MARIGOLD

Marigold, Ink, Watercolor, Paint Marker on Panel, 2013

Here is the result of a previous entry I posted a month or so ago. I'm very excited to announce that this painting has been accepted into the Dia de Los Muertos show the Peoria Art Guild is having on November 1st!

Inspired by the beautifully intricate petal patterns found on different types of marigolds and of course the iconic, traditional sugar skulls and keeping the bright and festive feel of the holiday.

F IS FOR...

Here is my latest painting, one of the two I had in the Next Wave Art Salon a few weeks ago in Elgin, Illinois.

F is For..., Acrylic on Panel, 2013

I bought a flat Masonite board with the intention of making my own cradle for a nice, deep profile re-using some boards from my old bookcase. That is quite a bit of work when all you have is a handsaw and a sponge sanding block... However the not-so-perfect, woodsy look works so well with the overall energy, painting style and theme of the piece, so it was well worth it.

I'm so happy with how this turned out, there will be more like this, and maybe I'll end up with a whole alphabet. The next one will be "R" with a raccoon tail for some boy I know <3. But for now, this one will be hanging up in the apartment which has accidentally turned out to have a red and blue color scheme. Perfect.

Detail of the hand-cut cradle

IN PROGRESS: UNTITLED 01

Here is a bit of process for the next painting or two. I don't want to give away too much just yet...

MAJOR URSA

Major Ursa, Acrylic on Paper, 2013

Here he is...Major Ursa. What began as an exploration of painting the cosmos resulted in a sci-fi inspired, imaginary portrait of an astronaut bear. Created with acrylic on paper, then mounted to and wrapped around a canvas. This guy will be exhibited in The Next Wave Art Salon in Elgin, Illinois from September 6th - 7th. More details are here.

IN PROGRESS: MAJOR URSA

The beginnings of a new painting.

WILD

Wild, Adobe Illustrator, 2013

A quick illustration for the Illustration Friday topic of the week: "Wild". I do enjoy creating illustrative lettering and decided that would be a fun way to complete the challenge.

MORE LIKE A SIX-FOOT TURKEY

"Hold onto your butts."
I'm excited to share my latest project, a fun and interesting one to work on: the design for a model kit box that will hold a tiny dinosaur (rawr).

Tyler Keillor sculpted this little guy in ZBrush with the help of the supporters of his Kickstarter project, the people at ACME Design, Inc. and Exact Metrology, Inc.You can find his whole story here. We went with a design reminiscent of old Aurora model kit box art - painterly and bright - but not so silly or anatomically incorrect...

He looks crazy happy with that tongue sticking out

I created the background painting referencing an image of the Dryptosaurus head that Tyler had sculpted (amazing work!) and made some hand-drawn lettering, evoking a vintage museum tag look for the name of the dinosaur. Finally we included the rendering of Tyler's digital sculpture to show what's in the box, like more modern model kit boxes.

The background painting, acrylic on panel

This was such a fun project to work on, I loved building model kits as a kid. My dad and I would always be visiting the model shops on weekends looking for some cool car, plane, spaceship or robot to patiently glue together and painstakingly paint to perfection. We actually ran out of room to display our models in the house. But, I think a certain Velociraptor model from a certain movie resides in my parents' living room to this day..."I'm simply saying that life, uh... finds a way."