Estefan's Salon

I haven't worked on Estefan (the eventually upcoming BYU short film) for a while now... but, here's a color study I did of the environment. Environment design the effort of many.

Can't wait to see how the film comes out!

Tribute

For Richard Hull, brilliant illustrator and beloved professor, who retired this past semester.

I'm sorry for all you students who won't have the privilege of learning from him... I am much luckier than you.

Thanks for everything, Brother Hull. I hope you enjoy the plein-air painting!

Fanart Friday: Anya Balanchine

Okay, so it's not Friday, but I meant to post it yesterday... so it counts.



From All These Things I've Done by Gabrielle Zevin, Russian mafia princess, New York seventy years in the future.

I thought it was a cool book, an alternative take on the "dystopic" trend so popular in YA lit these days, though it's not itself dystopic. And you know, I always love a good girl power book.

Also... I kinda want to see the movie.

Soundtracks

I love cities. And I love music. And I especially love them together. I love to put on my headphones and stroll around downtown... makes me feel like I'm in a montage from a movie (riding the bus with headphones has the same effect). Type of movie varies with my mood... quirky indie film, chick flick, action adventure, thoughtful drama...

Today has been mostly Pop Latino. Not sure where that fits, but it was fun.

Unlikely Friends

For Heather.

And no, he's not going to eat the bird.

Israel Sketches

I've had big plans of posting these about a month ago (I can't believe it's been a month!), but I kept putting it up because there were a few sketches I wanted to finish... Which of course hasn't happened. Lesson learned: sketch pages are meant to be done the day of. Still, I did manage to sketch more than I have on any other trip.

So... Some pages.











Israel was great. Did I mention that?

And... if ever there's a mysterious benefactor out there reading this, looking for an artist to send around the world for some reason... I'm pretty sure I could make myself available. It's possible that might be my dream job.

Suitcases

"Have a suitcase heart. Be ready to travel." -Gabrielle Zevin

At risk of sounding melodramatic... I read that line the other day and it kind of got stuck in my head, since I've been living out of suitcases for the last few weeks. And it kind of reminds me of that "rootless" sort of feeling that accompanies transition periods.. I've been apartment hunting. Not my favorite thing in the world, to put it mildly.

On another note, I've always wished I had one of those retro suitcases with stickers all over it. And of course to have gone to all those places on the stickers.

Autumn Hair

Yesterday the warm-up exercise at work was to create something with hair a la Kevin Keele.. Which was fantastic, since hair is one of my very favorite things to draw. I was enjoying the excercise so much it was hard to move on to my actual assignment. But then I went home and kept working on it.

It was satisfying.

Also, fall is here! And with it my first September in which I do not return to school (well, minus the one where I was in Uruguay) and that is also very satisfying.

A Mural in Nazareth

I recently returned from a two week trip to Israel with some fellow artists, in which we painted a mural in the St.Vincent Hospital in Nazareth. I posted the plans for it a couple months ago here. It was an amazing experience, a truth I'm never able to adequately express when answering the question: "How was Israel?"

Since the mural went up a stairway, it was a bit difficult to get a picture of it in it's entirety, so I took a video instead.( and I apologize for the quality...)



The other artists who worked and help plan it:Bethanne Andersen (Our fearless leader), Boston Madsen (mastermind behind the fish... love that detailing!), Adam Borgia (Adam did all the tough start up work... there's no way it would have gotten done without him), and Jake Wyatt (responsible for a lot of the composition). I primarily worked on faces. It was the first mural for all of us.









I'm really grateful I got to be a part of this. Israel is a special place, and we met some truly inspiring people. Everyone was so welcoming and kind. I was constantly thinking..."Wow... I need to be a better sort of person." It was a privilege to be able to participate in some small way in the work they're doing.



Check out forpeace.us for more information about the project and pictures of the mural in progress.

Also, sketchbook pages from the trip coming soon..

Gestures!

This post is brought to you courtesy of THIS SITE. It's an online photo generator, meant to simulate a figure drawing class. This week at work one of our warm up excercises was draw gestures with Force using this tool, and I was reminded of how fun gesture drawing is. Seriously, I went home that day and did this for several hours. These are all around two minutes or so, except for the first few, so you can imagine how many pages I went through (I don't tend to have a whole lot of patience for poses longer than two minutes, a weakness I should probably work on overcoming...).







It's been about a year it think since I've drawn, not painted, from a live model. oops! shameful. Photos aren't really a substitute, but it was good practice... and I think I actually got a little better after awhile (maybe? at least I got brave enough to stop cheating and drawing it first with orange pencil and then pausing the generator to go over it in pen...). And I definitely want to go do some actual figure drawing now.

Anyways, drawing is fun. And somewhat addicting.

(A note: Make sure you specify whether or not you're ok with nude models if that's a concern)

After Hours

I've been inspired by the amazing Anthony Holden this week to try and keep a better sketchbook. Anthony has some of the funnest "doodles" I've seen in a long time. These are nothing like those. But, my goal is to have more fun when I draw. I've decided to start small and do a memory sketch of someone I see every day.

You might notice that the key criteria of who I choose is largely based on: hair, patterns, and color. All things I enjoy sketch-painting.






The above guy was on my bus this afternoon and had the most spectacular hair I couldn't even do it justice.

For some reason I don't get around to doing these sketches until like 11 at night, which is unfortunate because I then do not want to go to sleep.

(Confession: One of these is not a memory sketch. It's from a book. Yes, I cheated.)

Xyrichtys

I got a new watercolor sketchbook, and to initiate it I decided to paint my old standby: the betta fish.

This is Xyrichtys, who lives in a bowl on my desk and has kept me company through many an all-nighter.



He was named by my good friends Nikki and Natalie, who gifted him to me after the betta I bought for my birthday passed away, tragically, a mere three days after his purchase. Ric, however, I've kept alive for nearly ten months. He's a survivor.

Did you know? I love painting fish.I was excited to get a betta so I could paint him from life. An idea that works much better in theory than practice, I've found. Every time I'm think, "Hey Ric, I'm going to paint your picture!" He's like, "Umm, no thanks," and swims behind his decorative greek columns. And then I use the internet.

Harry Potter vs. The World

Can you guess which graphic novels I've been reading this week? In combination with which audiobooks?

The inevitable result:



I owe a lot to Harry Potter. He's one of the reasons I wanted to draw... And most particularly illustrate. Because when I finished reading I didn't want that world to end.

So I drew.

I drew a lot of Harry Potter.

However, I find that when I draw any HP these days, I fall back into old habits. So I decided to shamelessly steal from do an emulation of Bryan Lee O'Malley's work, which I really love. So there you go.

Happy Fanart Friday.

The Pen Evangelist

A week or so ago I stopped into an art store in Salt Lake on my way to the bus. Just to browse for a few minutes, because you know there's really nothing more exciting than art supplies. As I was testing out the different pens, this man came up to me and asked conspiratorially, "are you looking for a GREAT pen?"

My response: "YES!" (really, who isn't looking for that mythical instrument, that magical pen through which flows not ink, but talent and creativity?)

He then went on to extol the wonders of this pen, with a passion and reverence one might reserve for matters of salvation. When it was determined that the store did not carry the Pilot V Razor Point Extra Fine, he told me he had one out in his car if I wanted to come get it. Which I politely declined as I had to catch the bus in a few minutes, and, well, in case he wasn't just a guy with an extreme passion for pens.

But, as I was checking out (my now much more inferior seeming writing utensil), he ran back in, waving the pen in the air and then putting it into my hand. And then, he was gone, leaving me in possession of the holy grail.

And, while every drawing still doesn't fall golden onto the page, it has made me want to sketch a lot more. So in that sense, I guess it is rather magical.





(A note from the future: See those little dates at the bottom of the last two pages? I've recently been really good at remembering to date all my pages... however for the entire month of July I have incorrectly believed that July was the sixth month. *facepalm*)

Hope

"Hope is the thing with feathers
That perches in the soul,
And sings the tune without the words,
And never stops at all..."
Emily Dickinson

So it's two am and I can't sleep. I have to get up in three and a half hours. I was lying in bed thinking of this poem i read the other day, and had the idea for this doodle/sketch. I don't think I really did it justice, so maybe I'll try again another day, not in the middle of the night. But for now, here's this.

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.