Illustration Friday: Rambunctious

Epic battle between nutcracker and squirrel. . . this is definitely the most "rambunctious" painting I have. I just finished this piece for one of my last assignments this semester. I was playing with some new styles and techniques. I had a lot of fun doing this one. I'd love any comments.

Illustration Friday: Pretend

Who know's how to pretend better than kids. This is a painting from a children's book I'm working on. Anyway let me know what you think.

Illustration Friday: Adapt

I figure you can either complain about what life hands you, or you can adapt and make the best of a bad situation.

I was experimenting with a modified color palette, and night scenes. I'd love any comments.

Grasshopper & The Ant's

This was my latest assignment for school. I did an interpretation of the Aesop's fable of the Ant's and the Grasshoppers. Nothing personal against people who skateboard and use an ipod and text at the same time (unless your a grasshopper . . . dang grasshoppers)

Illustration Friday: Strings

Just a real quick ink drawing for Illustration Friday. Hopefully the concept is self explanatory.

Plein Air Painting Class

This was my out of class project where we use the landscape as subject, and use the style that we would like to go into. I tried to gear this one towards children illustration. It's done in guoche


This was my first in class project. Our class painted in the country between Springville and Provo. This was my first time painting outdoors, I thought it was a lot of fun. Oil on masonite board.

Sketches from the Sketchbook

Here's a few sketches out of my sketchbook. I did a few studies of some trees both realistic and stylized for a project I'm working on. Also a few character designs for the same project. I have some more sketches I need to upload, it's just hard to find the time.

Illustration Friday: Packed

sometimes a comfort zone is a luxury. I welcome any comments. Ink and digital.

"You are what you eat"

My first assignment for school. We were working with the phrase you are what you _______? I decided to stick with the obvious you are what you eat. I was wondering where a cannibal would do his shopping, probablly walmart, they have everything there.

Illustration Friday: Memories

This will probably be my last picture for a while. School starts today so unless the stars align and I have an assignment that works for the topic of the week, I'll just have to check out other people's great work. Ink and digital, I'd love any comments.

Illustration Friday: Routine

"Brand new day, . . .

same old routine."

I guess there are worse things in the world than doing the same thing everyday, especially if you get to draw everyday. Digital painting done in Corel painter. I'd love any comments.

Illustration Friday: Detatch

This is far from my original idea which was a little more gruesome, but I still had a lot of fun with it. Ink and digital. Please feel free to comment.

Illustration Friday: Sail

This became a lesson in re-learning gouache. I really wanted to involve a mouse somehow, I just wasn't sure what would motivate a mouse to go sailing, so he's chasing after the moon, which we all know is made of cheese of course. I welcome any comments

Illustration Friday: Poof!

This is my first entry to Illustration Friday. The word was "Poof!" I figured if a Magician and Fairy-God Mother's magic crossed, then "Poof" you'd get a mess. I'd love any comments.

This was going to be my first time entering anything into Illustration Friday but I ran out of time. The theme was "Sour".

Sketchbook

These are a bunch of sketches from my Sketchbooks. Mostly pictures of fellow Illustration students and some doodles.

Character Design Class

I took a Character design class last semester and I really enjoyed it. Our teacher was Todd Harris. The class really focused a lot on the story behind the characters.

This was our first assignment. We were asked to come up with our own story and provide the characters. The basic idea of my story was about a viking family with a confrontation between the two brothers. The oldest one being the heir to the throne by birthright, and the second wanting him out of the way because he feels he is inadequate to rule the people.

These were some characters for a story about post-apocalyptic animal superheroes (kind of rolls right off the tongue doesn't it). I really like drawing animals so I thought this one was easy to get into.

This was our Final. We got to choose from The Wizard of Oz, Little Red Riding Hood, or any other classic and put a twist on it. Then we needed to show the main characters progression as they went through the story. I chose The Wizard of Oz and I set it in The old west. My main character gets separated from his family, and has very little self confidence. He is befriended by three different outcasts that help him to grow in some way. In the end he is reunited with his family and has to face his fears.

On the way to class one day I was thinking of the story of the Tortoise and the Hare. I thought it would be fun to replace the hare with a snail. It doesn't mean the tortoise was any less persistent, even if he does finally have the advantage.

Correll Painter

These are a few of my assignments from my painter class. I really liked that class. I thought Don did a great job. I really want to spend more time with painter once things slow down. I haven't done a lot of things in painter, but I really like the freedom it gives you in certain areas.

This is my first assignment, The phrase that I had to Illustrate was "Elephants are the only animal that can't jump" That's why the elephant is getting picked last. (I know the feeling)

This was my final Painter assignment for the semester. The subject was, "I was in the house when the house burned down". I hope the cause of the fire isn't too subtle. Like I said, earlier I really enjoy painter. I can't wait to play with it a little more over the summer and get a little bit more proficient with it.

Illustration Friday: Opinion

It is of my opinion that Norman Rockwell was one of the greatest painters, in both technique and story. I've always loved his paintings. I'd love any comments.

Walrus Stampede

This article was about shrinking Ice floats forcing walrus' on to overcrowded beaches where they would stampede at the site of a polar bear or a plane or anything. I felt bad for all the innocent Polar bears starting a stampede just from their showing up for a day at the beach.

Bad Dreams

This is a painting I did for my class of one of my bad dreams. When I was a kid I would sometimes have these dreams that I was alone in my neighborhood, then all these wildabeest's and German Shepards would come frome every where and start chasing me until I barricaded my self in my house. For anyone who believe that dreams need to mean something, feel free to analyze this one.

Alice in Wonderland

This is an acrylic painting of Alice right before she meets the Cheshire cat. We were supposed to only use one color with black and white. Can you guess what color I picked. I was pretty happy with this one. It was the first acrylic painting that I wasn't totally frustrated with.

*Special thanks to Lindsay for posing for me.

FBI protecting hit men

I really don't remember the story for this assignment because I fell asleep the three times I tried to read it because it was so boring. I only remember three things.

• The FBI was protecting these hit men for being informants.
• J. Edgar hoover was over the FBI for a long time.
• J. Edgar Hoover looks like a bulldog (which are fun to draw)
  

Snowmen VS Video Games

This was the redo on my first acrylic painting. The story for the assignment was about how the sale of sleds is declining due to kids changing interests.

Tree House

Courtney Granner came to our class to see our work and give it a critique. Courtney teaches at San Jose State University. I really like his style of work. The story he gave us was about two boys and their tree house. I tried to make it look like it could really be a tree house that two boys could make. If I had to do it again I wouldn't have worried about doing it realistic. I would go more stylistic.

Gouache Painting

I'm not sure why I'm posting these cause they're old as dirt, but they're my first gouache paintings so I feel the need to put them up.



This assignment was to take a nursery rhyme an put it in a different setting. I took Jack Sprat and his wife and put them in a McDonalds. I really didn't want to ask anyone to model for the wife for obvious reasons, but luckily when I took my girls out for lunch to discreetly get some fast food reference, there was a group of rather large women eating lunch together. I got my daughter to pose for me then I focused past her and took a picture of one of the lady's taking a bite. I was quite proud of myself at the time, but in telling the story I feel a little shame. I'm sure I'll get over it.




This painting was on an article about people who are afraid of everything. I Think I could work on the quality of paint but I was really happy with how the concept turned out.


* SIDE NOTE - for any of my family who might read this. I was never sure how to pronounce this word correctly so I looked it up. Gouache is pronounced "gwash" kind of like squash, not "gowcho" like an Argentine cowboy

Figure drawings from '07

These are just a bunch of old figure drawings I found from last year. The first two where done in pencil the rest are my maiden voyage with charcoal. I've got some drawings that are more current I just need to get some pictures taken of them. Then I can post them

Fortune Cookie Assignment

I found this old drawing and thought it was pretty fun. It was done in Illustrator. The assignment was to take the fortune from a fortune cookie and illustrate it. I think my forutne was "You know what you want, now get to work and make it happen".