Cloaked

I've got a folder on my computer of "cool photos" where I put pics that I think are interesting and some that might make good painting subjects. Case in point, this painting was done from a photo of the daughter of a friend of mine (Hi Rachel!) at a science fiction con where she was trying on a cloak. Costumes at cons seldom look too good especially in the flourescent glare of a crowded convention floor, but in this case she made it look just right. In fact, I'm thinking she should wear cloaks all the time;)

Another happy girl!

There is a reason why a lot of artists paint expressionless dead pan type faces....painting smiling happy people is hard! I suppose that I like the challenge of it and it's also nice to have someone smiling up at me while I'm working ;)
I'm constantly inspired (and humbled) by great artists like Sundblom who seemed to do it with such ease.

New profile

Here's a quickie. I really like to paint profiles, there is so much variety in peoples faces and profiles break that down to the basic form. I suppose that a lot of artists avoid them because they can sometimes seem static but there's something very iconic about them to me.

Girl in a different format

Sometimes I like to use unusual layouts to give the art a different feel.

more sketches

Back by popular demand...er, well one person asked ;)
Here are some more quickie brush drawings from my local Barnes and Noble cafe!

Witch Hat!

Sometimes I start my just squishing some paint around and following where it goes instead of working directly from a photo. Once this one started to make the turn towards looking like "a girl with a witch hat on" I used a photo from a catalog to get some face details down.

White hat

I love the way artists like Frank Benson and Sorolla paint white objects, full of color!

Thinking about fishies

Fish, yeah, I have no idea.

Iron man!

Being a long time comic fan I couldn't resist a quickie Iron Man. Gotta admit that I prefer his old armor though, but then again I'm old ;)

Moleskine sketches

I carry a small pocket sized moleskine sketchbook when I'm out people watching in the world. These days I draw directly in ink with a Japanese brush marker which works well for these fast and loose sketches. Drawing in ink rather than penciling things out carefully keeps the drawings much more spontaneous and since people are constantly moving anyway I can get things down very quickly and move on to the next one!

Molly Crabapple

I'm always on the prowl for cool photos that might be good subjects for my quickie paintings. This one is from a photo of illustrator Molly Crabapple that I found on her site. The photo had that modern/retro feel that I love and I thought she had a real Elvgren-ish expression on her face!

Animal pals

I set out to paint a horse since I hadn't done one yet and the duck just kind of snuck in. I had a photo of a duck on my desk and I thought it would be a funny juxtaposition to add him to the scene. It's wacky, but I can't help smiling when I look at this one. Maybe it's because I am a sucker for those nature shows where the animals all get along!

Banana clipped!

I guess you'd say that this is a painting of a girl, but to me, it was that white shirt...oh yeah and the banana clip in her hair that got me.
Oops, looks like I forgot to sign this one...

Smokey tones

Sometimes a painting with a lot of brown tones just looks like mud, but I like the somber feeling in this one.

Happy Holiday Hound!

I almost never get my act together in time to actually send out cards, but this year I did! I did this one in an old Canson sketchbook I had that has thick brown paper pages, the same paper as grocery store bags!

Wonder Woman!

For those of us children of the '70's Linda Carter will always be Wonder Woman. I did this one from a screen capture from the DVD set of the first season of the show.

Good Dog!

This was my first dog "portrait". Long hair and fur are perfectly suited to this simplified brush style of painting.

Steph

I use some kind of reference for all of these paintings, whether it's from magazines or my own photos. This is from a picture I took of a friend of mine, and while I'm not usually trying for likenesses, this one definitely looks her!

Braid

This is one of my favorites...it's simple and nothing was overworked.

Gentle giant

It wasn't until I recently started painting dogs that it occurred to me that I could be painting more than girl pics...so I'm trying different things.