Gallery R Show

Last Thursday, on May 21, my class had the opening reception at Gallery R for our thesis show. The show exhibited work that was by our students from our twelve weeks of student teaching, in addition to a piece of work by each of our cooperating teachers and one piece of our own from the past year. The opening was packed with people and it was a great success. The show will be up at Gallery R until June 6. Here are some photos of the work by my students. My two student teaching placements involved high school and then first through fifth grade.









And just a reminder that prints of Pirate Queen are available right here.

New Prints & Portfolio Update

New prints are now available through my print shop! I also updated my portfolio with a lot of the art that I've been posting here. I'm still planning on adding some watercolors I did last summer to my print shop, I just haven't formatted them for proper print sizes yet.

Pirate Queen - Completed Dialogue with an Artist Project

And my pirate queen picture is finished! The final illustration measures 11"x14" and is a combination of brown colored pencil, ink washes, and digital painting.

Basically, this was done for a project in which we were asked to pick an artist and create a piece of art that was having a "dialogue" with that artist. We asked to treat it more as like a conversation than as trying to make a piece of art in that artist's style. We could most certainly be influenced by that artist, but we should still be creating something that is our own.

I picked the artist Kinuko Y. Craft. I've loved her work for years, and her attention to detail and beautiful color schemes have definitely been an influence on the way I work. The work she has done illustrating fairy tales and myths for children’s books were how I was introduced to her work, and those images have become some of my favorites of hers. I grew up loving to read fairy tales and adventure stories, and would spend countless hours imagining and sketching out the tales that I had grown to love. Apparently, this is not all that far removed from Craft’s state of mind when she is working on a project. In an interview with Locus Magazine, Craft was quoted as saying, “My mission is, I really feel, to tell my version of the story. To show my reaction to it. That's why I spend so much time on it. The more time I put in, the more something lives in the image. I actually live in the book while I work. I function much like an actor taking on a role. The outside world fades away. . . I think I've been in a fantasy world all my life.”

I love reading different versions of fairy tales, and her depictions are a nice addition to that library. However, as much as I love Craft’s work, one thing that I have noticed is that a large amount of her illustration work, especially for children’s books, often feature ultra-feminine damsels, princesses and young ladies in need of being rescued. Not all of Craft’s work is like this, but enough of it is that it really stood out to me when I was looking back through her images to prepare for this project. This is not entirely Craft’s fault, either, as most fairy tales are about the damsels that need rescuing. Heroines are found more often in modern stories, films, comics, etcetera, and can appear in all different forms.

I love Craft’s work, and think her paintings are absolutely beautiful, but I thought it would be fun to use this dialogue project to offer a counterpoint, or an alternative, to a princess. I wanted to produce an illustration that would look right at home in a storybook environment, but would still show a strong female character. I also knew that I was not going to use this illustration as deep analysis of feminism or sexual roles in stories and society, but wanted to treat it exactly like an actual dialogue with the artist I had chosen. I wanted to make an illustration that would be something I would like to see Craft make. I decided to use the illustrations that Craft did for Cinderella as my starting point. While looking through the book’s illustrations I found myself thinking, “What would be the opposite of a princess?”

The immediate answer that came to mind was, of course, a pirate. I enjoy pirate stories as much as I enjoy fairy tales, so I thought that offering a pirate as a counterpoint to one of Craft’s princesses would be perfect for this project. Even though Craft works as a traditional painter, I knew I wanted to work in my style of digital painting for this project. I gathered reference images from photos online for things like the background and for the chair that the female pirate in my picture is sitting in. I prefer to take reference photos for an illustration when it’s possible, and since Craft also takes reference photos for her work and I knew that I definitely wanted to collect that resource for myself. To get my reference images for the pirate queen, I dressed up (yes, I own a tricorn hat), set my camera on a timer, and shot my own reference photos. I also looked up images of pirate costumes from films, history books, and Howard Pyle paintings. References images of ship interiors and carved wooden chairs were also found.

After playing around with layout options for my illustration in Photoshop, I then drew the picture on 11”x14” watercolor paper with brown colored pencil, which nicely mimicked Craft’s step of making a detailed pencil drawing of her planned image on her painting surface. The next step was to paint over my pencil work with washes of watered down ink. This has been my preferred method of working for the past two years now. I like to do this as preparatory work for digital painting because it gives me a nice base to work from. It also keeps the image from looking too digital, or too smooth and shiny, because the watercolor paper and any pencil, ink, or paint I use before bringing the image into the computer helps to lend an organic texture and feel to the piece. Craft uses watercolor for her under painting, and I prefer to use ink washes.

It is at this point that my chosen media really begins to differ from Craft’s, but I still kept her method of working in layers in mind when I scanned my drawing in to the computer and started painting it in Photoshop. I usually tend to work with lots of layers in Photoshop when I work digitally, but I especially enjoyed working this way after reading about how Craft likes to work in layers with her painting. When I try and explain digital painting to other people, I always stress the fact that you need to have at least some kind of basic understanding of traditional art media, especially paint, if you want to be able to be any good at all with digital painting. Taking what I learned about Craft’s working methods and translating it to my own way of working with the computer simply underscores this fact. I find too often that people think that using a computer to make art is taking the easy way out because the computer “does the work for you.” This couldn’t be farther from the fact. Using a computer to make art might make some things easier, but at best it is simply another tool that one can use for art. Craft uses a paintbrush to finish her work. I use Photoshop and a digital Wacom tablet.

In the end, I’m happy with the way this project turned out. I was able to create a strong image that was also inspired by Craft’s rich color schemes and attention to detail. I would love to see Craft try her hand at illustrating some nautical adventure tales. She would undoubtedly be able to add her wonderful artistic flair to those types of stories quite easily. In a perfect world, I would be able to sit down with Kinuko Y. Craft and talk about what kind of stories and images inspire us to draw and paint, but for now I think that this artistic dialogue will do.

I know that's much wordier than I usually get here, but I had promised to explain the project and I thought it would be nice to explain a little bit of my working process for digital painting.

Pirate Queen - In Progress pt.2

Here is another work in progress shot of the pirate picture that I posted earlier, showing how the digital painting is coming along. I was working on the background last night, but haven't scanned that part of the illustration into the computer yet.

Pirate Queen - In Progress

This is an illustration I'm working on for a school assignment. I started the digital painting portion of it tonight, but for now I'm just going to post the pencil and ink work (brown colored pencil and ink washes on 11" x 14" watercolor paper). I'll post more about what the details of the project are when I have the finished image to show.

William's Pirate Ship

After William (age 7) finished his project for the day last week, he decided he wanted to make his own story book about an imaginary pirate ship. His three page book was so adorable that I felt it needed to be shared. I'm a big fan of his pirate characters - with stern expressions like that, you know they mean business.

Make Your Own Treasure Map Day

In today's class, the kids got to make their own treasure maps (the same project that was so popular last year). I showed them many examples of old maps, both real and fictional, and also some beautiful reproductions of different designs for compass roses. After they drew and painted their map, I helped them age the paper using coffee grounds. I snapped a few pictures of some of the maps while they were drying.

A simple island, but make sure that you keep an eye out for the ominously named "Blodsand beach".


Those who venture into "Unforgiveibiel bay" should keep an eye out for piratical ruffians.


Here we have the always popular island of "Never Land". However, it seems that poor Peter Pan has been ostracized and the island is now equally divided, split down the middle, between Tinkerbell and Hook.


As you can see, the line clearly defines where Tinkerbell's land ends and Hook's part of the land begins. Tinkerbell has also graciously allowed the "Magic School" to conduct classes on her property.


While he doesn't have a Magic School, Hook can offer visitors "Hooks Fighting Ally". Just keep an eye out for the ferocious sea monster. He might say "Grr!" at you!


Beware to all who enter "The Island of Danger"! Here we have a wide variety of danger for thrill seekers who dare to try their luck.


Keep an eye out for the spooky inhabitants of "The Gost Room". People can also stop by the "Treasher map making studio" to make their own souvenirs.


And I don't think I have to tell you to look out for "The spooky old man's home". Rumor has it that the spooky old man bears a striking resemblance, both in appearance and mannerisms, to Christopher Walken.


Don't forget to visit "Zombi cafe" for a nice local cup o' joe.


"Night Island" presents us with a unique geographic formation. Here you will find such landmarks as "The Gulf of Night", "Wolverine Woods", "Snake Lake", and "Dark Shark Ocean".


And what map island would be complete without a ship full of pirates looking for treasure? "Land ho!"

Pirate Mailbox

A few years ago I painted this mailbox for my parents for the family's summer house. This mailbox was made to replace one that I had painted for them back in high school. Mom put in a special request for a pirate mailbox, so I sketched out some designs and she picked this one. Over the years, weather elements have caused the mailbox to become a bit worn down, so I'll be painting a new mailbox for them soon.

Shipwrecked - Behind the Scenes

I was cleaning up some older files today and thought that this might be worth sharing. It's just a little behind the scenes look at my Shipwrecked picture. This isn't a tutorial, and is really only meant to give people an idea as to how I go about working on a picture. More behind the scenes type stuff can be seen right here in my deviantArt gallery.

Prints of this picture are available right here.

Commission: Book Cover - The Voyage to Ruin

Last September I was contacted by another artist on deviantArt who was writing a piratey sailing adventure type story. Kat wanted me to illustrate the cover for the hardcover version of the book. This is what I came up with. It features Flynn, the main character in The Voyage to Ruin.



Kat then turned my illustration of Flynn into this beautifully designed book cover.



Pretty exciting, huh? A picture I made is now the cover for an officially published book! I received my copy in the mail a couple weeks ago and it looks beautiful. The hardcover version of the story also has interior illustrations by Kat. The paperback version has a cover by Kat and no interior illustrations.

The Voyage to Ruin is currently available for purchase from Lulu, Amazon, and Barnes & Noble.

Recent Sketchbook Pages vol.3 and a Treasure Map

I tried to do a little bit of drawing while I was in town for the Fourth of July, but there were too many people around who kept wanting to watch over my shoulder, so this was the only decent sketch that happened.



Yesterday was Pirate Day in the kids' art class that I'm teaching this summer. They got to design their own treasure map and then I showed them how to age the paper. I've done this project with previous summer classes and it always goes over well. This was the one I made for a demo. I also brought in a whole bunch of my piratey books for them to look through for ideas. They had a blast, and got really creative with it. One boy had "Ice Cream Island" which was, of course, shaped like an ice cream cone. Another girl kept asking how to spell things like "mortal peril" or "catastrophe" because she wanted the places on her island to sound really dangerous. Then, all on their own, they started making swords and eyepatches and bandanas out of construction paper. I found some cardboard tubes from old rolls of paper towels in the closet, which I gave them to use for telescopes. All in all, it was a really good class. It was a nice end to a busy, successful week.

And still more

More Facebook doodles for friends. What can I say, with house sitting and being between jobs I've had some free time.

More Facebook doodles

Just some more of those Facebook doodles that I've done for friends.

Elizabeth - In Progress

This is just continuing with the Pirates picture that I had previously sketched out an idea for. I finished inking Elizabeth last night, so I started doing some coloring today. I haven't gotten too far with the coloring, and I haven't inked the border pieces that are going to go on either side, so those colored panels are just place holders for now. I'm using this picture as an experiment with a new coloring style that I want to try out.

And don't forget! If you are on Live Journal, you can add my sketch blog to your friends page feed.

POTC 3 Fan Art Idea

I had a blast at the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie, and I kind of have an itch to make a picture based on it. This is just an idea I sketched out real quick. I've drawn Jack Sparrow before, but I think I want to draw Elizabeth since she was essentially the main character in this movie.

Caution! Kraken!

The topic for Illustration Friday this week is "signs". Last week I was able to spend a lot of time on the topic, but I don't have that chance this week. However, I wanted to be able to at least get this idea down on paper and then maybe I can do something more with it later. Plus, I thought it was fitting considering that the third Pirates of the Caribbean movie comes out this week.

How hilarious would it be to see signs like this posted by seaside docks? I know I'd be amused.