Watercolor Dinosaur Test

I have been working on a Dinosaur Tea Party painting for a while, as in I did a sketch and I have a water color pad sitting out on my dresser with every intention to work on it. Well I figured I should try and bust out my water colors and see if I could still paint, it has been a while so I did a test for the Dinosaur Tea party.

A Modest Proposal

Last week the greatest thing happened.

Last week I got some good news at work so  Laura and I went out for dinner at the local sushi restaurant. Over dinner we talked about how happy were were that moment and about our plans for the future. I decided it was the perfect moment to pop the question. So, I asked Laura if she would marry me (something that I had been planing to do with more grandeur later in the year). She said "YES!"

I didn't have a ring so I grabbed one of the edamame bean pods that we had been eating and wrapped it around her finger like an engagement ring. It was a magical moment and we are very happy. 

Don't worry the real ring is coming later in the month, so I can I get to propose again, next time less spontaneously.

Lub Kiss

It has been too long since I posed anything so I thought I would quickly share a little doodle I did for Laura.

Bee and Dead

Laura really wanted some cutesy bee art, so I obliged. She came up with the idea and the concept for the piece and I simply executed it. This is also a rough version of a painting I want to do for an art show coming up in Sacramento in a month or so all about Bees. Expect more bee postings coming soon.

A Boy and His Pig

I spend a good chunk of time every day looking for jobs; when I run across postings that want an art test, that always stimulates me to create something different then I usually would. Here is one Laura found in Portland craigs list for a a children's book illustrator. They wanted a test drawing of a boy kissing his pet pig.
Here are the sketches that I did.



































After I showed Laura the first page of sketches she said that the kid had to have a stripey shirt. The guy didn't express if this was a city kid or a country kid so I tried to keep it pretty neutral with his clothes.















With the last page of sketches I started to play with shapes and I also started looking for reference of kids kissing other animals like dogs.




















I took some of those sketches and I drew them onto water color paper and inked the drawing and painted it. I only painted 2 because the guy wanted just one example of the boy and his pig. I picked the two pieces that I felt represented two different takes on the same idea. I decided to not add any back grounds because I felt that they would take too long and that there wasn't a setting to put them in so I thought these would work well as like a little corner illustration of the boy and his pig.


















I really liked this one I liked the relationship of the boy and his pig where the pig was bigger then the boy. This is the one that I sent in, and I also sent in the one I made in Illustrator.


















Here is the version that I did in illustrator, I think the way that I did the shadows gives the whole piece and really soft edge to it and makes it feel very warm and inviting. I like how all of these came out. I have yet to hear back but you never know.

T-shirt Fail

Peter Thomas Hair (T-shirt design) PART 2

I WON!! WHOO HOOO!

I won the Peter Thomas hair T-shirt design contest!


























YEEEEEAH!

Laura and Me (cute stuff)

I’m not really known for doing cute things and several of my past attempts have resulted in something more creepy than cute (like one of those dolls that looks like it would rip out your throat as apposed to just sitting there politely). I didn't really want to do cute things and I didn't exactly understand what makes something cute (I have a better grasp of it now, but understanding the aesthetic of cutesy things is still beyond my grasp). The only thing I knew about drawing cute things was that if you give small things really big eyes, they seem cute. I much prefer drawing things that bleed, get naked or are robots.

Then I met Laura and I felt like drawing barf enducingly cute pictures of the two of us.

















This is the first sketch that I did of us as cute little versions of us. Also on this page is Laura as a mermaid, as a half human half millipede, and a pipe smoking yakuza.






































I’ll show how I did one of them because they were all pretty much the same (which is pretty much the same way I do all of my drawings)




















Here is the sketch from above that I blew up in Photo shop to be the size that I wanted to work in.





















I went over the sketch in a new layer completing the picture by cleaning up and finishing some lines in order to make it easier to outline. I decided to get rid of the glasses because at the time they were still new and I didn't like them. I still don't really draw myself with glasses on; I don't really see myself that way despite the fact that I’ve been wearing them for almost a year.





















Here are the outlines





















Here is just the color





























Here is the final version with shading, highlights, shadows , complete with a background.
When Laura and I got together she had a scarf that we some how lost in the course of moving from one room to another in our old apartment and I didn't have my beautimous beard.


























A regular date with a Bone Room girl.
This is where I had grown my beard and sweet stash in (that’s what the yellow steak on my upper lip is; my moustache grows in blonde and looks like I have dirt on my lip) but Laura hadn't lost her scarf yet (or the sketch still had it so I didn't feel like changing it).

























Tickle fight

Here is the one that I created for Christmas (DUH) with me as a young Santa (as my friend Pat had described me to Laura before she met me; she still finds the description fitting to this day) and Laura as a younger still Mrs. Claus.

I really enjoyed doing these and looking at them again makes me want to do more of them. I think that if I did them in Illustrator that they would turn out really nice and crisp and look even more barf enducingly cute.