Happy Chicken -er, Turkey Day!

("Fancy Chicken" - a Yokohama Red Shoulder Cockerel to be exact. For "The Wind Dancers", published by Feiwel & Friends).

Happy Thanksgiving - my artsy-drawing friends. Thanks for your talent and your input and for enriching my life the last couple of years.

Goblin Girl take One

So I've been trying to find my own "style". It seems that I've been looking for it for a long time with no luck. Then the other day I had an epiphany... I think I have actually had a "style" for years but I've been trying to paint realistically and have unintentionally brought a lot of undue stress onto myself. In trying to paint like Donato, Rebecca, Scott etc. I lost my own voice which was barely audible as it was. Doing a lot of research and talking with Madeline about licensing and artists who do quite well for themselves with licensing has had me thinking in a different way about my own work. Oddly enough it opens me up to a lot of freedom. Could I really make a living painting and drawing what I love and want to create rather than deal with being art directed? Even though this girl is just a beginning idea, it's the way I always used to draw. My question to everyone is this, "Is the natural way that I draw too elementary? Is it worthwhile in your opinions to go more toward this direction?

Breast cancer benefit needs art

From Art Order:

Step up and help Daarken with his Beautiful Grim benefit - http://tinyurl.com/yehy353

--Madeline

Eakins in ballpoint

I was at the Mutter Museum and the Philadelphia Museum of Art yesterday. I guess the former informed the latter because I found myself copying a portion of it in my little sketchbook. Photo taken with my iPhone.





--Madeline

IlluxCon Saturday Night Model Drawings

The model was a bit of a moving target so it was a great challenge to get the pose before it changed - which was a lot of fun! The profile is something I doodled out of my head.

--Madeline

Christmas Promo - Finish

While you all were off galavanting at IlluxCon, I was home. Painting. Got this finished at any rate...

Life Drawing -

"Draped figure" day at life drawing this morning -

We did a series of short poses of our long-necked, leggy model. I decided to mostly ignore the faces/hands/anatomy and focus on the drapery and folds. To see how much I could get laid in in the various scant 20 minute poses. Also tried out different densities of charcoal pencils, from hard to soft - which means I can either have more control or more value...

Made good use of "The Virgin Queen" soundtrack for background accompaniment.

Cat Sketches

I have my first children's book commission. The author is a wonderful 72 year old lifetime educator. She's self-publishing which is an avenue many authors are taking these days. The title is A Grand Cat and it's based on the true story of Fred the cat.

Right now I'm developing the storyboard and book dummy. I'm also playing around with the style and look of the illustrations. The author has given me a free rein in both. Right now, I'm simply studying cats and their expressions and anatomy. Next, I tried drawing them without the photo references and attempted to draw a cat based on memory and characterization. Have much work to do before this feels more fluid and free.

Christmas Promo - WIP

This is the final drawing for my Christmas promo requested by my agents. Their theme this year is 'Caroling'. It is sadly lacking in dragons, but for the children's market it should do fine. :-)

The simpler and more decorative the piece, the harder I find it to make *the right* color choices. Since I paint these in watercolor, I must know before I begin what colors are going where, with few options to change after the fact beyond a bit a glazing. I'm tending towards the lower right, but don't really like the cool background. However warm (ochre? cream?) might be too much warm?

Thoughts?