Oh, Owl.

So, at Avalanche, some days we do exercise/challenge to "warm-up" for 30/40 minutes (Yes, as you do in sports. But more... sedentary). This week one of the exercise was to choose a piece of provided reference and design a character based on that animal. I chose and the barn owl.



P.S. In case you were wondering, I'm loving my internship. I still can't really believe they let me go in and work there everyday.

For Great Star

In the 90's the YMCA had a Daddy-Daughter program known as "Indian Princesses" (later discontinued for its umm... questionable political correctness). Every couple weeks, the Dads and daughters would meet together in their local chapters to participate in various activities. And every few months you'd get together with other groups for big camp outs. You also got and indian name and a special leather necklace that you decorated with your symbol and worked towards earning beads to string on it.

My dad, a die-hard Dallas Cowboys fan, was Great Star. I was Bright Star. We had corresponding necklaces decorated with puff paint, and every few weeks we'd go to the meeting with the other girls and dads from my neighborhood. When it was our turn to host, he'd help me make and deliver themed invitations. We camped. We earned beads. We designed the most aerodynamic, hot-pink pinewood derby car to ever hit the track. It was a great time.

I don't remember a lot of the specific activities, what I do remember is doing them with him.

Thank you Dad, for that. To me you will always be more than great.

Happy Father's Day, all you fathers.

Hurrah for Israel!

This summer I'm privileged to be part of a group of artist going to Nazareth to paint a mural in a children's hospital there with the service organization forPEACE. The trip actual trip will take place in August, but we've been working together for the past month on the planning stages. I thought I'd post for you our sketch for the mural, still very rough line work and pieced together from bits we all worked on, but it will give us the basics for what we need to get started.


And some rough color studies:



We wanted to do something with a sense of fantasy about it, and we liked the idea of glowing lantern like elements. And of course, you know what a huge fan I ma of fish.

The other artists in the group are Bethanne Andersen, Boston Madsen, Adam Borgia, and Jake Wyatt. It's been wonderful to work with such talented artists and excellent friends. And I can't wait to see how the mural turns out come August.

Happy Mother's Day!

... Late. This took me a bit longer than I thought. Oops.



As a little girl I was really into bunnies. Really really into bunnies. I'm told I had a veritable posse of imaginary pals which I referred to as "My Bunny Friends."

For Halloween when I was four, five? I was, you guessed it, a bunny. So I had this costume. One day, not halloween, I came downstair ready for kindergarten dressed in said costume (along with my favorite pair of cowboy boots) and announced to my mother "Some days I just feel like bein' a bunny."

My mom shrugged and said "Ok" and let me go. The teacher took me around to show the other teachers and principle and everyone. I felt like a rockstar. Or the five-year-old equivalent.

My mom recently posted a picture of me in this costume on facebook, which brought this memory to mind, and made me appreciative of the kind of mother I was blessed with. Also I thought it might be fun to draw.

I am so grateful for my mother. She is the greatest example of love and service that I have ever known. She filled our house with music and pets and art and fun when I was growing up. She's always supported me in whatever I chose to do, chose to be. Be it bunny... or pony rider... or veterinarian... or artist.

I love you Mom. Thank you for everything.

Stranger Danger

I've always found the bean-seller in Jack and the Beanstalk to be a bit of a shady character. So I guess that's why my depiction of this story moment came out like this...



Run away, Jack. Run away.


I only had time to do a rough value study on this one. Now that the class is over, I'm not sure when I'll get back to it, if ever, so I'm posting it as is. I'll add it to the list of things to do... someday.

Holy Cow

I chose to design the cow, Milky White, as one of my assignments for Jack and the Beanstalk. I thought it would be quite simple. After all, how different can a cow be from a horse? And I'm quite familiar with drawing those, from all my training as a ten-year-old girl. Alas. Cows are like horses the same way bunnies are like cats. And much more difficult. Here is my attempt.

PS. I sort of graduated this weekend! I have pictures if not a diploma to prove it. And I was offered an internship for the summer at Disney Interactive/ Avalanche studios here in Salt Lake. I'm pretty excited.

Self-Portrait

Final assignment for head painting. I painted it in photoshop, but from a mirror, not a photo. It's amazing how much more effective painting from life is, though less convenient. I'd done another digital study earlier in the day, but from a photo. It was a fight the whole way and the results were not so great.

So I guess my professors really know what they're talking about.

Wanna buy some... magic beans?

You've come to the right spot.





Props are surprisingly fun to design. I would really love to do more of it.

Jack's House

I think it's done? Sometimes I have a hard time letting go.

Jack and the Beanstalk

I've been taking a class this semester from the amazing Jake Parker. In it we've been doing visual development for Jack in the Beanstalk, aiming for a classic Disney style.

Here's my Jack:



And some development sketches for his face:



I painted an entire version of the painting above to completion before stepping back and realizing that I had neglected to think about the personality of the character throughout the process. I had gotten so caught up in thinking about the technical aspects, I forgot to make story my first priority. Upon realizing this, I scrapped the other image and re-painted the above. I am a thousand times happier with this one.

I'm learning more and more how necessary it is to be willing to sacrifice a painting. If it isn't right, it isn't right, no matter how much time I've spent on it. If it doesn't solve the problem that's been given me, it's not a successful piece. I can't be afraid to start over or sacrifice parts of an image I might like in order to make it stronger as a whole. This has been a frustrating lesson to learn. But always more satisfying in the long run.

And while I cursed myself at the time for not correcting my mistake earlier on, I learned a lot in painting the first version. So I guess I can't say it was useless time spent.

It's a learning process, this art thing. There aren't any secret answers or shortcuts... or magic beans. Just a lot of working at it.

Head Painting

I've really enjoyed my head-painitng class this semester. No surprise, you know how I feel about painting. Here are some of my favorite studies. Each was done from life, in under three hours.








You will not see the earliest attempts up here, but I think I've really improved. Though... I should probably paint some guys at some point.

Lu'au Fanart

Last week was the BYU Lu'au. I danced in the Hawaii and New Zealand sections. I am not a very good dancer... lack of coordination and consistent stage fright do not combine favorably. But I had a lot of fun anyways. Even if I can't do it well, I really enjoy hula. It's just so... pretty. And actually quite spiritual, the way it tells a story. It makes me happy in my heart, to watch or dance. Or draw, in this case. I mean, can you find better material for gestures anywhere?

So today after a frustrating battle with the perspective monster, I decided to do some sketches of our dance, which I have been meaning to do since last week. And then a watercolor. I love watercolor.



It was a pretty good afternoon, all in all.

Señora Clara

Here she is in all her glory... A fairly finalized design (for now) of the lady, Señora Clara, in our film.




I did several turnaround on different aspects of the design for the modelers, and I was particularly satisfied with the design of the feet/shoes.



She's changed quite a bit from the designs I posted here, but so it goes. So it goes.

Stowaway Magazine

A few months ago I did some spot illustrations for the winter issue of BYU's travel magazine Stowaway.

Mmm. I love travel. Possibly one of my favorite topics.




You can read the articles online here and here, or flip through the magazine in it's entirety here. My friend Karen has some excellent illustrations in there as well.

Pandora again

I needed to do something besides assignments, so here's Pandora again. She rides a scooter.

Color!

For the past three days I've been at a color workshop with Bill Perkins, an art director from Disney. It was awesome. I love painting. I love painting so much. Because you get to play with color. And color is.. kind of miraculous. And Bill is quite insightful.

Anyways, at the workshop we painted a bunch of different model setup with different lighting conditions emphasizing different principles in color theory. We usually spent about thirty minutes to an hour and each pose, and we weren't supposed to focus so much on the drawing, just on color and value relationships.

Here are some of my studies from yesterday and today... The first day's batch didn't turn out so great...









I loved working with colored lights. I have some new ideas on how to design and execute a picture. I'm excited to try them out.

Italy

I really want to travel... but I have to pretend instead. I listen to French music and sketch from my page-a-day desk calendar.

Somehow, it's not quite the same thing.

Danielle

My housemate Danielle. Painted in photoshop.

I live with some awesome people.

Happy Valentine's Day!

In honor of my mom, who is amazing, and loves turtles. And my dad, who is wonderful, and doesn't mind living with said reptiles.

I love you guys.

La Señora Calva

Another member of the Estefan cast. I have been drawing this lady for the past several weeks and my floor is littered with her face. Here is but a small sampling. None of these are the final design.

Her younger days...




and many years later...