Massive Sketch Madness

Those who know me know that I love to draw! Besides my family, it's been the one great constant in my life. Ever since I can remember I have loved to draw! The first Sketch that I can recall really liking was one I did of He-Man when I was in kindergarten. I thought it was so cool that I could take a crayon put down some marks and be proud of what I was able to accomplish. Fast forward many years to the present and I still get the same satisfaction. I love to draw! It's a big part of who I am. Rarely will you find me without my drawing gear and something to draw on. I wish that I had some of those very first drawings from when I was a kid they would be great to see! I know that my mom still has a few I'll track them down for you to see. Anyways have a great day and keep on sketching!!!

Tom Waits Value Study

Hi 'yall! It feels like its been way to long since I last posted anything and for that I'm sorry. I painted this up yesterday. For those of you that don't know this is singer songwriter/ actor Tom Waits. I was first introduced to Tom through the move Mystery Men. He plays a character by the name of Dr. A. Heller. He creates nonlethal weapons for the heros in the movie. I loved this movie and thought it was hilarious. His music is fun but a little on the strange side. I don't think it's everyone's cup of tea.

Lately I've been into studying value and painting in black and white. I really like these value studies because you can work really fast and it helps you to focus on the structure of the person and not get lost in color. Value is what makes or breaks an image. you can have the coolest drawing and the best color pallet but if the values are off then the painting becomes weak. It's the glue that holds the painting together.

For example you can take anyone of Norman Rockwell's paintings and desaturate it and it will still work. Why, you ask yourself? Because the values are correct. You can see in the example below that the colors in this painting are warm and vivid. As soon as you take out the color the painting is still very strong. The lights and the darks are right where they need to be and the color is a secondary element.

I still have a long way to go in my artistic journey and am no where near Mr. Rockwell not even in the same universe. However with each painting good or bad I learn a ton and am excited to move on to the next challenge.

Even More Sketch Madness!!!

What's up everyone!? Thought it was about time to post up some new sketches to the good old blog! If you follow me on Instagram or facebook you have probably already seen a few of these.

Sketching is a very important part of my creative process. It helps get the "artistic juices" flowing. Before I sit down to a project I spend a good amount of time drawing thumbnail sketches. These are tiny sketches no bigger than an inch or two. Sometimes I will have a pretty good idea of what I want to create but, I find it extremely helpful to sketch the characters in a variety of different poses and compositions. My friend Will Terry, often teaches that if your painting can not read at thumbnail size go back to the drawing board and fix it.

The nice thing about working at thumbnail size is that you aren't concerned with the minor details. It's more about value and shape and how they relate to each other. When drawing caricatures it's really helpful to work this way because you are focused on the simple shapes that make up the person. I feel that I can usually get a better likeness if I bust out several thumbnails of the person first.

Now I have to come clean with all of you... getting in the habit of drawing thumbnails was a pain in the you know what. Most, if not all, of my college professors and instructors will be the first to tell you that I was not the best at planing out my designs in the thumbnailing stage. A lot of time was wasted fixing compositional problems that could have been solved a lot earlier in the process.

I've included a few thumbnail sketches so that you can see kind of what I'm talking about. I created a scaled thumbnail grid in photoshop  and printed them in gray paper. Using an assortment of warm gray markers I can quickly block in my ideas. I still have a ton to learn and look forward to more an more thumbnail drawings!

UVU Student Art Show 2013!

Hey everyone! Just wanted to let you know that four of my paintings were accepted in the Utah Valley University Student Art Show this year! Opening night will be on the 26th of March at the Woodbury Art Museum in Orem Utah from 6:00- 8:00pm. Here is a link to the Woodbury Art Museum's Facebook page with all the info. Hope to see you there!

Blonde Bombshell Marilyn Monroe...

I realized the other day that I don't paint a lot of caricatures of women. I don't know why... maybe I'm scared that they will beat me up or that I won't do their beauty any justice. As I was sitting at my desk yesterday I was thinking of something to paint and searched on google for iconic movie stars. You'll never guess who was at the top of the list... that's right Marilyn Monroe!

I'm a big fan of Illustrator Coles Phillips and have been wanting to  paint a one of his famous fade away girls for a long time now. So when I found the reference for Marilyn I was super excited to get to work.

As with all of my artwork I learned a ton with this painting. One of the big things that I learned was how to soften the features a little more than I normally do. You see, Men usually have harder more chiseled facial features and women's are softer more rounded. As preveiously stated I don't paint a lot of women so I had to figure out how to paint a little softer without losing brush work. I did this by treating it more like I would an oil painting. I did a lot of blending to help define the form transitions of her face. Also, I painted the cast shadows a lot softer as well. I think this helped to created a more delicate skin texture.

Overall I really enjoyed painting this! I'm always open to suggestions for my next painting so if you have any post 'em up in the comments section. Take care!

Eastwood

 This is one of my all time favorite movie scenes! I know this clip has nothing to do with Clint Eastwood himself,  but hey it's hilarious!

This painting originally started out as a a quick warm up sketch yesterday morning. I was liking where it was going so I decided to take it a little further. I've included some progress steps so you can see a little of how I work.

Primary Children's Hospital Easter Painting

Every so often I'm am able to participate in something special. A few weeks ago the Illustration Club at UVU was looking for a service project. We thought it would be nice to call the Primary Children's Hospital in Salt Lake City. They were super enthusiastic and asked if we would be willing to provide some artwork to decorate the halls and bring a little cheer to these amazing kids to which we replied YES!

For my contribution I thought it would be fun to capture the Easter Bunny admiring his handy work. I'm positive that  he works tirelessly to carefully inspect each egg after it is painted to make sure that it is absolutely perfect for the children to find on Easter morning.

Today we dropped off the prints at the hospital and the staff seemed super stoked to receive them! It's always rewarding to be able to use the skills I've developed to bring a little happiness to someone else.

Check out the UVU Illustration Club blog to see  the other artists submissions!

The Rebel... Mr. James Dean

On Facebook there is a group that I am a part of called Caricaturama Showdown 3000! Every week they have a challenge to paint or draw a caricature of a famous person. This week's theme was James Dean. Seeing as I have yet to fully participate in a challenge I decided to through my hat into the ring. This is good motivation for me because I've been wanting to paint a portrait of James Dean for sometime now. I almost painted one for my Advanced Illustration class last fall but choose another subject. As with every painting I learned some new things and am excited to move on to the next one! (This was painted in Photoshop with a little help from Painter)