Day 4 of 21

Work has been kinda slow the past couple of days, giving me more time to draw. Here are two more to add. I am pretty happy with both, but, as usual, the faces are giving me fits. Maybe I need to draw more real people at angles to give me a better idea!

Day 3 of 21

Had more than 15 minutes to day, so I took advantage of it. Just quick pencil sketches. Kind of a sea/beach theme! : )

Day 2 of 21

A little hesitant to post this one, but trying to stay on task with the challenge!

I did this really quick in Photoshop from a photo of my kids on a trampoline. Not very happy with it, but good practice none the less. However, I will be using a real pencil from now on. I like what Alicia says here about research. I seem to do better without a reference in front of me. And since I need the most work on people, that will be my main focus. And Ryan Loghry has a great idea that I think I will use as well, about having the characters involved in an activity.

Day 1 of 21

Here is my first drawing for the 21 Day drawing exercise started by Gina Perry.

This is drawn from a photo I took of our neighbors horse Society. I sketched it completely in Photoshop using some new brushes I found thru Linda Silvestri's blog. This took about an hour off and on. I was working late (note the post time), and needed something to do to kill time between uploading files!

Good night (or more like good morning)!

IF: "Primitive" Thinkers

Here is my take on the Illustration Friday topic this week.

Those of you familiar with 3-D software will know where this comes from. For those who don't... In most 3-D software, the basic shapes (cube, sphere, cylinder, and cone) are called "primitives." Not sure what they would be pondering.

Something to think about... ; )

Did you know...

Just read that Disney animator Ollie Johnston passed away on April 14. Don't remember hearing it on the news (probably drowned out by all the election coverage!). Anyway, he was one of Disney's Nine Old Men. You can read more about it here.

Protect thy art

Was just over at the Drawn blog, and their latest article is on a new illustration book that is out and is apparently full of stolen art and articles. You can read more here.

I would recommend watermarking your images in someway if you don't already, and please don't post anything larger than 800 pixels at 72dpi. That is plenty big. I am often surprised to see artists posting very large copies of their art online.

While these types of things are rare, it's not to say it couldn't happen to any artist. And it will most likely get worse as time goes on.

Colored "leap frogs"

Here are three colored version of my leap frogs. One cut paper, one colored pencil, and one done in Photoshop. I wanted to experiment with different mediums to see what I liked best. Each version taught me a lot, which was most important.

The Photoshop version came out best, mostly because I had the most control over it, though I did enjoy doing the cut paper version (done with available construction paper from my wife's supply!). I will definitely try more illustrations like that, with better quality paper.

Need a lot of practice with the colored pencils as far as shading and blending. Got a bit carried away on the bottom frog, making him a tad muddy! Again, I learned a lot, so on to the next challenge! : )

Leap Frogs

Here is a preliminary sketch for a personal project I am working on. The frogs are playing "leap frog". After much sketching and looking at pictures of frogs, I am happy with this version. Let me know what you think!

IF: Save

Here are my entries for this week's Illustration Friday theme of Save. I had a bunch of ideas, but these are the two I decided to draw. The one above was colored in Photoshop.

This one was my first idea. Not sure where it came from exactly, but I thought it funny. Please note that this is in no way a protest of Chick-fil-A, a restaurant I frequent often. Enjoy!

Shameless Plug!

Wanted to mention that I am starting a new blog geared toward fun things to do with kids (or adults who are still kids at heart). Anyway, if you feel compelled or curious, here is the link. Only an intro post up so far, but I hope to post new stuff at least every week.

EDIT: I do have the first of hopefully many articles on the blog now.