Illustration Friday - CITY

WOOHOO! Unbelievable timing. We just got back from visiting my step-daughter and her husband in Las Vegas and the IF word of the week is . . . CITY!  Everything is fresh on my mind and the photos I worked from, freshly imported into the computer. 

I started with a quick acrylic painting:

I took a photo of this, dropped it into Corel Painter and violá.

Next step is to finish up the painting and now I can use the digital version as reference.

IF - WHIMSICAL

Oil on gessoed illustration board (this finished piece shown has a little digital enhancing - just a little)

Sometime in early 2014 the Illustration Friday word of the week was SPACE and I came up with this idea. I didn't finish it in time to post it on IF but in April of that year I put the image on my blog post and called it Personal Space. A pretty WHIMSICAL idea of personal space. I recently decided to redo it, making it more colorful and fun (more whimsical) and I wanted, in the end, to have an actual piece of artwork in my hands instead of just an image that only exists in cyberspace or print. On top is the redo, on the bottom is the digital version from April 2014.

For a peak at a version further into the future (2021) click here.

Baby Dragons #4

I'm so happy to be posting a piece here again. I've been busy elsewhere and it's been over a month since I've finished an illustration. Here's number 4, and the last, in my baby dragon series.  All four are different views of the same moment and were done to practice my illustration skills. They are all 8 x 10 oil paintings on clayboard with the exception of the bird's eye view. That one is a 5 x 7 on gessoboard. I have a manuscript in the works that was inspired by the first little guy seen below. I'm sharing the other 3 pieces so that they're all on one page together.

 

Mask Shop

   
     I don't know if this one is quite done.  I have a feeling I'll be going into it and tweaking things here and there but it's not going to have anymore extreme changes. I'll be submitting it to a SCBWI notecard contest within the next couple of weeks.
     This is the result of a few things coming together.  I had taken a photo of a mask shop a couple of years ago.  The photo didn't turn out great but I liked the idea. Then, I was driving through Covington, Ohio last year and saw an empty building on a street corner.  I took a photo thinking I would paint that building and then fill the windows in with the items from the mask shop.

     This is what the painting was looking like when I ran out of steam.  There just wasn't enough going on in there.  When the opportunity of the notecard contest came up (they want an illustration depicting my favorite season and THIS is it) I decided to take a photo of the unsuccessful painting and liven it up a bit. I dropped it into Corel Paint and added all the fun stuff.

Talent Show poster

I haven't posted for a couple of weeks.  I've been busy with a few projects including this poster for a local talent show.  The picture below is the first one I did a few months ago for the sign-up.

SEPTEMBER

Another redo, and another chance to use that autumn background from my last post. The first time I posted this idea was two years ago. Here it is:

I've come a long way in my skills.  This older one was just intended to be a sketch, and it's done in acrylics with no digital enhancements.  I put the idea aside and figured I would come back to it eventually. This newer one was done half with pencil and paints, half on the computer.