Tuba Toad

     I found this sketch from a while back. I kinda like it. I need to make sure i'm always sketching!

Hornpipes Sketch

      I feel that my posts have been anything but "illustrative" over the last few weeks. This is mostly because I have received quite a few commissions that are fine art related. This is a sketch that I drew while my wife was watching Disney Channel. I think it's kinda fun. I'm hoping to have time to do more illustrations soon.

Hoag Gothic

     Upon request I have done yet another "American Gothic" spin off. I can't take much of the credit on this since I am basing it off of another painting. But it's always fun trying to mimic the style of the original. I didn't have the best photo reference but I tried to do the best I could to maintain the likenesses. Comments welcome!

Madeline Revised

Most of what I tried to change involves her legs and shoes. I toned down the dark lines in her legs as children don't have muscular legs. The most obvious change is the shoes/socks. Let me know what you all think.

Madeline

     This is a commissioned portrait of a girl named Madeline when she was younger. It's a combination of about 4 different photos of her that I used for reference. The background is all made up. The cats are mostly based off of reference but I had to make up a little bit to alter the poses. I'm happy with it but, I am more than open to suggestions or comments. This was a lot of fun to paint! Please comment.

Beezle

I found this rendering of an old 3D character that I designed back when I was in high school. It started out as a sketch from a sketchbook during my junior year. A friend of mine (Jeremy Leach) and I made a movie out of him as an assignment for an advertising design class. I decided to post this for old time's sake. Those were fun days. Enjoy!

Revised Portrait

      The previous version of this painting turned out to look more like an illustration than a portrait. I'll continue to play with the other one because I really like the style. But I was asked that I make a more portrait-esque painting. I changed a few things like the height of the boy on the left and a few proportional issues. It's still not done. But, I thought i'd post it so that you could see the general direction that it's taking. Please comment!

Sunday Morning

     This is a portrait that I had commissioned to do of myself and my cousin Max when we were 5. I had a few old photos to work from that weren't all that great reference material. I think I could have saved at least 4 hours if the reference material was up to par. But, I have to keep in mind that I'm not going to always have professional photography at my disposal. So this was a good exercise. The back ground is all me. Well, I grabbed a few photos for reference of flowers and a chapel. But, they weren't in the original photos. (The image isn't very high quality because I have realized that there's no point in putting a 45mb jpeg on my blog when no one's screen is that big.) I think it's a fun piece. What do you think?

My new and Improved Signature

       So I've been wanting for some time to have a "signature" that was distinctly mine and that was consistent across all my paintings. In my entire Art career i've yet to paint the same signature twice. I think it's about time that all my paintings have the same one. I had played around with a few ideas including both my first and last name. But I came across Paul Lasaine's blog and I really liked his signature paullasaine.blogspot.com. He just uses his last name and it's a very powerful signature. I thought I would try something similiar and I really like how it's turned out. I think it's much more powerful than any of my full name signatures. What do you think?

Bridal Portrait

       This is a portrait of my wife Michelle in her wedding dress. A huge thanks to Jennifer Gull Photography for taking such a lovely photo. But Michelle is very photogenic. This painting was actually my mother's idea. As a side job I'm going to try to join up with photography studios to paint portraits. I'm going to show this painting along with the Gull Family Portrait to them and ideally get them to hang up some of my paintings or something of the like.  I'll have to work something out with them so that they benefit as well. We'll see how it goes. Comments welcome.