Children's Book

This was a really fun project to work on this semester! The assignment had a lot of things required for the piece but basically it had to be flat flat flat flat flat! be in an abnormal environment, and have some reverse perspective. This is the first time I've worked flat and not spent time trying to render and put value in. It was a lot of fun doing this flat style and I actually love how it turned out...

Harvest

This is a book cover for a ya novel that is currently being worked on. It's a story about Sirens in the real world...here's the blurb/synopsis:

How do you control desire? How do you survive obsession? You don’t.

Two young lovers must fight against life and death in this Paranormal Fantasy novel of unconventional and impossible love. Jace never thought what he once knew as myth would turn into reality. Let alone, he’d be the one to uncover the truth about the disappearances of males from Santa Cruz…

That is until he fell for Iris—a hauntingly beautiful girl that looked more stunning in the moonlight, with the glow of the ocean on her skin, than anywhere else on the planet. Sirens, after all, tend to captivate the male species the closer they are to their feeding grounds.  Troubled by her own life, Iris doesn't mean to complicate it by letting Jace pull at her heart strings; but before she knows it, it’s too late—she’s in love with her prey.

It isn't until the only boy who Iris has ever fallen for hears her song (a pure, hypnotic melody of notes that lures men into the ocean, sealing his death with her words) that her world turns completely upside down. Suddenly, Iris must choose who she stands with: her family or the humans?

Either way, many will die. 

-"The Harvest" written by Kimberly Benson--Coming Soon!

The Robber Bridegroom

The semester is over! Well...almost...I only have one more final to complete. This semester I took "Advanced Illustration" which was awesome because we got to choose all of our own assignments. This helped because I was able to start building my portfolio with the type of work I want. This is one of the final pieces for that class:

The Robber Bridegroom

This is a fantastic Grimm Fairy tale, but let me warn you it is not for the squeamish or faint of heart. 

A young woman is betrothed to a man she barely knows. For some reason she feels nervous of the man, not fully trusting him. Through their engagement he continually tries to get her to come to his house but she always refuses. One day he tells her she has to come because he is throwing a party for her for the wedding. She says she doesn't know where he lives.

"In the middle of the dark forest" says the man.

"I will get lost" she says.

"There will be a trail of ashes you can follow to find my house"

That night, alone, the girl goes into the forest and follows the trail of ashes to his house. But there is no party there: in  fact the place is empty. She steps inside to look around. A bird is trapped in a cage hanging from the ceiling and he tells her to get out, she's in a murderers house! The girl ignores the birds numerous warnings and continues searching. She looks in the cellar and finds an old woman there who informs her that her betrothed is a murderer and he's planning on killing her! The old woman hides the girl behind some barrels and the betrothed and his friends come home drunk, with a young girl screaming in their grasp. 

They throw the girl on the table, kill her, and then eat her. One man chops off her little finger (b.c he can't get the ring off that is stuck there). The finger flies behind the barrels and into the girls lap. The men fall into a drunken sleep and the old woman and the girl escape. The next night at their wedding, it is customary for everyone to tell a story. The groom encourages the girl to tell a story. So she retells the story about the groom (all the while he's getting more and more nervous). Finally she pulls the finger out and proves the truth of the story. The guests attack the groom and give him justice.

This story is a dark one, but I really like it. Here is the piece I did as the girl first enters the dark forest

Little Miss Muffet

I love little nursery rhymes....

Little Miss Muffet,

sat on her tuffet

eating her curds and whey;

When along came a spider

and sat right beside her,

and scared Miss Muffet away!

This girl is pretty brave...if that were me I would be on the other side of the country by now, swearing that "Eight Legged Freaks" was starting!

I painted this sketch in Photoshop as one of the few I'll submit to Craft Lake City (if I apply this year).

Anyway, Enjoy!

Influence

For my figure painting class we were given an assignment to paint a conceptual piece focusing on one word. I chose the word "Influence", and specifically the influence of the media onto little girls to be the worlds definition of "pretty"--to be "sexy" "skinny" and "perfect". It's sad to see young girls feeling like they are not perfect as they are...that they need the newest clothes, a cell phone, and make up in order to be worth something. That is simply not true.

After I started working on this piece I saw an article in a magazine titled "8 ways to boost a girls self image". The author of this describes how I feel about the worlds influence on children better then I can put into words, and I think it is something that could help parents with their children. Here is the link to that article if you are interested : http://www.ldsliving.com/story/75061-8-ways-to-boost-a-girls-self-image

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.