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:)

Catching up!

Sorry I have been silent lately....I have been working very hard to hit a deadline for an exciting project that I am working on!  I will have more news for you on that in a few days (can't spill the beans till I have approval from my publisher!)

In the meantime I thought you might like to know what else I have been doing art-wise.  I started back at the Academy in the beginning of September.   I am taking two studio classes this semester which is really insane!  Studio classes are so much work and I still have my full-time teaching job and my family, but I really wanted to study with both of the professors I have this semester so I decided to suck it up and just plan on a busy fall:)

My first class is a group directed study class which is where I get to work on my thesis project.  I have three separate projects, so I chose to work on the 5 Hungry Mice project this semester.  I think this will be a fun one because as an artist you can make mice look so cute!  I decided to have Paris be the setting of my story and a French Kitchen be the environment the mice would be in.  Here is some research I did on the internet as a starting place for my French kitchen.

My good friend Mary has a wonderful kitchen that I think looks like a French Kitchen, so this summer I went to her house and took a ton of photo reference.  I even brought little stuffed mice to put in the frame. (This was before I made the marquet I posted about earlier).  Here are some of the photos I took of her kitchen.  Isn't it perfect!  Right down to the checked tile and the warm colors!

I am now working on further development of the mice and cat characters and putting them in their environment.  I'll post them next time:)