So September 5th I'm having a solo show in Charlotte at Shain Gallery…This painting hobby became quite more so than I expected - still haven't got a clue what the heck I'm doing!

Rudolph the Studly Reindeer

New blog!

I'm going to refrain from putting any more paintings (my obsessive hobby these days) on this blog. I'd like to get this back to more character design. So, with that, if you miss the paintings, they're going to this new blog, Big Man on Canvas. Be the first to follow it!

Three's A Crowd

Spring birds on a limb, wire, whatever. Played with this layout in the IPad...

...here, first.

Then began with a layer of umber to help with any reveal of branches later on.

Tried to keep only with the knife throughout.

In the end I still grabbed for some traditional tools.

Rotten Kindle

But I say that in a good way - as I just saw all the Rotten School books on Kindle now, and while I loved how the B&W images looked in print - they really translated back into digital watercolor images nicely. Thank you Painter. These would be great things for kids going to Summer Camps people (- I'm just sayin')!

This was Book 2, or The Great Smelling Bee. Sherman Oaks' robotic pet cat takes on Headmaster Upchuck's left leg in a, well, cat fight. Here's a look at the pencil.

Then the final in watercolor, well, Painter watercolor. The pin stripes were a stumbled-upon fun trick - I painted a layer of gray with all the shading - dried it, then added a solid darker layer of gray all over. A white, thin brush in the (still) wet layer stripped away all the stripes, revealing the lighter layer of shaded gray below.

Here kitty, kitty

A character from a quirky story around with I'm fiddling...

Bebe Bao's Birthday

This was the second commercial to break in the McDonald's animated campaign on which I worked, Bebe Bao's Birthday. Leo Burnett produced these first two spots with Duck Studios, LA. We had a fun time with the number of characters here, eventually done up in a stop-motion, 3-D looking environment. For high-def, go here.

And the Rooster Says...

Something also in the sheep-type series...

(The lamb and seagull just sold recently - this rooster is the last in its series still for sale...)

Game Rooooom

Rachel Tiep Daniels' new venture (apart from a stellar job at Blue Sky Studios, and her Picture Book Project Foundation) in helping out others in need is Art Blocks for Ghana. Here is a Start to Finish on my submission...Her concept for these pieces was simply enough, "home." Since my family life has so much of the gaming world in it these days, I wondered what adolescent critter would really cause a pain in the butt by bringing in a contemporary, whole new game room to its own, "home?"

The pencils are always layers of tracing paper, rough, and very ugly!

But thanks to my iPad, I'm not pinned down to a lightbox anymore. I take an initial scan/pic of an approximate pencil I like, and then layer and layer these things until I'm somewhat happy.

A bit more from the iPad, then I printed out a piece.

But the print, in a much lighter version, gave me a chance to put a template over which to trace over the piece with a sheet of graphite transfer paper below...giving me a nice beginning linework directly on the 10" X 10" block.

...Seen below.

One pass with acrylics.

and the help of some pens, pencils and additional smudges. Finished piece also here and up for auction, see Rachel's blog for details.