Some paintings

For today's post I have some paintings! One of the goals I set for myself this year is to do a painting a day. So this post has last week's painting and one done for this week. Last week's painting is the nude figure, it is painted with oils and is 5.5" x 7.5". This is the first oil painting I have finished and I'm quite pleased with the results. I usually try to paint really smooth, clean paintings, but with this one I was painting a little choppy and messy. I wanted to try working on skin tones so what is better then painting a naked woman? The painting for this week is for Illustration Fridays. The theme for this week is focus. My idea was to paint someone intensly focused on a book, for some clues, and is totally unaware of the person behind him. The painting was done in acrylics and is 6" x 9". This painting was done very quickly and I was going for a loose look for it because of the fast drying time. I've only painted in acrylics up until these last few month's and I have to say I enjoy oils more than acrylics.

What I've been listening to: "The Secret" the audio book by Rhonda Byrne. If you can open up your mind to the concepts this book can be life changing.

Ok here is the next batch of sketch cards I did. This week's theme is Nightmare Before Christmas. All of these cards were painted using watercolors. I have always enjoyed using watercolor paint but it is a difficult medium. I really like the really "watery" effect you can get, like on the Jack and Zero cards(the last 2 cards). I also tried using the paint with very little water to get a nice opaque look, but I feel like it defeats the purpose of using watercolor paint. I think I will need to come back to watercolor soon and really go for the "watercolor" look. Another thing I was playing with is the use of bold color. I tend to like stay with black and white drawings, but now that I am doing more paintings lately I need to get in as much color practice as I can.

This week I have also been doing some reading. I'm in the middle of "The Artist's Guide: How To Make A Living Doing What You Love" by Jackie Battenfield. This book is a beast! It really breaks down the do's and don't's of breaking into the fine arts world. This book is great! It really fires me up and motivates me to want to bring my art into new areas that I did not know about. After starting this book I had to add having my work in a gallery show onto my short term goals list. I'm through half of the book now, and I just started the section on earning money and manging your money, something that is important reading for all artists!

I have also been reading some comics. I just finished reading the Muppet Show Comic and I'm half way through Muppets Robin Hood, both are by Boom! Studios. The Muppet Show Comic is a good book the art is fun and a little crazy, which should fit the Muppets well. The weird thing for me is that they show the character's full bodies too much. It is weird for me to see pictures of Kermit just standing there talking to someone. Muppets Robin Hood, for me has been a hard book to get into. The art is kind of weak and the story is trying to hard to be "Muppets".

And on a side note, I just watched Sherlock Holmes and I thought it was awesome! It was a very fun movie. And I have been listening to the new Kiss album "Sonic Boom" alot, along with Enigma. I think my musical picks are very confused.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

This drawing is of the big splash moment of Big Thunder Mountain at the Disney parks. It is 11" x 17" and was done with pen and ink.