Ace of Swords - Progress Sketch

Here's a sketch I was working on last night for the upcoming Light Grey Art Lab exhibition: Tarot, Mystics and the Occult. I'm excited about it for many reasons - partly because of the meaning of the card and partly because of the collection of people that will be showing with us. I should be, but I've been procrastinating doing all of the other things I should be doing - while I work on this piece. I have another piece of art due this Friday for another fun show! I'm excited to finish these up and see what other people do! Yeah!

Work.

I just posted this one to the Paper Bicycle blog, but I really need to post it here!
I finished a pen & ink / Corel Painter combination piece of work for the Light Grey Art Lab show "People & Patterns" - for the grand opening!

You know -- every time you make a piece of art that has a deadline, you go through all the crazy stuff- like hating it, then loving it, then being precious with it, then freaking out until it's over - then it's done. And you like it.

That's what I went through with this one.

Here's another one I did for the show! Short and Sweet -


You know how I love to draw lips.

Field Boy Painting, Finished

I did it! I'm so excited! I finally got to finish this painting I stared a couple months ago. It wasn't so hard once I made some time for it. I think all in all, its about a 30 hour painting. It seems that it's rare that I get a whole night to work on something - but thanks to good friends and great company, a bunch of us got together over the weekend and had an inspiring couple of art nights. Jesse Riggle, Chris, Francesca, Adam worked on some art with us, while we had some company from Alyssa, her friend from out of town, and Bryan. :) I have so many ideas for new paintings now, but at least I can say I have officially checked this one off my list. This was a really fun new way of working for me... Looking forward to making some more!

Here are a couple details:

Plague - For digital class tomorrow

Yes, it's 1 something (in the A.M) and I'm getting ready for class tomorrow.
We're on our second week for Photoshop and I'm excited to share some techniques with my students tomorrow. As always, it's nice to brush up a little bit before you get up there and have to explain everything, so I made this weird walleyed, bloody boy for a demo tomorrow. I'm excited to try him out in class.
We'll all be coloring some nice greyscale drawings. Here's to a good class!



and here's the pencil drawing before all this crazy digital coloring.

New Painting - with a new method

So I stared this painting on Saturday with vigor and gusto - and got a huge chunk of it done. I'm working in acrylic, with a masking technique - on an 18" x 24" clayboard. All of which is semi-new, and really fun. I've gotten pretty good at making all sorts of shapes with artists tape over the weekend and wanted to show my process so far. I hope to finish this soon. I'm super excited to get a body of new work together... and maybe, just maybe, use it to apply for something special.


Full scale sketch


Color layer 1 and transfer of my drawing in white


Masking off areas of the painting with tape - creating the background


Process so far

So, this is as far as I got this weekend, which is a really great start for me. I think I only need maybe 6 -8 hours to complete it and I'm super excited to line up a bunch of canvasses for some landscapes I'd like to do after this.

Pattern process tonight. : Mice in some cheese.

This long weekend was awesome. I got tons of stuff done -- started a painting, drew in my huge sketchbook, made some food (congratulate me - that is hard to do!) and caught up on some daily patterns for Paper Bicycle's Daily Pattern Project

I just made one I'm super proud of. For some reason I was having a blast. Maybe it's the mice. Anyway, here's a bit of my process for making this pattern:


Finished Repeat Pattern


Sketches


Tracing the big shapes in Illustrator


Painted a bunch of Ink textures for the details


and then photoshopped all of them together.
I have some custom brushes that are awesome that I did all the linework with.
It didn't take that long, either! I think the hardest part was trying to come up with the repeat! Woo!

Daydreaming about Iceland's landscape

I spent the day thinking about Iceland again. I found a residency that looks phenomenal. I am seriously considering applying for a month over there. I have no idea how I'd make that work - with work. Still, it's in the back of my mind. I start teaching Digital Illustration tomorrow and I'm totally excited. Here's a quick painting I did tonight. Not sure why it's purple, but why not.



and the sketch that preceded it.

Gobs of Patterns from Paper Bicycle's Daily Pattern Project

It's hard to keep up with double posting these!
I'm having a great time doing the Daily Pattern project and am very proud of a lot of these! It's been interesting so far - I'm getting faster and it feels like it's only been tough to think of something a couple of times! The hard part is - if you don't do your pattern early in the day, all the good versions of that topic are taken, and you have to think really hard about how you're going to make a pattern that hasn't been done yet! So, here they are! Everything from the last two weeks!


Mice


Milk


Bulb


Fourth of July


Hair Products


Quilt


Minneapolis


Recess


Dog Accessories


Date Night


Bandaid


Circus


Keys


Bowtie

Last Week's Patterns & This week's news.

I have another chunk of patterns from last week to share. All of these are for Paper Bicycle's Daily Pattern Project!
Also - I have some awesome news! I was featured on DesignWorkLife.com.
I can't believe it! I am super grateful and totally surprised! It came on a day when I really needed some cheering up and I was shocked to see that I was feautured.
Here is the link to their post on me!


Bear


Childhood


Bikini


Amphibians


Backyard

Next week will be exciting.
I'm teaching my two summer classes at MCAD starting tomorrow. - Design / Trend blogging and Digital Pattern Making! Wish me luck!

I'm also contributing to Ten Paces and Draw - You'll see my sketch and final contribution later this week!

Check it out - Patterns galore.

So - The last post I made was the very first pattern for Paper Bicycle's Daily Pattern Project. There are a slew of us making a pattern every single week day and it's been going strong for almost a month. I'll get better at posting my contributions here weekly, - but here is EVERYTHING I've contributed to the project over the last several weeks! This project is so awesome. It's really pushing me to think faster and draw quickly. Yeah for being productive!


Gardening


Whistle


Fall


Race Track


Treasure Hunt


Screw


Easter Eggs


Writing Utensils


Groupies


Asprin


Suitcase


French Pastries


Spa


Tulip


Lamp


Saturday Pattern - for fun


Fishing


Books


Mirror


Bones


There you have it! A giant chunk of work! We've got next week's topics chosen already and I'm excited to start going on them! Wish us luck and be sure to check out everyone else's patterns on the Paper Bicycle blog!