Holiday Sketch Challenge

The goal is to do 100 sketches between the beginning of the month and January 5th. Here are my next three so I am now up to six. A bit behind.

If you would like to play along here is the link to the Facebook page.
Holiday Sketchbook Challenge
Everyone is welcome and anyone can draw.

Ho...Ho...Ho...!

Three holiday sketches from this week's faculty meeting. I just love getting swallowed up by the Christmas spirit.

I created a Holiday Sketch challenge on Facebook. Anyone is welcome to play along. The goal is to draw 100 sketches before January 5th, which just happens to be when school starts up again.

Holiday Sketch Challenge

Last year I was foolish and said I would do 200... maybe I will and maybe I won't this year. Stay tuned.

Dark Princess Time Lapse

This is a time lapse of my Dark Princess image created this year for Corel. It is composed of a sequence of saved images. I save before making a major change, after making a major change, or about every 30 minutes or so. I sometimes set a timer on my second screen to remind me. The appearance and disappearance of varying elements in the painting is simply turning on and off different layers as I work. This image was created in Painter 2015. Hope you enjoy watching.

Creative Funk

I have been in a creative funk for about two months. I guess it is the same thing as writers block. Anyway, it has been very difficult to get any work done or to even want to do any work. Obviously I did not even finish my Halloween art.

Here is a starting post. I find that the only way to get out of the doldrums is to work .... even when it is hard and unrewarding. Maybe I will get brave and post some of the few additional sketches I finished.

This drawing is black and white Prismacolor pencils with some black watercolor. I have done a bit of post work in Photoshop.

More Halloween Scares

Here are some more. Too afraid to write anything at the moment. Enjoy if you dare.

Sugar, spice, and everything nice!

Sugar, spice, and everything nice!
I want to do a painting of a sweet young girl with a mean streak. These are some of the scary girl idea sketches I did. There are about 12 total. These are a bit different since I did them with a marker. I have not started the painting.

Bone Head

Just your regular bone head. We all know them. I know one really big one right now.

October equals Halloween

I love October and by extension, Halloween. There is no other time all year when you can get away with drawing about anything you want and not having your sanity questioned. I had the best intentions of posting a new sketch each day until Halloween. Alas, I got sidetracked and didn't start. I am starting today, not committing to one a day, but will post 31 sketches this month like the last couple years.

These drawings are all out of my sketchbooks. They have been enhanced or altered some in Photoshop and Painter to hopefully make them more interesting.

Here are the first seven.

First Long School Meeting of the Semester

The School of the Arts had it's first long...and I mean long...like three hours long...meeting yesterday morning. I hate meetings of any length. It is probably why I don't belong to any clubs or hobby organizations. Maybe it my sunny disposition that keeps me out though.

Anyway, back to meetings. The only way I find any meeting tolerable is to draw through it. It also keeps me awake.

Many years ago my dear wife trained me well and I do not draw the people attending meetings. If I find someone especially inspirational then I might draw my interpretation of them. There are some sketches in this group that may or may not have attended the meeting in one way or another. I will never tell.

Here for you viewing pleasure and maybe a bit of snickering are the six drawings I did Thursday morning starting at 9:00 and ending just before noon.

For those that are not familiar with the materials I use here is a brief description. I use cover stock from local paper stored on a clipboard, black and white Prismacolor pencils, and occasionally some watercolor pencils.

The Complete Image

Here is the whole image that I painted for Corel's release of Painter 2015.

Like most artists do when viewing their own work; I see several things I want to change or add.

I am going to get some prints made of her for anyone that wants one. I don't have prices yet but will get that posted as soon as possible.

Little Fishes

For the last few weeks I have been having way too much fun drawing with white Prismacolor pencils on black paper. I also like strange looking fish so what better way to combine some practice with some fun. I find that drawing white on black is not intuitive for me and it takes some thought to keep the values in the right places. Of course with strange, deep sea fishes, no one really can see them down there in the dark. So, without further delay, here you will find a few fishy drawings. Hope you enjoy them.

"Why are they facing the same direction?" you might ask. Beats me.  

One of those meeting things.

I have a hard time sitting through meetings without falling asleep. This is especially true when the speaker is not amplified and quiet, the lighting is subdued for a PowerPoint presentation, the room is warm, I am late, and therefore must sit in the back of the room. I think I hear about 40% of what is being said through my one good ear. I can pick up some things by listening to those around me. Sometimes not.

This week I am in the back of a HR meeting that fit the above criteria. Since I was already late to the meeting (with a good excuse), sitting in the back of a darkened and warm room, and having a hard time hearing, I took out the clipboard and a pencil and started staying awake.

The general theme of the discussion at this point was questions that you can not ask potential employees. The question of age came up. Someone in the audience said that it was probably not a good idea to mention the cliche, "you can't teach an old dog new tricks!". It got me thinking ..... and so I sketched the reason you can not teach an old dog new tricks. It's an attitude thing.

The drawing is done with black and white Prismacolor pencils on a mid-value, smooth card stock. It took about 45 minutes to get this far. It would have taken an hour but I was 15 minutes later after all.

Sneak peek.

A small portion of a painting I finished last week. Eventually I will be able to show the whole. Hope you like it.

Comic Con Salt Lake City 2014

Wow, hadn't realized that nothing was posted since the beginning of the year. I guess it was a busy semester.

Now is the time to make amends. I spent last Thursday through Saturday at Comic Con in Salt Lake. I was part of the UVU (Utah Valley University) recruiting booth as the cheap entertainment. I was drawing and painting in Painter trying to get people to stop. If they stopped then one of the recruiting minions would grab them and see if they might be interested in studying at UVU. It was great fun. Over the course of the three days I drew/painted 23 images. I will post them here. Most are not what I would consider finished art ..... actually they were more like fishing lures.

If someone would give their information to the recruiting minions then I would sign and give that person a small print. I also gave prints to small children and good looking women. These are the prints that I gave away. I learned several things with the prints the most important being what was popular with the crowd. The "dark angel", "Trick or Treater", and "Dinosaur" were the most requested. The least favorite were the "Lion" and "Creepy Monster".

If you want a set or individual print just drop me a note and we will work something out.