New Painting- Sisters of the Light

Here's a peek at a value study I've been working on.

When I was younger, I was a huge fan of the Sword of Truth series by Terry Goodkind, and my favorite has always been the second book called Stone of Tears. In that particular book, our hero and newly budding wizard Richard is taken away from his love to a place called the Palace of Prophets to help him learn how to use his magic- or he will die from it. He is taken away by these women called the Sisters of the Light, and although we learn they are in fact some of the good guys, in this book they are initially presented as a powerful force with mysterious pasts and even more mysterious ways. Their judgement is sometimes clouded by a strong belief in prophecy, and there are certainly religious overtones with their belief in the Creator and the Light. Anyway. I loved those books, and I decided to get inspired by revisiting them and doing a piece related to the three sisters that travel to find Richard. Besides, it gives me an excuse to paint pretty girls and horses. What could be wrong with that?

Critique Day!

Done! Unless in a couple days I see something that I have to change. Also, as most always, I want to get a better reproduction of it. I'm telling ya, I really need to start considering a better camera/ finally get that big 'ol scanner I need.

Color in flesh tones

Another peak at the painting coming along. The blues tints were just the icing on the cake for me! I love it and it adds so much to the overall color scheme. The blue is the blue of the sky seen "off canvas". Let me just say though, one can go overboard with the blue "foreign" color. Enter Skeeter from the tv show Doug:


Trust me, it's much more subdued and attractive now. I just was painting away, "la la la, I'm so happy I thought to do this blue" and then all of the sudden I stopped and... "Honk honk! Hey Doug!" And I thought I'd share this temporary failure in my mission to make a great piece. He looks much more like the guy sleeping now. Shouldn't be long until the whole thing is done, and I've already got ideas for the next piece!

Sneak Preview of "Critique Day"

I bet you thought I was going to leave you hanging on my cavemen piece, "Critique Day", didn't you? Well never fear. It is underway and I am positively loving everything from the composition, down to the value and color. I was working... well, just a second ago at 11pm, before I shot this sneak peak for you! It's gonna be a beaut!

By the way, in case you were wondering, I'm working with oil on canvas rather than board as I had originally decided. The texture of the canvas really works out great for subject matter like this. Color palette: Titanium white, cad. yellow, raw sienna, burnt sienna, alizarin crimson, cad. red medium, burnt umber, cobalt blue, sap green. Mediums: Galkyd light when I want something to dry fast, and stand oil the rest of the time.

The Twilight Zone: It's A Good Life

I'm trying to expedite the process of creating a larger body of work with some pieces that are a little less time intensive than what I normally do. And so, with brevity in mind, I give you illustrated brief stories... from the Twilight Zone.

This first one is called "It's a Good Life". It always gave me the jibbilies as a kid. It's the one about the little boy who has powers that has cut his town off from the rest of the world (which no longer exists) and if something upsets him he will on a whim "send it to the cornfield". Anything! Cars, electricity, dogs, people. It's a creepy story, and I love how it resolves- but I'll let you see it for yourself if you never have.

Anyway, here's the little boy about to wish something (probably you the viewer) to the cornfield, and his frightened parents are trying to convince him not to. I like how it turned out! I think I'll do a few more of these. Don't worry, my cavemen painting is still in the works.

Critique Day

I've recently graduated from the fabulous four year illustration program at the College for Creative Studies in Detroit, Michigan.

So, Real Life, let's see what you've got! As my friend Tom Chouinard and I like to say, "It's game time."


And we're kicking it off with a little promotional piece I like to call, "Critique Day".






I got to thinking about the beginnings of art during a final critique in my glass blowing class, and this image came into my head: Neanderthal like homo-sapiens having an aesthetic discussion. Now, I know that Neanderthals and homo-sapiens aren't actually the same species, and I know that they didn't have time for the finer things in life, but who cares? And wait, see, it's funny, because there's the guy giving the critique, the one person listening, one forgot it was critique day so he's grabbing some random rocks and he'll make up some bs explaination for his "project" on the fly, another has fallen asleep, and the last one... well, he's going to eat a bug he found on a stick. They are Neanderthals after all (do I feel a Geico caveman commerical beginning?)

I'm hoping that this particular piece will be applicable to a wide range of potential employers, and I think it's going to be fun to do! I plan to do it in oil... probably on board. Anyway, this here's my little value sketch. It's very subject to change, but so far, I'm liking it.

Better reproduction of Dragon

Muhhhhhhhhhh-ch better!