Hippo vs. Skeleton

So, a buddy of mine asked his 4-year-old boy what he wanted for Christmas.  His imaginative son said, "I want a hippo and skeleton shooting eachother in the dark."  He chuckled and then asked me what I could do with it.  I had some fun.  I partially followed a tutorial by one of my favorite artists Kevin Keele.  Here's the link:  http://www.beawesome.blogspot.com/2011/05/its-alive-digital-painting-tutorial.html.  I decided to show a couple stages of the piece, in case you wanted to see.  I also included a potential composition that got shot down (ha ha) but I thought it could have been fun.  17.5 hours Photoshop

Cow Kid

Do you have kids like mine?  Just yesterday, I was holding my little one year old and before I realized what was going on, his tiny little index finger darted from his nose to my mouth.  Yuck.  Kids find fun in the most unlikely places sometimes and it's usually too late to stop them by the time the crime has been committed.  135 min Photoshop.

Lift Where You Stand

I HAD to post something for Halloween this year.  I might finish it up later.  I only got to spend 2 hours on it, but Happy Halloween! -Photoshop.  A lot of people don't like Halloween because of monsters and gore etc.  I love Halloween.  Here, Frankenstein is helping a brother out.

Mummy Style

I just bought the Art of Hotel Transylvania book, and I am SOOO excited and inspired by all the creative character designs they've done.  Here's a monster of my own.  Painter 105 min.

An Anguished Change of Heart

I was reading from the Book of Mormon the other day and I came across this verse.  This image came into my head, so I quickly hashed it out in Painter.  It took about an hour and although I could polish it up, the gesture of the feeling is there.  I've been reading 'Drawn to Life' by Walt Stanchfield and there's a quote that says your piece is finished when it says what you want it to say.  So for now, it's finished enough for me.

Light Beyond the Clouds

Some people can find beauty in a grocery store parking lot.

Good for those people!  (My brother took the reference photo)

10" x 8" acrylic. 4 hours

Jump in a Lake!

This summer, we went up to Bear Lake for a family reunion and it was great!  Personally, I enjoy doing art more than typical recreational activities, so while the family played in the lake, I painted.  I had plenty of admirers while painting on location.  It was kind of fun.  10" x 8" acrylic.  2.5 hours.

Dragon Crest

It's always fun to draw monsters and dragons!

11 hours (including development and revisions). Photoshop.

We Love Our New Neighborhood!

We recently moved to Utah County and we LOVE it!  It's only an 8 minute biking commute to work and the people in our church and neighborhood are absolutely wonderful.  We feel so blessed to be living our dream.  8.5 hours Photoshop.

Speed Painting

This is a place a friend of mine went to. 35 min Painter.

Ready

This is my first piece I spent time on with Painter 12.  11 hours.

Stick Shift Band

Want to hear some fun bluegrass tunes?  Check out my brother's band 

Stick Shift. http://www.stickshiftfiddle.com/  4+ hours. Photoshop.

I re-did the caricatures here and I like some of them better.

Sinking

I illustrate a lot of metals for my food safety job,

so I wanted to get some more practice today.

8" x 6" acrylic. 3.5 hours.

Speed Painting Resolution

There's something exciting about starting a new year.  I have been collecting lots of art books over the past year and I have been dying to try using Painter to create some concept art.  My art goal for the year is to sketch or learn for 30 minutes a day.  I think alternating between figure drawing and speed painting is going to be my policy.  I picked up a cool book called Secrets of Corel Painter Experts.  While painting these pictures, I followed along with Andreas Rocha's tutorial.  He's really got some talent.  I'm really looking forward to following the Ryan Church (a masterful concept artist of the Star Wars galaxy) Intro to Painter DVD.
Most likely, I'm not going to be posting something every day, but hopefully I'll be more comfortable with Painter by the end of the year.  Up until now, Photoshop has been my favorite program to use for art.  Together, the paintings above took 85 minutes, including learning time.