Norman Reedus

My daughter and I are crushing on Norman Reedus right now. He plays Daryl in "The Walking Dead"

and does a fantastic job.  WE LOVE DARYL.

I did this portrait of him from a photo in the newest "Entertainment" magazine.  My daughter gets to hang it on her wall, but I got the fun of being so up close and personal with his face!

Children in Tree - Redo

I posted an illustration a couple of weeks ago that I was not happy with because by the time I was done, the image had lost its personality.  I decided to re-do it.   I did a pen and ink sketch which I dropped into Corel Paint and colored.  This one is a lot more fun I think, fresher and more energetic. Certainly more along the lines of the children's book illustrating that I am aspiring to do.  

I think my style is going to end up being somewhere in between these two pictures.  The fresher cartooniness of the latest illustration, mixed with some of the painterly technique of the original Children in Tree illustration.

I'm tempted to do a third one to see where I end up, but I think I'll take a break from it for now and go on to the next project.  The Illustration Friday word this week is RESCUE and I have an idea that I'm working on for that.

first attempt at Children in Tree

Paint Brush Still Life

This is an 8 x 10 acrylic on clayboard. Some tighter realism meets the looser background.  

Illustration Friday - HYBRID

These are my underwater birds that I did earlier this year, inspired by a character in the book Game of Thrones  who said "underwater the birds have scales for feathers".  An image came to mind and here it is. 9 x 12 acrylic on Bristol paper.  I thought it worked very well for the IF word this week - HYBRID

I'll try to come up with another idea for this word before the end of the week.  There are too many fun possibilities to pass up.

Illustration Friday - TRAVEL

This is my submission this week for Illustration Friday.  The word is TRAVEL.  The woman traveled here by boat, or maybe by book, or maybe, like me, by imagination.  The tiger is frivolous but if you're gonna dream - dream big.

I'm also including my 2 sketchbook pages that I used for this idea.  The first is my thinking page - a bunch of words and scribbles.  The second page focuses a little more on the idea.  I love seeing into the sketchbook of other artists, so I'm sharing too! One of the most inspirational books I've ever read is "An Illustrated Life" by Danny Gregory which I would very highly recommend.  It's a peek into the sketchbooks of MANY artists along with their sketchbook experiences and recommendations.

I looked up the tiger and the boat on the internet for reference but the rest is from my imagination.  That is what I've been working on for the last couple of years - drawing as much as I can from my imagination!!!  It's much more liberating and come on . . . setting up this scene with models would have been extremely expensive.

Illustration Friday - PROTEST

My husband and I celebrated our 23rd wedding anniversary this weekend so I didn't have as much time as usual to come up with something new.  This is an illustration I did a year ago for the word INTENTION.  She did have good intentions after all.  I'm making it work for this week because I'm pretty sure that fish is PROTESTING.