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.

10_30_11 Malibu Creek Park

For those of you who don't know, if there comes a time where I have to choose between a beautiful vista and an awesome bench -- bench every time.