Anticipating snow....

They are calling for snow this weekend in my part of the country. We have avoided it up to now which is pretty amazing seeing as it's already November 17th!  We usually have at least a dusting by Halloween, but this year we have had beautiful sunny days and cold nights.  A perfect fall really.  So with snow on the radar, I thought I'd post my newly completed family of foxes.  I need help with a title for this painting. Maybe something with snow and snuggle?  Or family retreat?  I can't decide so please give me your ideas - I would love to hear them!  Just put them in the comments section below.   

Thanks and enjoy! 

Three little bears in a dumpster!

Have you seen this adorable video?  Three little bears are rescued from being trapped in a dumpster while the mommy bear watches.  Thank you to those kind people who rescued those little bears!

Well, I thought about the person who discovered that the little bears were trapped in the dumpster and what they must have seen when they looked in...here is a quick little painting of what I thought it might have looked like:)

I had fun imagining this scenario and wished I could have peeked in and seen those bears!  What do you think?  Did I capture what they might have seen?  Maybe there is a picture book story here...I'd love to hear what you think:)  Feel free to comment below. 

A Season of Goodbyes

This spring has been one of tremendous change for me and in hind sight I realize that I am going through a "season of goodbyes".  Some are very sad and others are more hopeful, but sad or hopeful I have found that they have left me with a deep feeling of sadness and melancholy.

It started with the passing of my father on April 13, 2015.  He lost his battle to cancer after many valiant years of fighting it.  My mother, sister and I were with him in the end, and although we knew he would pass from this retched disease, it was still a difficult goodbye.  How do you summarize the impact someone like a father has on a life?  I can't, but he has been on my mind every day since.  When I returned home I had to say goodbye to my Golden Retriever Buddy.  Buddy, a good natured and playful 7 year old dog, was involved in an incident where he could not keep his teeth to himself and bit a young boy who had come over to our house to play with my son.  While the family of the boy said we did not need to get rid of Buddy, for the safety of all children who would come by to play at our house with my children, we had to give Buddy away.  I miss his greetings every time I pull into my driveway.  During this same time frame I announced that I had accepted a new job teaching at St. Bonaventure University and would be saying goodbye at graduation to all my friends at Villa Maria College where I was currently teaching.  My new opportunity at St. Bonaventure is a wonderful one and I am so excited to be joint a great team of educators who are dedicated to their student's learning.  But my great opportunity comes with having to say goodbye to students with whom I had developed wonderful relationships.   I also had to say goodbye to faculty whom I have taught with for the past 10 years, and hardest of all I had to say goodbye to my best friend, confidant, and colleague Mollie.  She and I started together at Villa and have worked side-by-side every day since.  We weathered ups and downs at the college and cheered each other on.  We improved our program dramatically and just when it looks like we will reap the rewards of our hard work, I have to go and leave.  I'm sorry Mollie:(

So with all of these feelings and thoughts rattling around inside of me I decided to do a painting to express my sadness.  I was inspired by Matt Dixon's robot series which I found on Pinterest.

He shows such emotion in each robot and I love emotive paintings.  I have painted robots before so I thought I would try my had at a sad robot.  Because AAU has taught me so well, I knew that I could not attempt this painting without some sort of reference, and not wanting to copy other's work I decided to make my own robot and pose him for the painting.  This way I could control the pose, the light, and make sure I was accurate with the details and perspective.  You have seen me riffling through my studio for parts.  Then I had to make a trip to Home Depot for paint for the house so I took my son with me and put him on a mission to find robot parts!  We were laughing down every aisle but eventually we found enough pieces between Home Depot and my studio to create my "mini-robot".  Here he is below...  

I decided to paint him in oil on board because it creates a "chalky" look that I like.  I wanted to make him sad but still keep him child-like so I made sure to have some "brighter" colors in the painting, but not too bright.  Now that he is done he needs a name!  Any suggestions?  Comment below with your ideas:)

The Fox Picture Book Progress

A while back I told you I was working on another picture book as part of my thesis for AAU.  Well, I thought you might like an update.  In the fall I worked on the storyboard, character development and created 3 "almost" finished illustrations.  This spring I am carrying on and working on two more illustrations...maybe three if I am ambitious enough:-)  I will present all of my work from The Swing, The Fox Went Out On A Chilly Night and The 5 Hungry Mice during the summer to the Final Review Committee at AAU as part of my final assessment for my MFA.

Ok, but that's a few months from now.... for today I thought I'd take you through my process and what I have created so far for "The Fox".

First there was early character development...
These are a bunch of sketches exploring different shapes and styles of the fox.  These are not exhaustive, but give you a sense of exploration.  There is also the "old grey woman" in the story so I added her in too.  You can see a line up of the fox and the old grey woman at the bottom.

After working on character I started doing research into the environment that the fox lives in.  I decided to set the scene in rural England since the British are so famous for hunting foxes.  I thought it would make for quaint scenery that would fit nicely in a picture book and also would be fun to paint! I used the internet to assist me with this and created an "environment board".  You can see that below.

After environment I worked on the storyboard.  I envisioned this as a full 32 page picture book so I had a lot of frames to work with to create some interesting compositions.  I wanted to show the journey the fox had to make to find his supper, the excitement of the chase, and the comfort and safety of being back at his den with his family.  I created several storyboards and received some great feedback from my instructor at AAU.  Below is the storyboard as it is today, but I still see some areas for improvement, so it is by no means final.

Value studies and color studies followed...

I chose three images that I wanted to take to completion for my class work...ultimately I want to take the whole book to completion:-)  Which three would you chose?  It was a tough choice.  Some compositions were working better than others and I wanted to show a range in my compositions with the three that I chose.  I didn't want to chose three that were all basically the same.  I'll skip the value studies and just jump to the color studies of the three I decided to start with....

Then came the painting....that's the fun part!  All of the upfront work helps to make the painting process go so much easier!  I have my references, my character development, my environment reference, my storyboard sketches and color studies....now it was time to enjoy the fruits of my labor and paint:-)

Below are what I am calling almost finished illustrations.  I still have a few small areas to work on and a few critiques from my instructor to address, so you will be seeing an update on these.  But to make this post complete I decided to include the finishes at the state they are right now.

So there it is!  What do you think?  Leave me a comment.  I have on my easel the next two that I am working on, so be on the look out for an update on them as well.  Hope you enjoyed:-)

Circus Circus!

Don't you love the circus!  All the excitement, all the action.  This past week, I had to create a 5 pane story about the circus.  It could be whatever I wanted it just had to do with the circus.  I decided to do a little story about a juggler and a monkey.  I call it The Show Stealer!

First I had to do a quick thumbnail pencil drawing of the 5 scenes.  So here they are.

The I had to chose two of the panes and refine the drawings, making a value pattern study and a color study of each.  I used circus photo references to help me get the values and color drama of a circus.

Don't you love the monkey?!  I had to use a stuffed animal monkey and then take pictures with the photo booth app on my computer to get the stretched effect of a reflection in the apple skin.  He makes me smile so I know I got him right:)

And then after all of that I painted a final illustration.  I only had to do one illustration for this project but it was so much fun I think I'll do the others as well!  It's just a matter of finding the time:)  Enjoy the final illustration and let me know what you think of the whole story.  Leave me a comment:)