Namasté

     This morning I was dealing with some stressful issues, as many of us do during the holidays. I wanted to spend some time on a small drawing for myself which I could post to my blog and title - "Peace". As often happens when I sit down with a creative idea, the idea took on a life of its own.

     As I was looking for a nice quote about peace to share with you, I stumbled across the word namasté. I took a yoga class a few years ago and that is where I first learned its definition. Yoga is not something I do often. It is something I intend to do often. I intend to do it at least three times a week, in fact. (I intend to do it tonight. We'll see how that goes). But, if we could learn to use that word as a universal hello and goodbye every day, and every time we use it connect to its meaning, we may create a world of . . . PEACE.

Namasté

My soul honors your soul

I honor the place in you where

the entire universe resides.

I honor the light, love, truth,

beauty, and peace within you,

because it is also within me.

In sharing these things

we are united, we are the same,

we are one.

What a powerful pack of goodness in one word! 

Namasté, my friends.

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.