Here is a small illustration I did for Calabash. I think I painted this in 2007. That year I was freelancing for Pogo, got to work on a Spiderwick video game, and painted a lot for Calabash Animation on Trix and Lucky Charms commercials.

Calabash asked me to take the sketch below and illustrate it, bringing it to a more detailed and clean rendering. Normally I do not like to take on freelance work that has been sketched out for me entirely, however in this illustration I felt there were challenges in the rendering that I wanted to take a crack at, such as stone countertops, a mirror and running tap water. Given that I only had a day to paint this, it was probably a good thing that the sketch was already worked out.

Trix Color Script panels

I found a few color panels from a color script I did for Calabash Animation back in...hmmm...maybe 2007. This was for a Trix cereal commercial that was done for the Mexican market. I had fun painting these.

little experiments

For anyone who reads my blog, you might have noticed it's all over the road. There is a little of this and a little of that, some observational paintings, some from imagination. I feel like I have been on this directionless art journey, creatively lost in sketchbooks and other media for some time now - immersing myself in various schools of thought to see how it feels.

Lately, I am finally feeling like I'm coming out the other end with ideas that I am excited to bring to life. These tiny little watercolor experiments, which I did last summer, gel some of the ideas I've been thinking about - not completely, but just as little snapshots I suppose. I like the idea of archetypal characters, some realism, some stylized, and also a bit of fun with the format of painting. I think I prefer to work in oil, and I like the idea of making very small paintings. I am working on many more in my cozy art cave... self doubt abounds, but I try to just blow through that and keep working. I think it's good.

Here are some packaging illustrations I did for a tea company about five years ago. The rendering is a lot tighter and more detailed than I would prefer; the client asked me to make sure they looked as realistic as possible while still maintaining a painted look. I'm not sure if I pulled it off. I'm also not sure about those ellipses. The illustrations have been sitting in my archive for a long time, so I thought I'd give them some fresh air. There are a few more in this series, but these are the best.

Koi Ranks for Mahjong game

Here are some koi illustrations I did in 2003 for the online game Mahjong developed at Pogo.com, where I currently work. These fish are 'ranks'. When you move up a level in the game, you earn a fish. I illustrated many more (like 20 in all), but only saved these samples for myself. I did the line work with black india ink on rice paper, then scanned the line work and painted them in Painter software using the watercolor brush. The effect could just as easily be done 100% traditional, but since these were for work, they needed to be digital. I enjoyed experimenting with this technique and, incidentally, love the game!

Study of a Leafy Sea Dragon + Some

I recently visited the Monterey Bay Aquarium to see the amazing Seahorse Show. Wow... I did so many sketches, took photos and afterward obsessed over these tiny leafy sea dragons. I did this little study and added some fantasy color - I scanned in my sketchbook drawing and added some Photoshop color to it. 

Here are some of my sketches. After awhile I tried to draw them from memory. I'm not sure if they are accurate but I think the spirit of them is there. I studied Leafy Seadragons, Weedy Seadragons and plain old Sea horses. Such amazing creatures!

This is a leafy sea dragon with some fantasy coloring using colored pencils in my sketchbook.

Plain old seahorse, but just as fascinating. They seem to almost have exoskeleton forms, very angular, more than you would think by looking at their silhouette. 

This page is a mix of both Leafy Sea Dragons and Weedy Sea Dragons. You can tell the difference by looking at the amount of decorative fins. Weedys have much more elaborate fins than Leafys. 

A portrait I tried from memory of a Weedy Sea Dragon. I could study these guys forever!

Sketch Comps/Greeting Card illustration

One of the first clients I found right as I left art school in the early 1990's was a greeting card company called Prudent Publishing, whom I still work with from time to time. The process in working with a greeting card company involves working up several comps, which then go into a review meeting. Typically, Prudent Publishing would have some ideas in mind when they'd ask me to generate some comps. So I would quickly paint them up and wait for the review. Sometimes the comps would be approved, and I'd be asked to work one or two of them into fully rendered illustrations. Here are several Christmas/Winter themed comps from several years ago (copyright Prudent Publishing Co.):

Santa! This one never made it to a card, but the comp was really fun to paint!


and below are a few cards that I illustrated: