Character Sketches

Working on the cover art for a fantasy book series. These are portraits of the two main characters. (And yes, there will be dragons)

Sheep Lessons Part 3

A bit of a jump in the narrative. Suffice to say our heroine has enjoyed her first day of Kindergarten.

Sheep Lessons Part 2

Part 2 of "Sheep Lessons".
Our heroine has a nightmare

Sheep Lessons Part 1

Did this project for Spider Magazine that was published a couple months ago. I enjoy working for magazines (especially Spider) because the art direction is fairly light and I can try out different techniques. I was happy with how this series of illustrations turned out. I'll post my favorite three over the next few days.

Recent Sketches: Out on the playground

Society of Illustrators Juried Show

Honored to have this book cover I did selected for the Society of Illustrators Annual 55 (whoo-hoo!)
The opening reception was last Friday and runs until March 2nd 2013.

Unfortunately my work schedule means that I won't be able to check out the show in person, but if you do go, please drop me a line (and maybe a photo?)

More of my model

Sketches from our various outings over the last few months.

My new model

Been a while since I updated this blog.
I do have a good excuse, and we will be seeing more of him over the years.

Trinity Cathedral Sketch

Had a meeting in NW Portland the other day. Arrived a little early and did a sketch around the corner at Trinity Cathedral. It was a warm day here in Stumptown and just thought it was amusing and appropriate that a guy had stretched out in the shade of the parish doorway for a mid-afternoon siesta. As religion is supposed to do, the church was giving this guy the comfort he needed at the moment.

Gouache Relief Strawberry

This is the result of a gouache-relief demo from my illustration class. I love this technique because it requires giving up some of the control we all strive for in paintings. In this case the lines are the areas not painted and the colored (or white-ish) bits are the areas that get painted.

Or you could just think of it as a really quick fake lino cut process.

Warm Up Sketch: Watercolor on Watercolor

A quick little watercolor study of a tube of watercolor paint to start my day in the studio.

Illustration Academy: Project #1 (Part 2)

This is the second image I created at the Illustration Academy for the first project (for more details scroll down ever-so-slightly and check out yesterday's post). I probably created 50 different thumbnails for this because I wanted to ditch linear perspective and yet still give the viewer the sense they were above the guy on the stairs. Alas, it was a no go. Turns out you still gotta' use a couple vanishing points sometimes (but god bless Brunelleschi for figuring it all out)

Illustration Academy: Project #1

Some of you might have noticed in my last post that I mentioned I was attending the The Illustration Academy in Kansas City over the month of June. Well my time there has officially ended -- and a great time was had by all! I wanted to post some of the projects that I made while there and this is the first.

The assignment was to capture the spirit of the location BUT using no line work and no rendering. Only interesting shapes, values and hues. (Oh, and get a figure in there to help tell a story) I added an additional wrinkle of trying to communicate depth of space  without using linear perspective;  instead relying primarily on overlapping shapes and the human mind's natural inclination to "understand" certain shapes in certain ways.

Anyway, all this is starting to sound very art-talky but it sure made the project fun!
In this case I didn't stray far from the studio. The building that the Academy is held in is an old brick warehouse and is a wonderfully exhausting five flights up some creaky wooden stairs.

Summer Fun

Been a little while since I posted anything new. This is due to my attending the The Illustration Academy. The program has been amazing. This little image is pretty much how I feel coming into the studio each day.

Speaker Sketches: Oregon SCBWI Conference

Attended the Oregon SCBWI Conference this weekend. Had a splendid time chatting with everyone and of course doing quick sketches of some of the speakers. I'm looking forward to seeing how the chapter continues to move forward and evolve!