Storybook Love

And here's the final version.. I wanted to make an image of something like fairy tale or storybook love. I love the style in illustration of pumping up lights and colors to make them glow throughout the entire picture. It seems appropriate for an image of storybook love to have this quality, so I really attempted to convey that timeless feeling with the light in this illustration.

The painting style used is also very influenced by Marta Dahlig, whose work I've always looked up to but never thought I'd be able to reproduce to any degree in a million years. And I still haven't.
However, it turns out that with patience and perseverance, many things you didn't know you could do can be completed, and this has been a good experience. It may be motivation to attempt more realism with digital painting in the months to come.

Thank you to all the wonderful teachers and students of AAU. I had and continue to have such a good experience of the education received there. You are all greatly talented and very kind.

WIP - Ladies Kissing!

No, really.. Ladies! Like the medieval kind. 

Still working on it, hoping to make the light really pop before it's done. Any suggestions, please leave them below!

Manic Pixie Dream Girl

Whether it's Ramona Flowers or Clementine in Eternal Sunshine or Run Lola Run, we know we love them. So unapologetic! But on the inside, I bet she just wants to hug her vicious little chihuahua.

This piece has been in the works off and on for a bit, though in total it took somewhere between thirty and forty hours. There are always things I want to fix, but I figure if you work it to death you might get nothing rather than something out of it. Comments and especially critiques are very welcome, friends!

ttyl :)

When Anyone Could Be a Lord

Old rough of Stannis Baratheon

Recently, I've been having a lot of fun with Lord and artist Frederick Leighton's work. I found him on ArtRenewal.org (an undeniably highly recommended site), and I admit to love-love-loving the gorgeous oranges and glowing warms overflowing from within his beautiful figures.

link to this painting

I've tried making studies from these paintings using a similar technique to what would produce a glazed effect, but in general it seems to show the brush strokes too much, and just doesn't ring true with how I want to paint. Given fifteen minutes and a limited color palette, things stay much fresher and far more interesting than otherwise.

Copy of William Bouguereau's Biblis

I'm attempting now to see how these glassy glazed master works can be translated to quick, hour-long, fat-brush-stroke studies. The absolute depth of color Leighton achieves with the glazed oils will never be duplicated in a digital painting, but there is also so much opportunity for interaction between colors on a lighted pixel surface that I feel something good has to come out of it, even if it's just a better understanding of color.

An amazingly captivating portrait.. and glowing arm shadow galore.

Now with giant vulture!

Tonight

It's great to be back in SoCal. There's nothing like home, and no light that's the same. I'm just waiting for those beautiful summer harsh shadows to come back around, with their oranges and their edges. Who wants to go plein air painting? :)

Soda Popper

Maestro

Sometimes, if I draw nature enough, it feels like there might be a Totoro watching, a little bit.

I don't see how this could be a bad thing.

Agh, fashion zombies.

...

Goodbye again :)

Sketchy Sketchy...

Perhaps a little Ramona has slipped in here....

I like sketching. I like sketching so much that I will do it for hours every day. It probably isn't healthy for the back. But.. am I really using that anyway? I can't think of anything better to do on a rainy day than sit down with a brand new sketchbook and that first blank page. I hope everyone is having a happy rainy day!

Pomp and Punkinstance? Punk and Pompudice?

Punk and Pompibility.

And a Poster. 

As Requested

It's great when people request art. Or unicorns. In fact, the two seem to have an eery closeness to my life, but I'm not looking a gift robot unicorn in the mouth. I'll just be over here drawing.

Mona-Lisa top-of-my-Christmas Request List

Watch out, they will burn you.

As Requested: ALVINBOT

As Requested: Find the Unicorns.

Wait. Something is nagging at me..

So I wasn't just hearing things when he said he'd be back.

Well anyway

Hasta la vista.