Ron Swanson

He everyone I wanted to share another painting for my BFA show coming up this spring. This weeks subject is Mr. Ron Swanson himself!

First off I want say that I'm a huge fan of the hit tv show Parks and Rec. I think that I entire cast is absolutely hilarious. Ron Swanson, played by the talented Nick Offerman, is by far my favorite character on the show. He's a mans man with a  love for whiskey, breakfast foods and has a sweet spot for  celebrity miniature horses. If you haven't seen the show check it out!

That's it for this week's post.  I have several more paintings in the works that can't wait to share with all of you. See you next week!

-Adam

Frank

Today, I was sitting in front my computer with the best intentions to write a paper for an ethic's class that I'm taking right now.  While I was desperately trying to find the motivation to get this paper written, my mind drifted off to the month of October and the upcoming Gallery of Terror exhibit at UVU. Seeing as I hand't started my painting for the show I thought that now would be as good as time as ever to start. The paper would have to wait!

As most of you know I'm a huge fan of old monster movies! I love the drama and the set designs I especially love how everything was shot in black an white. The entire film had to read strictly in value. Light on dark and dark on light and so on. Boris Karloff was by far my favorite actor from that genre. So I thought it would be fun to paint a caricature of him for the gallery.

This painting took about an hour and a half to complete. It was painted in Photoshop CS6.
I've included a link to youtube which has a time lapse of the whole process.

Purple People Eater Stamp...

The Purple People Eater Monster Stamp! I think it would be cool to get some of these made into stickers! Thoughts?

I am Iron Man!

Hey everyone out there in cyber space! I'm really excited to share another painting with all of you! For my latest project I'm continuing with the superhero caricature theme for my table at the Salt Lake Comic Con. This week's subject is...The Invincible Iron Man!

I've been a big Iron Man fan for a long time now. I love the movies and the comics, especially Adi Granov's work on the graphic novel Iron Man: Extremis.

Like last week's Thor painting, I had  a lot fun working on ole' Shell Head's armor. In particular the scratches and the arc reactor on his chest. It takes forever but, I really enjoy zooming in and painting some of these little details!

Also, for your viewing pleasure, I've included step by step process shots for each stage of this painting. Hope you enjoy it!

Now it's time to get back to work!

General Fury!

The infamous San Diego Comic Con was last week. I have alway wanted to attend but scheduling and acquiring tickets hasn't worked out in the past. Lucky for me this september Salt Lake City is going to have its first ever Comic Con! Even better, is the news that I was able to secure a booth in the artist alley. This will be  my first time going and participating in a convention. I'm pretty stoked and hope that The Salt Lake Comic Con is a success! At my booth I will be selling sketches, prints, and if all works out an art book featuring my paintings and drawings.

General Nick Fury is the first in a new batch of superhero caricature paintings. I'm hoping to have a lest 10 more painted by september. If you have any suggestions on heros or villains that you would like to see a caricature of sound off below and just maybe you see a version of that character at the Salt Lake Comic Con!

Alien Brain Guy...

How's it going everyone!? Just wanted to share a Digital Painting I completed recently. Lately I've been super swamped with family, client work, and school. I've been needing to paint something for myself. Luckily for me Don Seegmiller is currently teaching a special topics digital painting class at UVU. I was fortunate enough to sit in for the first week and participat in the first assignment... Paint an alien head! It's always fun to take a class from Don because I know that we will eventually end up drawing monsters or creatures of some sort. Hope you enjoy this one, I sure had a lot of fun painting it!

Street Fighter Sketch Madness!!!

Sorry my friends for lack of posts lately. I've been incredibly busy working on multiple projects that, unfortunately, I can't share with all of you. So in place of the void (of finished paintings) I give you Street Fighter Sketch Madness!!! It's funny drew a picture of Dhalsim and posted it to Instagram and Facebook and firends started requesting characters. These took about 30 minute to create. I had a ton of fun re-imagining some of my favorite SF characters. Any suggestions for the next round of Sketches? Post 'em down below!

Tony's Secret Ingredient Spaghetti and Meatballs!

Back in the early 1920's Tony Andolini had one of the premier italian dining locations in New York City. His restaurant, Tony's, was subsequently shut down when a reporter/ food critique by the name of Rodney "Scoops" Peabody discovered the secret ingredient in his world famous spaghetti and meat balls! Scoops' discovery made national headlines! Ruined and humiliated Andolini never opened another restaurant. He denied the allegations of using "questionable products" to his deathbed in 1943. However, recently discovered was this old family photo of Tony out back in the alleyway cooking up an "old family recipe".

This was a really fun Illustration for me. I'd been sitting on this ruff sketch of a chef for a few months and really wanted to paint it. While trying to figure out a creative direction to take the image I the thought came to me "What is the secret ingredient in a secret ingredient recipe?" and this is what came from that idea.

I painted a full color version of this but it wasn't working for me so I decided to give it a sepia tone and a little ware and tear. This painting is 100% digital and was created in Photoshop CS6. I included a little gif so you can see the steps it took to create this image.

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.

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)

SCBWI project: Princess Cupcake

This weekend I attended  my first SCBWI conference! SCBWI stands for Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. I had the awesome opportunity to participate in a character design workshop with famed Art Director Martha Rago from HarperCollins Publishing!

About a three weeks prior to the conference We, the artists, were emailed a PDF with two possible projects. We were then asked to choose one of them. I chose Princess Cupcake. For this project our job was explore the character and eventually create a book cover. Martha asked us to send her our sketches and a mock-up for the book cover and she would send us feedback on the assignment.

This was a really good exercise and I learned a ton from this. One of the main things that I learn was to not give the story away on the cover. As you can see in the mock-up of the cover I showed the princess already holding a cupcake in her hand. Martha suggested that I show the princess baking or doing something that might hint at the story but not totally give it away.

I redrew the princess baking in the kitchen making a mess. Originally, I had a cat  as her pet but became bored with the character. So I decided to swap out the cat for a pig and BLAMO the painting became ten times more fun!

At the conference, this weekend, we had our final critiques from Martha on the project. I was given some great suggestions and advice on my cover art and will post the update when I complete it. Thanks to Martha and SCBWI for a great conference and workshop!

Happy Valentines Day!

Happy Valentines Day from Lucky the Leprechaun! He lost a Super Bowl bet and had to fill in for Cupid during Valentines Day! This was may Valentines Day card for my wonderful wife. She is the best and I'm super lucky to have her in my life! Love you sweetheart!

Brain Fart Sketching!

We've often herd the term "writers block". Is there such a thing with artists? I'm going to say definitely YES! There have been numerous times that I have sat down to start an assignment and had nothing.

An english professor of mine would often have us do these "free write" assignments. For these assignments we were asked to write "garbage". It didn't have to make sense or be cohesive we just had to write "junk" as she would call it. We would do this for around five to ten minutes and try to write as much as we could. I was amazed at how fast we were able to come up with ideas, that, in my opinion, were quite good.

 I think that the same activity could applied for us artists. If you can't think of an idea just draw "junk". It doesn't have to be pretty or make any sense but keep your pencil to the paper and do not... I repeat do not erase! Keep the pencil, marker or whatever you are using moving. The sketches can be of whatever... just keep drawing. You will be amazed at what you come up with! Lets call this drawing exercise "Brain Fart Sketching".

Speed Painting Video!

I recently downloaded some screen capture software and have been messing around with it. Here is my first "speed painting" video it's not the greatest painting but it helps to break the ice of getting something out there. It took around 35 minutes to paint and was done in Photoshop CS6. Stay tuned for more intense finished paintings.

Pie-Rat!

Avast, me hardys! Thar be Pie-Rats!

For this blog post I thought that I would share with you my first ever animated GIF! This is a nice way to show all of you a quick version of my digital painting process. Like the Harry Potter tutorial, I'm following the same basic steps of line art, flat colors, shadow pass, lighting pass, and an overpaint. Only for this painting I skip the grayscale process and go straight to color.

As far as the subject goes I was laying in bed the other night and thought that it would be funny to paint a "pie-rat"! So I when I woke up the next morning I thumbnailed some possible ideas and compositions. Once I found what I was looking for I sketched our little friend out. After a little bit of painting we have our master of the seven cheese!

Oh and on a side note I recently purchased CS6! This was my first painting using the new software. Overall I'm pretty happy with the new version of Photoshop!

Have a fantastic day everyone!

More Sketch Madness!

Just realized that I haven't posted sketches in awhile...sorry about that! I rummaged through a bunch of recent sketches and had an ample supply of monster sketches on oatmeal paper. Love these things!  Also, I included an old self portrait. All theses sketches were created using ether one or a combination of  theses mediums: graphite,  Prismacolor col-erase pencils, Utrecht design markers, and ink.

I'm looking for more feed back on my blog! So in effort to get that going I would like to offer up a free signed 11x17 inch print of your choosing from my artwork. To enter is simple, comment on blog posts and I will put the names of the people who comment on the blog in a hat at the end of each month. The winner will be chosen at random out of the hat and an email will be sent to the with to the winner! It's that easy! So common all you faithful readers lets see those comments!!!