Progress of "Bianca"

"Bianca's Cloudy Day" 11 x 14 in. Oil on Linen. 2010

Children's Book Idea & Process

17 x 24 in. Acrylic & Oil on Panel. 2010

After a couple hours of working up from the darkest

darks to my lights, I ended up with this.

After adding halftones, I painted in the darkest darks

Added halftones of Cad. Red & Ivory Black to

see how far back or how close I wanted the

characters to be seen. I should've pushed the

bottom guy back a bit. =(

Wash of Cad. Yellow to help me see

the overall atmosphere of the painting.

Line Drawing =D

For my Design 2 class with Cole Case (possibly the most hilarious Art Center teacher out there), we had to come up with an image based on analogous colors + black & white. My weapons consisted of Cadmium Yellow, Orange, and Red. I had a blast working on this because there were no requirments for the size of the illustration nor theme. So I chose my "Swing Kids" as my muse. At first I came up with a sketch portraying a figure ground type composition with a full swing sit smacked in the middle of my painting surface. But eh, I thought that was boring and decided the crop the hell out of it and came up with what I have pictured above. Each stage of this painting was photographed from the drawing to the finished product.

By the time I got done with this painting, it seemed like a good idea to try and incorporate it into a children's book. It's in the works!!!

Drawings & Underpaintings

12 x 16 in. Oil on linen. 2010

"Bianca from Old Navy" 11 x 14 in. Graphite on Linen. 2010

Here's a look at how I start my portait paintings in oil. My first step is to do a small sketch of a portrait then blow it up on Photoshop and transfer the drawing onto my painting surface. Then I'll go ahead and do a Burnt Umber underpainting to establish my values. Doing this makes painting with a full color palette easier because my values have been established. The only thing that's left is changing the temperature of the girls' faces wherever necessary. It's also my first time experimenting with linen. We'll see how that goes... Ahhhh!!!