Giraffe-ar

This is a character I've created for the Aladdin project [see previous post] I'm doing in my color theory class. This giraffe is the equivalent of Jafar from Disney's animated Aladdin. I used an awesome photo I took of my dad in costume for reference and tried to simulate the exact lighting using my wacom tablet in Photoshop.

The Oval Portrait

Oil on Acrylic, Strathmore 500 Board [images are cropped]

This Edgar Allen Poe image for the short story, The Oval Portrait, was another of Kent Williams' assignments. Kent had us pick a Poe story or poem and do a vertically formatted book cover of it. I will say that although I spent a lot of time on it, it needs more work and leaves much to be desired. The picture frame needs to be rendered tighter along with numerous other fixes. I included the pencil sketch which has a bit more breath to it.

Orange Dot

collage, gouache, and ink

This sketch pretty much sums up my feelings and fears regarding the cost of tuition and the law of diminishing returns.

Proactive Hitman

Mixed Media and Photoshop 11.25” x 11.25” Strathmore 500 Board

This is an assignment I did in pencil, pen, water color, gouache acrylic and oil for Kent Williams' Image and Idea class. For this assignment we had to either create a spread or a partial spread for a short story in a magazine article he had just illustrated. Of course we didn’t get to see his piece ahead of time and had to interpret the story for ourselves. The story is basically a crime thriller mystery about a proactive hit-man who collects stamps as a hobby (notice the eyes are stamps with cropped 100$ bills in them) and goes out looking for a new client in order to pay the bills. The wrench is the weapon used at the climax of the story.

James and the Princess Sketches

This first sketch is of yes,... you guessed it,... my son James.

The others are a few exploratory sketches I did in my earthbound sketchbook for my Inventive Figure class taught by Daniel Galieote. We get to invent our own characters for either a story of our own or an existing story or movie set in a different time period. For the assignment we are going to create a female, male, and an animal. I'm choosing to retell the old German Fairy tail The Brave Little Tailor. You may recall the Disney version of the story in which Mickey Mouse is the unlikely hero who kills seven flys in one blow and is mistaken for a giant killer. I chose the story because I loved the idea of modernizing it. Instead of a tailor, I'm going to be creating a techie nerd who brags about killing seven monsters while gaming online, but is overheard by some nearby thugs who believe he has killed seven "mobsters". The king has been replaced by a crime boss and the princess is his bratty socialite daughter. These sketches are for the Princess in the story who upon finding out she has married a common tailor, goes to her daddy the king asking for help in getting rid of him.

Old Man and Other Sketches

Here are more sketches from the newest of my many Moleskines.

Woah.

Here is a ballpoint pen sketch that I scanned and colored using Photoshop.

Portrait From Life

Oil on Canvas 18" x 24" (images are cropped)

This is painting was our final in-class painting assignment for my Contemporary Figure Painting class with Kent Williams. The pose was originally going to be for 3 full 5 hour sessions but was reduced due to my 3rd term review with the Illustration Department chair, the model's time constraints, Thanksgiving, and a special presentation that took place last Thursday in which we were addressed by Art Center's former Illustration Department chair and famed illustrator Baron Storey.

Ender and Other Sketches

I thought I'd add some new sketches.

Fish Headed Man

Oil on Canvas 30" x 36" (images are cropped)

This is another 3rd term project I finished for my Contemporary Figure Painting class with Kent Williams. The assignment was to acquire a large fish (in this case a beautiful New Zealand Snapper and incorporate it into a painting as the central focus. We also had to include a figure so I combined the two into a somewhat disturbing creature. I collaged the newspaper to the canvas with matte medium. My father is the sleeveless human model I worked from. I thought I would show you the piece in a 3-part progression to give a sense of how I approached the piece.

[This piece was on display in Art Center's Main Student Gallery.]

Self Portrait with James

Oil on Canvas 31" x 40"

This is a current 3rd term project I'm working on currently. This is suppose to be a self portrait from reference. I chose to use a year old image of me and my son that my wife took candidly. I'll update the finish after I give it about 4-6 more hours (23 hrs so far 'cause I'm slow!). [I updated the image Feb 1, 2006]

Lady by the Phone

Oil and Acrylic on Mapel Panel (image is cropped)

[panel 24" x 16" actual image 14" x 18"]

My mom was a great sport to sit for the original reference photographs I took in preparation for this project. I skewed and distorted the original picture in Photoshop and painted according to those changes (i.e. the longer-than-possible neck).

Head Painting

Oil on Canvas Board 14" x 18"

This painting was completed in about 3.5 hours during David Luce's Head Painting class. The model was great.

The Mousekateer

Oil on Canvas Board 20" x 16"

This is one of the first paintings I did during my 2nd term at Art Center (I'm in my 3rd term now). While shooting reference for this project I had my grandpa wear a mousekateer hat and told him to look depressed.

1st Post

OK, here's my first post...

...Wow, that was pretty easy.