Friday, October 28, 2016

Week ONE

Well so far so good.  Here are the first five days paintings.   I'm hoping to improve my skills in value and clean color application, and with 360 more days of practice I'm fairly certain I will reach this goal. 

Also I was going to do just animals but my cravings may dictate my subject matter as on day two when I really wanted fresh cherries but had to settle for my homemade cherry jam.

 One day a week I think I will dedicate to ocean life... or in this case fish bowl life.




Thursday, October 6, 2016

Daily Paint Challenge

I have seen and been inspired by artist daily paintworks and have been wanting to do something for awhile now.  Well this month is the month.  my birthday is on the 24th and that is the day I will start my challenge.  I will be painting one animal a day but that is not the challenge.  My goal is to paint an animal in five brushstrokes/layers or less.

         How is this a challenge you ask?

Because I nitpick everything to death and I want to practice being more precise and clean. I also want to have more experience drawing animals.  I plan to sketch out several character studies then paint the final selected pose.

         Why not start now?

Because I want to put together a reference library to work from and what better day than to start on my birthday.  Hurray!

         What will I do with my finished works? 

Sell them of course.  But because I am an illustrator and an author,  I will publish them all into one book.  But that will be next Christmas.  Right now it's just one day at a time.  Wish me luck!

Below is a pelican I painted while in Mexico and I tried to do a simple sketch.  It looks like it was done in 6 layers  so this will be similar to the paintings i want to do,  whether or not a use a pen like in the second I'm still debating.




Wednesday, October 5, 2016

Everett Reuss Days

I attended the Everett Reuss Days Plein Air painting competition in Escalante Utah this year.   I didn't win any prizes but I had a blast even with all the rain.  I sold several paintings which is always welcome validation for my career choice:)  He is the piece I entered this year (1)and a few others I painted (2,3 & 4).

Electric Mosaic 


                                                                  Calf Creek Trail


                                                                 Kodachrome Color


                                                                      Shattered Stone

Saturday, October 1, 2016

The Artist

This is a complete experiment, but I found these thumbnails from my friend for a story he wrote and I thought they were adorable.  So I took them to Photoshop cleaned and corrected them, then digitally painted the pages.  Its at the printers right now and I can't wait to see it!!