11_27_11 Lake Balboa.

I've missed the last month due to rain and holidays and laziness, but here's the latest entry. Lake Balboa looks amazing at sunset. Something about the light in Fall.

Unfinished Storybook Project.

Unfinished Storybook Project.

One of the hardest images to create. 8 family members all different, all reacting differently for the camera and of course the dog. It's still a little jumbly, but turned out pretty good for a first pass.

Unfinished Storybook Project.

Unfinished Storybook Project.

Unfinished Storybook Project.

Back in 2009 I was lucky enough to be offered a job illustrating an amazing children's book story about a wandering dog whose free spirited nature lands him in all kinds of trouble. Unfortunately I ended up leaving the project, but I still look at these as some of the best traditional media illustrations I've ever created. They're all about 90% done. I was looking at some fantastic illustrators like Carter Goodrich, Shaun Tan, David Catrow, Bill Sienkiewicz, Timothy Basil Ering, and Omar Rayyan. I really like their mixed media apporach. It seemed to add a lot of vibrancy and life to things. I also liked that in a lot of ways, you could see the original sketch maintained with the used of linework. I tried a new method drawing a layout sketch in colored pencil, painting in watercolor washeds first and then acrylic in a series of washes to build up harder darks. Then I pulled out areas with colored pencils to create color vibration or add texture. Instead, it frequently made me tighten and refine the paintings even further, but coloristically and texturally I definitely saw an improvement.

Dibs.