That's all she wrote!

16 of the 17 pieces done for my October Art-a-Thon.

Hey everyone, thank you for watching my blog this past month. I am almost at 4k views, so I know many stopped by to check it out. Here is the finished art (sans Rich's Scary Fairy piece...which is already in his hands):

I am now going on to prepping for a few conferences in the spring. Attending both SCBWI conferences in Austin (February) and Houston (April).

Halloween #14: Evil Dummy

One of my old college friends, Craig suggested an evil ventriloquist dummy.

For some reason, the colors seem faded, and the dummy turned more orange (he is actually a brown)... I don't know if it's my scanner or the result of the color choices I made, but it looks a lot better in person. Guess you will have to take my word for it :/

Ink/Gouache on Bristol.

Artwork: Scarecrow

Inked art (L) and finished color art (R)

I thought I would try doing a piece for the Covered Blog, and redid a cover from Marvel Comics' Wonderful Wizard of Oz...  If you have a chance and can read any of them (I think they are on the 5th series), give them a shot. Great for all ages.

The Art:

I tried to keep the rough sketchy style of art that Skottie Young does in the books. I used solely a brush and ink on the drawing (above left)... using a mix of dry brush, some linework and spattering the ink. I used my fingerprints in the ink to help make the shadows... if you look close you can see my prints. I have seen other artists do this, particularly a great piece by Chuck Close... and thought I would give it a shot. It worked with moderate success, although I think next time I will use an ink pad.

The finished work is a mix of watercolor, gouache, colored pencil and ink.

You can really get some beautiful lines with the ink. I did this one pretty big, and I think in retrospect I would have liked to do it at half the size.

Artwork: Untitled

Currently working on a character design for a book I was thinking about writing. My main experience is in picture books, but this story would be a little bigger, like a beginner/chapter book...

Ok, I finished the blue character first, before I went on to the other one. I usually don't work this way, but I usually don't work this early (9 am). I usually am up til the am's finished a piece.... So I did half in the morning, and the other half at night:

I listened to an album I used to have in college: C'mon Feel the Lemonheads by The Lemonheads... Forgot how great of an album that was... almost 20 years ago. Wow. I am old.

Artwork: Pirate Monkey

I just got the blog up and running. So let's do this. Building the portfolio back up, and working on new art pieces. My wife's friend suggested I do a Pirate Monkey, so after doing a few sketches, I decided on a layout. I was going to do it in gouache, because since getting them, I have been aching to use them. I was also going to use watercolor and ink:

The initial sketch:

Doing lines in ink, wasn't sure about outlining, but there you go:

I did a watercolor wash, to tone the white down and add some value for reference:

and the final product. Note I forgot the tail... added it later: One thing nice about using gouache: it always can mix... and you can "reactivate" it after the paint has dried (vs watercolor, which is absorbed more by the paper)... That being said, I thought it was a fair job, considering first time in the medium. I think I would have maybe skipped the wash next time, and softened the background (which can be obtained digitally, but I am working on that as we speak).

All of the above pix were taken with my iPad, and the one below was pieced together in Photoshop (photostitch is amazing!), because it was so big. The scan stinks, as you can tell the difference in color. I want to retake the scan so I have true colors before I give it away:

From start to finish, about 6-7 hours.

Anyhoo: there you go. First picture up! Comments/Crits always welcome.

Up next: A tortoise and hare picture.