Sometimes I like to sketch people from Facebook, anyone is fair game (watch out, you could be next!).  Last week I did this sketch of one of Sala’s friends:

I liked how it turned out, so like any good sister would  do, I turned Sala’s friend into a Slytherin from Hogwarts casting an illegal spell.

The one on top is more saturated and higher contrast, the one below is duller.  I’m not sure which version I like better so I included them both.

Oh, and in case you were wondering, the core of his wand is the heartstring of a teenage girl 😛

With nothing to go on but sketchy descriptions, it can be a tricky creating the picture my client has in their mind.  These trees are an example of that… It took a long time to find the right tree, but I have a whole forest to show for it!

This troublesome little monster was inspired my ferocious and furry fiendish feline friend…my cat Fiero.

For fun, I thought I’d spend a little time and color my drawing in Photoshop. 

This is really easy to do.  Simply scan in your drawing, open it in Photoshop and set your drawing layer to “multiply.”  Then create a new layer beneath your drawing layer and start painting!  If you want paint on top of the pencil lines for a smoother, more realistic look you can create another layer on top of your drawing layer I did this over the eyes since my drawing was pretty scribbly in that area.

This is much more satisfying than a traditional coloring book and gives you a good base if you ever want to take your drawing further by getting rid of the pencil lines and make it look realistic.  I might finish this picture off sometime but for now I hope you enjoyed this little monster from my Photoshop coloring book

I have a great and top secret idea for a witchy illustration which I will hopefully paint some time… In the mean time here are a few witchy sketches you might enjoy. 

Also, my mom decided to make a website to showcase and sell her costumes (thecostumewitch.com coming soon).  It seemed apparent that she would need a witch illustration to act as her website persona.  Here’s the character we came up with, she likes to sew…

There a few steps you should generally follow when creating an illustration: 

• 1) form a concept
• 2) Brainstorm with at least 20 thumbnail sketches
• 3) do a grayscale study to determine value patterns
• 4) do a quick color study/create a color pallet
• 5) gather the reference you need (photos, models, objects etc.)
• 6) do a detailed drawing
• 7) proceed to the finished piece!

Following all or even most of these steps makes art faster, easier and better in the end.  I however, have the terrible habit of skipping from step one straight to to the last two steps.  I just can’t wait to get to the delicious details!

True to character, when I thought my portrait of Sala was turning out pretty well I decided to turn it into a finished piece without knowing what sort of picture I wanted it to be. I skipped planning and started playing.

I finished painted Sala’s dress then added a quick shield and stuck in some photo reference of lilies. I didn’t care for the shield so I didn’t bother finishing it but I loved the lilies so I painting some of my own…and then didn’t include them in the final piece because I eventually cropped off the whole bottom of the picture and changed my concept entirely.

Instead I decided to paint Sala with a little pet dragon. I tried several different styles of dragon. Then I thought it’d be nice to have a lantern, and then I thought the picture would look better with a background, and the background needed a landscape in it’s background and finally, after a lot of muddling, I came up with a finished piece.  It probably took five times as long as it would have if I had drawn it out by hand to begin with, but I had a lot of fun creating it and learned a lot about art and Photoshop in the process.

I owe a special thanks to my wonderful husband Eric for offering helpful suggestions whenever I was at a loss.  Here is some advice he gave me for the background.  I especially liked the penguin, but unfortunately it didn’t make it into the final piece.

I’ve been working on this picture of my lovely little sister off and on for about a year and I finally decided to just sit down and finish it up for her birthday.  After several late nights it’s finally done!!! (for now…I’ll probably refine it someday) It’s the first digital portrait I’ve attempted and I learned so much in the process.  Hopefully my next piece won’t take nearly as long.  I’ll do a post about the evolution of this picture later, but for now I just want to post it and say HURRAH!

My husband’s cousin’s wife’s cousin (whew!) Tamara Kelly is a writer. She asked me to do a cover for the first book in a series she is currently writing. 

Her book “ReGeneration” is a Romantic Young Adult Sci-fi novel set in a future where human clones are legal but not entirely accepted by society.  The story centers around a teenage girl named Riley and her reluctant interactions with a clone named Liam Kingsley.

I thought the story sounded fun and since her idea for the cover included an apple (a subject I’ve always loved to include in my art) I accepted the commission and here’s the result!

Every summer my mom directs a Shakespeare play with the local community theater.  This year she’s putting on Shakespeare’s “Comedy of Errors,” a story about twin brothers with twin servants both separated just after birth and the confusion that results when they are in the same city.  Here’s the poster I created for the play.  If any schools, community theaters or other nonprofit organizations happen to stumble across this poster, you’re welcome to use it, I’ll even change the text for you if you send me a nice e-mail!

The digital section of my portfolio desperately needed a new piece so I did this little dragon.  It’s just a quick sketch I did, then colored in the computer.  My husband suggested I give him an ice cream cone…apparently when you breath fire you need the occasional ice cream to help you cool down.

It could use some more work, but other projects are calling my name.

My little family moved to Seattle this summer because my husband Eric has an internship with Microsoft. On the way to Washington we stopped by my parent’s house to visit. As so often happens at my parent’s house, we found ourselves dressed up in elaborate fantastical costumes of my mom’s creation. This time we were posing for a news paper ad to promote a play my mom was directing at the community theater. Seeing my gorgeous littlest sister Sala dressed up as Puck, I couldn’t resist taking out my own camera and shooting some photo reference.

I then had my sister put on another costume and shot reference until she was tired of it (which, to her credit, was much longer than I expected).

With dozens of inspiring photos to work with, I have my work cut out for me.

I decided to do a digital piece since Photoshop is a lot more compatible with a baby that toxic oil paints (and I want to play with my relatively new Intuous tablet). Here’s what I’m working on right now:

I began this piece around Memorial Day and eventually I plan for this image to be a tragic piece about war and the memory of those lost. Obviously it’s still very much a work in progress, so check back in a week or so to see how it’s coming along. Or better yet, add my blog to your RSS feed for an automatic notification whenever I add new updates.