It's funny because it's true: March 2009

Muddy Waters

A sketch I did this morning of Blues Legend, Muddy Waters.

On a similar note . . . today I received my copy of Joe Bluhm's new book, Sketch Infectus. I highly recommend this book for anyone that is serious about drawing and improving their skill as an artist. This book is filled with tons of great sketches as well as inspirational quotes from some of the top illustrators working today. What are you waiting for? BUY IT NOW!

The White Stripes

Quick sketches from life!

These are just some quick sketches from one of my sketch books . . . these were done while sitting in either a cafe or restaurant. Some were sketched at San Diego Comic Con. I try to do this as much as possible, it's good practice, keeps you loose and fresh. What I try to do is keep my sketches between five and ten minutes at the most, but I prefer to keep it around five minutes.

These sketches were done in about two minutes or so . . . keeping things really simple, exploring shape and form and having fun!

Sketched while enjoying a coffee at Starbucks. These two sketches were done in two to three minutes, I really liked the lady's hair . . . that's some serious helmet hair.

I'm finishing up a White Stripes piece as well as my Elvis Costello painting, will be posting those here soon.

Dan Auerbach

Dan Auerbach is the front man for The Black Keys, one of my favorite bands. Dan has recently released his first solo album. If you like rock and blues, this CD is a must!

* There have been some comments about the lighting being a bit odd or that Dan seems a bit separate from the environment. This was a deliberate choice on my part. I wanted it to feel a bit off, and a bit creepy.

Detail.

Happy Birthday Spike Lee!

Another birthday sketch from the ISCA daily sketch forum.

Jack White Sketch

Tim Burton Demo Up and Running Again!

I've been getting a lot of emails asking why my Tim Burton video had been taken off You Tube? I believe it was because I originally had music on there from "The White Stripes". So to make sure there will be no problems this time, I got permission to re-edit the video using music from my friends Chris and Trevor Wiitala. They have a band together called The Wiitala Brothers. Thank you Chris and Trevor for the usage of your music!!!

This is a video showing my process when painting digitally. I painted this using a Split-Complementary Palette, a limited palette yes, but you will see that you can get plenty of colors from such a palette, and the nice thing is that it creates a mood as well as harmony within your painting. Hope you enjoy. Many thanks to Thierry and Bobby Chiu at Imaginism Studios for helping me get this video up and running so I can share it with everyone here.

Bruce Willis sketch . . .

Quick sketch . . .

Sample Critique from Schoolism!

This is a little taste of what my critiques are like for students who take my course at Schoolism.com

My Next Caricature class at Schoolism.com starts on April 10th! Also available, Digital Painting with Bobby Chiu, Character design with Stephen Silver, Storyboarding with Kris Pearn and Building a Powerful Comic Book Portfolio with Alvin Lee.

Progress . . . Elvis Costello

I'm painting this with a darker value range than the references that I'm looking at . . . I like the mood, and I prefer to get rid of some of the orange, or at least ignore it . . . I'm feeling a bit dark and moody these days . . . nothing a good smack in the face couldn't fix! A ways to go before this is finished, I'll continue to share little bits here as I work.

Elvis Costello Sketch

Dan Auerbach W.I.P.

Working on a few different projects right now . . . here's the first two steps I saved while working on a new painting of Black Keys frontman Dan Auerbach. I hope to finish the painting soon, I'll continue to save steps as I work on it.

Lab Coat Obama!

Another one day turn around for The Weekly Standard. Started around 5:00 a.m. Friday morning and finished late Friday afternoon. Wish I had more time to work on the petry dishes, I had to rush them a bit to make the deadline.

Eric Affeldt for Dallas CEO Magazine

Hey everyone! Click here to see the new "updated" Imaginism Studios website. Click on "our artists" to see the portfolios of Bobby Chiu, Kei Acedera, Stephen Silver, and myself! There's also other cool things to check out on the site so what are you waiting for!?!

I finished my painting for GOLF magazine and will be posting it here along with sketches and prep for the job, as soon as I have permission to do so. For now, this is a 1/4 page spot illustration that I did a couple weeks back for Dallas CEO Magazine. Technically they gave me a week to finish this job, but because of other work and taking the the pay as well as size of the piece into consideration, I did the entire job in a day.

The subject is Eric Affeldt. I don't know anything about this guy, I was told that Dallas CEO was a business magazine and this spot illustration will be place next to a "business quote". It would be a silhouetted illustration which means a white background behind the subject. They wanted his whole body and they said I should put him in a relaxed pose.

I knew that because it was a business magazine that they wouldn't go for a lot of exaggeration, so I decided to focus on adding subtle exaggeration and humor to his likeness. Because it was going to print so small, I decided to keep my color simple as well as the style of painting. I kept it loose, more direct to the point. Also to fit his entire body in the size that I was given, I decided I would do a perspective shot of him, this way his head will print large enough to see while still showing his entire body. It's funny for me to see how it turned out, because It ended up looking very similar to something "Ismael Roldan" would do. I don't mind, Ismael is a good friend of mine and does great work, whenever I have done a perspective like this in my caricature work, I can't help but think of Ismael, he's the King of Caricature in perspective.

This was the likeness sketch I sent to the a.d. once the likeness is approved, I start the final painting.

April 10th Caricature Class at Schoolism

It's that time again to let everyone know that my next class at Schoolism.com is filling up. My next class will start on April 10th. The classes have been going very well and the work that my students are creating is very exciting to see. For those of you out there who do not know what it is that I do, My course at Schoolism.com is an Online Art Class on The Art of Caricature. It's a one on one correspondence course. That means that every week my students watch a two hour video filled with demos and lecture followed by homework assignments. Each week I spend 15 to 30 minutes per student critiquing their work. I record myself drawing and painting over the students work while sharing my thoughts and techniques. As a student you also have access to watch the critiques of your fellow students as well as the critiques of past semesters.
To learn more about Schoolism click here. There are limited seats available for each class.

The images below are drawings and paintings that my students did after completing an assignment. Directly to the right of their work is an example of what the work looks like after my critique, I share my thoughts and paint directly on top of what they did.

These are two examples of students finals from my summer semester. Anthony Hopkins painted by Jon Moss and the other painting is by Irene Koh!

Hattie 9X12 Oil

This is a small oil painting that I did "as a favor" for one of my students. I say "favor" because I turn down these types of jobs almost weekly. It's not that I don't enjoy drawing dogs or animals, I just don't like drawing or painting PETS . . . so don't ask, it was a one time deal. Just kidding . . . but seriously don't ask.

It was fun to paint, I slightly exaggerated the features, but I didn't go too far because the dog had enough character as is. I really loved the dogs eyes so I wanted to direct the attention on the right eye. I used a limited palette for this and painted it all with a large and medium sized filbert brush. The palette I used was Ivory Black, Yellow Ochre, Cadmium Red, and Titanium White. I did this painting in two sessions, one quick session where I put down a thin block in or under painting. And then a second session bringing it to a finish.

Sorry for the lack of posts lately, I'm nearly finished with a large illustration that I have been painting for GOLF magazine. I'm very excited about it, and feel it's my best illustration yet. I pushed myself a lot with this job and hope to show art directors what I can "really" do if given more then a day or two to complete a job. I'll be sure to post the art as well as process as soon as I have permission to do so. Thanks for stopping by and check back soon for new art!