The Park

This piece is a part of a series called "Boy Meets Girl". It's the moment right before (or after) a boy and girl meet. The other two pieces were done in acrylic, but I decided I wanted to do this one digitally. For this piece, I decided to do my process a little differently. First, I blocked in all the color in flat, large shapes. Then I went and rendered the flat shapes.
I also learned to use the Image Hose in Corel Painter, and can I just say "I lovvveedd it!" It was so simple to do all my leaves and flowers and fun too!
All in all it was a really fun piece to work on....anyway, Enjoy!!!

Mermaid

So I decided to turn some of my sketches into paintings and try to get into Craft Lake City this summer. Here is the first one...

Chapter Headings

These are two chapter headings for a book I am working on. They are done in graphite and digital. The story is about a girl who goes back in time and becomes a pirate. In this first scene, she gets in a fight with a pirate and he pushes her off of a cliff and into the ocean. There is a second pirate (who later becomes the love interest) who dives in after her. He looks around through the seaweed and finally catches a glimpse of her through the tangle of green.

This second chapter heading is for a scene where the main girl and guy end up on an island and run into it's native tribe. The tribe hates women and the only woman in the tribe is the chief. In the center of the tribes camp they have a totem pole, only instead of being made of wood this pole is made of severed human heads.

80's movies

I love love LOVE 80's movies! They are so fun to watch! I have been doing speed paintings during the Christmas break between semesters, just to keep practicing digitally. This started as a speed painting, but I was loving working on it so I decided to pull it together and work a few more hours on it. Can you guess who this is? And what movie he is from? He's from an 80's classic...(don't scroll down too far unless you're wanting to see the answer)

So I have been hearing a ton about the Breakfast Club and I have been dying to watch it. Then one day I saw it was on tv so I watched it and it was great! This is Judd Nelson in a clip from one of the scenes in that movie. If you haven't seen it I highly recommend watching it. I know I could work on it, and I still might, but I guess we'll see :)

Pirates!

The final exam for Children's Book Illustration was to illustrate three consecutive pieces for a story, maintaining character consistency. The story began with...

A stormy night on the sea and three pirates fighting to get to shore

They reach the shore and marvel at how beautiful the island is that they've landed on.

They build shelter and enjoy a feast

Merry Christmas!

Goodnight, sleep tight, don't let the....sugar plum fairy eat your dreams? Wait what? 

Under the Sea

Like my rendition of the Little Mermaid?? Okay, okay, I'm just kidding...but she does have red hair. This project was to create a fantasy world. We had to follow certain guidelines to reach our final pieces and it was really interesting to see how others pieces turned out. Here is what I came up with. Enjoy!

Anna Nicole Smith

I had an assignment to create what could be a TIME Magazine cover. The piece had to be proportionate to an actual TIME Magazine. We had to show a famous person who had fallen on hard times. i.e drugs, alcohol, etc. I chose to do Anna Nicole Smith. I didn't know too much about her but thought it would be fun to do a caricature of her. For those of you who are like I was, let me enlighten you a bit on who she was:

1: she was a playboy bunny

2. Married a J. Howard Marshall, a man 60 years older than her

    a. he was rich and many speculated she married him for all the money he was rolling in.

    b. After Marshall passed away, Anna tried to get his money but he hadn't written her in his will. So after a lot of court fighting she ended up receiving some...but not all she had hoped. 

3. She ended up dying of an accidental drug overdose. 

So here she is at Marshall's funeral excited that he finally passed away hoping she'll get his money. Let me know what you think! :D

Cult of Personality: Barbie

Barbie is a huge cult personality. There are women in the world who are surgically recreating themselves to look like exactly like her. They want to be Barbie. This piece is currently in Salt Lake City at the Utah Art Festival Gallery at "Art Space" along with about 10 other pieces of mine. Everyone should go check it out if you're wanting something fun to do, or in the area. The show runs from November 12-Dec 19th and the pieces are all for sale for fairly inexpensive prices! 

Utah Art Festival

230 S. 500 W. #120

Salt Lake City, UT 84101

The Town Mouse and the Country Mouse

I am in an Imagination and Visual Literacy class at UVU. One of our assignments was to illustrate an Aesop Fable. I chose to do the Town Mouse and the Country Mouse. The story goes like this:

There are a lot of different versions that change details here or there but this story gives the gist of it. This drawing was done in graphite on Canson cold press illustration board.

Cake Splash

This was my last assignment for my Children's Book Illustration Class. Here's the story we had to illustrate:

"Jamie's mom helped her put the finishing touches on her birthday cake and the house was all set for the party as Oscar slept on the window sill. Suddenly Timmy let the dog out of the basement and the chase was on! Around the living room and under the couch they ran and as Jamie began to cry Oscar leaped right off the cake splattering it everywhere!"

Let me know what you think!

Little Pumpkin

So I'm working on a children's book and thought I'd give you a look at the cover I've done. I'm using this piece also for a couple classes which are helping me get my ideas headed forward.

Rhino Princess

Happy Friday! The UVU Illustration group does a sketchbook friday where we're given a theme and everyone shares what they've done. This weeks theme was a Princess Rhino. Here is mine. Enjoy!

Grandpa & Grandma

Okay, so here is the second project I was working on this summer. (the first one is really long so I haven't figured out how to scan that one in yet.) This is a surprise painting for my Grandma. My Grandpa died about 10 years ago, and my grandma has begun struggling a lot with her health. She is in an assisted living home and I hope this will make her happy.

I know a lot of artists use this technique, but I learned it from Donato Giancola. Although I am not really "into" fantasy art, I think  he is probably one of my favorite artists; he is amazingly talented, successful, and really nice guy.  So here are the steps I took.

Drawing: I drew the picture on Reeves paper (it's nice and soft and erases pretty easily)

Next, I made a photo copy of my drawing onto Mi Tientes toned paper. I then used mat gel medium and mounted it to my piece of board. Then, I painted a value layer with acrylic

Done! I finished it off with oil paint!

Rhinos love Balloons

Sometimes I get inspiration at the most random times! A couple weeks ago I was teaching my class at Creativity Art Studio about Surrealism. They were having a hard time understanding them and one of the basic examples I gave was to do something you wouldn't normally see. The first idea that popped into my mind I spurted out "a rhinoceros on a balloon". Immediately that sparked an image in my mind and I LOVED it!!! So I've been waiting weeks to get the time to do this sketch and here it finally is! Enjoy!