketchin' away, a nice page of platipi, some skeletal nonsense, and a page of randomness. There's something for everyone here. enjoy.

Sketching away

The second week of school is over, and we have been sketching from life a lot here at CCAD. We havn't had any final projects due yet, but in a bout two weeks it seems like we are going to have a big week of finished pieces. In the mean time here are some fun sketches, in the one I combined two different ones to make the giant flying platypus. More sketches are coming soon. Enjoy.

Floatin Around

So my senior year here at CCAD has officially started and it looks like it is going to be a fun one. I got into the glassblowing class, so I should have some cool pictures of that. I've never done it before in my life but I'm hoping to crank out some cool stuff. I also have a 3d illustration class, another thing I don't do much of, but it looks to be a fun class too. So overall I think I should have some nice posts of some new types of stuff you don't usually see from me. I thought I had to put some kind of picture up to start it off so this is my space man floatin' his way through space, a doodle I did in C.F. Payne's seminar class. 

What? A new Post?

Its been a fun summer so far, I havn't gotten too much art done yet though. But I did get the piece for the CPSA international show framed and shipped. It's wild what a simple matt and frame can do for a picture. Now it's up to a couple judges to see if I win any money or not, keep you're fingers crossed. The CPSA has done a really good job so far helping us artists out in getting ready for the show. Their website is at http://www.cpsa.org/, you can find out a little bit more about the show I'm in and just about the organization itself. I am working on a couple new things though, so hopefully I will have some more things to post soon. Have a good one everybody.

Party Time

Here is a bit of a work in progress, it was done for humorous class but I still have to go back and fix a couple things. Summer is just about here though, so who knows when that will actually get done. Only about one week left now! I cant believe it, all the finals are just about done now so I'll be putting those up soon too. Enjoy.

Art Sale!

I got some pictures from the art sale here at CCAD from Dave. We just got a little table, but here is what it looked like. This was my first sale and I learned a bunch, so hopefully the sales next year will do even better. Pretty much the only thing that sold was the landscapes, and I got a bunch of input on them, so those will be a big focus next time. I hope to do a lot of them this summer so I should be posting those here and there through out the summer. Enjoy.

First Childrens book page

I got one double page spread done for my children's book  so far. I left the larger image pretty big because my favorite part of it is the texture from the underlying layer of gesso I put down. The next two page spread is almost done now so I should have it up soon. Hope you guys enjoy it.

Some more black and white

So I havn't posted anything in awhile now and I feel like a slacker so I am putting up a piece I did for black and white. It is based off of the story The Celebrated Jumping Frog of Calaverez County. All the final projects are coming together soon so hopefully I will have a bunch of fun stuff to put up soon. 

Paintings a Plenty

This break was a good time for oil painting for me. I did a bunch of these little landscapes, they are all 5" by 5", I am planning on selling them at the Student Art Sale on April 18th here at CCAD. Plus I got a whole bunch of canvases for new paintings. It looks like the rest of this year is going to be filled with oils, the more I use them the more I like them. I also have found that the puffy cumulus clouds are becoming a reoccurring theme. The other two paintings are still life's from my painting class, both 16" by 20". They kept on making me hungry as I was working on them.  I am hoping to get even more of the little landscapes done for the sale, plus a couple more larger ones. This year is going by really fast though, only about five or six weeks are left now, I can't believe it. Oh and sorry for the blurry pictures, I guess I have shaky hands, Don't even bother clicking the bottom two for close ups, the thumbnails do it the best justice.

New black and white

So when I got done with the last one I think I had too much time until it was due because the more I looked at it the more I wanted to add more stuff. It worked out for the best I think though, I wanted the face in the sky to stay almost all one value and shape the face out of the direction of the line. 

Into the wild

Here is my first piece for black and white class. I tried to limit the amount of cross hatching I did, and focus on making them singular lines to draw the eyes in a certain direction. I got a little bored with how it looked when I was done, so I am going to try and do something more to it, but this is what it will stay if the next thing doesn't work out. It is pen and ink on the back of a piece of black mount board. 

Colored pencil fun

I feel like I have done way more work so far this semester than any other, weird. Well here is a still life I have been working on for a few weeks now, it's just about done now. It's basically a big head nod to Mr. Tolstedt, I have loved his colored pencil work for years now so I decided to do something like this for the drawing competition her at CCAD. I'm entering another one too, but that one is still in the works. This one is about 15" by 18", and its on mat board.

Landscapin it

Here is the first landscape I did for my oil painting class. It is based off of the quick digital ones, but I went a little bit more tight and it's a lot bigger. This one is 24" by 30" and the next one will be too, but I want the last couple to be really big. When I got done with this I wanted there to be less sky and more ground, so I may do another try later or on a smaller canvas later. But I like the way this came out for the most part, I hope you guys do too. 

Childrens book WIP 2

So here is the almost finalized story board for my children's book. We are starting to work on final line drawings for the pages, five of them. So in a week or two I can put those up. I still havn't gotten a good solid idea for the last page, and I may want to add a couple more pages in it somewhere, but this is almost done. Enjoy.

Thats just like your opinion man

A piece for styles and concepts, just threw the type on in a crazy way, so I don't know if I like all that much yet. But hopefully everyone can tell who it is, those who would know him. Take a guess unless you already know. Oh ya and check out the rug at the bottom right, definitely my favorite part of it.

Digital Landscapes

So I have been experimenting with abstracting landscapes in photoshop, which is a big step for me. I have done a whole bunch of these quick sketches, which are really fun because they only take around 2 or 3 minutes at the most. I think for my painting class I am going to try and put down a couple of these in oil, hopefully big too, around 23 by 30 or so. Ill probably put a bunch more of these up as I keep getting ones that I like, hope you guys like these as much as I do.

Childrens book WIP

I noticed that I only have pieces that are close to finished or done on here, so I wanted to put up the work I am doing for my children's book class. The basic idea of the story is a boy who goes out to watch clouds. The clouds play a game with him, wanting him to guess what they are. The big idea or moral I was going for was not to forget the beauty in nature, something pretty important for kids now a days I think.

So far I am working with getting the character, Aiden, to be really child-like and fun. I took influence from characters from Calvin and hobbes, Winnie the Pooh, and a children's book I just found called Hug A Bug which is illustrated by Dan Andreasen. You can take a look at some of the illustrations from that book here, http:www.harpercollins.com/books/9780060518325/Hug_a_Bug/index.aspx.  

What I put up here is some of the character studies for Aiden and his stuffed animal. I want to keep on working with his face to make him look younger but I think it's pretty obvious for everyone who knows me, who he's based on, it's a little me. The other page is the first 8 spreads and one of the clouds.