I am working on some illustrations for a small story book for friend.  I finished the last of the thumbnails today, so I am ready to start working on the finished illustrations.

All done in ArtRage.

Once upon a time, mommy and daddy needed to go on a date. So they called Aunt Megan to come over and babysit.  Suddenly, while Aunt Megan and the boy where playing in their room, climbing up the ladder and going down the slide, a bright blue light appeared at the bottom of the slide.  Before they could blink *whooosh* they had slid down the slide and through the portal.

Suddenly, they found themselves in a strange new place….

My best friend got to make a suggestion for a painting, and this is the result.

You may note, that she was quite upset to find out that she was missing the adventure just to see a movie.  I told her not to worry, I’m sure upon returning from their date and finding the children missing and a strange blue portal, SURELY they could investigate….

I wanted to come up with another other griffin-like animal combination.  We have some large pine trees just outside our bedroom window.  And the squirrels often wake me up in the morning, running up and down and up and down and up and down, making their strange little squirrel sounds.

I wondered, what kind of bird would logically blend well with a squirrel? An owl of course!

What do you call an owl-squirrel? Owrel? Anyways, I imagine it would rather snack on small mice and other small creatures rather than crunch nuts.

ArtRage, about 2 hours. 5×7.

I asked Facebook what I should draw today, and this is the one I picked:

5×7, painted with ArtRage.  About 1.5 hours.

Two orphaned sisters, making income whatever way they can.

Some sketches for my current project.

This is a birthday present for my sister. Her word for the year is “OVERCOME.” Painted in ArtRage and Photoshop.

“A dinosaur fighting a robot on a spaceship crashing into earth with a musical instrument fighting a closet ogre.”  This is what happens when you combine ALL the dailysketch suggestions into one.

Artrage, a few hours.

A fun quick painting of an orangutan and a boy in in the jungle. And a parrot.

Painted in ArtRage, about 2.5 hours.

I upgraded to ArtRage 4 recently, and have really been loving working with it.  In fact, it might become my go-to painting program from now on.  Here are the two most recent paintings completed:

I just installed the latest version of ArtRage and thought I would get some more practice with it.  I really do love the natural paint texture you can get with the tools.

Anyways, Mary Poppins has been on my mind and so I felt inspired to get a little Victorian.

A live-action of AG Bear, a stuffed animal I’ve had since I was around 5 years old.

A new work in progress, the color rough.  Tried something new with this one. I created the landscape in Sketchup first, and then used that as my light/perspective reference.

New painting complete.  A young warrior is ambushed in the forest…

Wednesday’s sketch, Ralph, the triceratops.

And today, Clifford, the brontosaurus  apatosaurus.

Also spent a little time, about 2 hours on a landscape.

It’s dinosaur week on /SketchDaily/ which is fun because I don’t think I’ve ever really drawn dinosaurs before.  Dragons, yes.   Yesterday’s theme was pterodactyl, which, having now spent some time trying to draw one, I feel is like the dodo bird of the dinosaur family.  So ugly and awkward.  Since I lean towards the cute aesthetic, I floundered a bit.  Here is the drawings I did yesterday:

Bah. I couldn’t seem to get it right.  The bottom ones just look like really cute bats.  I still had fun drawing them, and it was good to be out of my comfort zone.

Today’s theme is Albertosaurus, cousin to the t-rex.  With Mr. Albert, it finally came together, and things started to click. I am much happier with how he turned out.

I thought I would give another go at Mr. Dodo-bird, and yes, I like him much better than yesterday.  And he just looks so pleased with himself.

Ran out of time to finish up the color version.

The sketch:

The color painting, since I had some time:

I took a road trip to my old stomping grounds in Arizona to visit my Mom for mother’s day.  Saturday, we spent the afternoon down at Tempe Town Lake, enjoying the sunshine (translate=getting sunburn), throwing ketchup packets at pigeons (they were trying to steal my fries!), and just relaxing.

I recently lost my beloved fountain pen  (waaaah!), so I had to find a replacement for her.  I bought a new one at Aaron brothers, but ended up with a much broader nib that I like. But I thought I’d try and see if I can make it work. I did a sketch of the Mill Ave bridge that crossed over Tempe Lake. The results were…interesting. Not in love with it, but it is a different look than my normal sketches. Also, the ink is NOT waterproof, so that means no watercolors over it.

On the way home to California, since I was by myself, and in no major rush to get home, I stopped at a rest area about 50 miles from the border to do some more sketching. It was reeeally windy, and I must have looked pretty funny perched on the top of a fence post, with my sketchbook and watercolors in my lap.  I wouldn’t have been surprised to have been blown off the post, it was so gusty. But I manged to get a quick painting of the Kola mountain range before climbing down.

There were so many times on the drive home, that I wished I could pull over on the side of the highway, and sit and paint for a while.  But alas…the little voice of common sense in my head (that unsurprisingly sounds a lot like my mother) told me it would not be a good idea. So instead I tried to capture some really good mental images to store for later paintings.

A few weekends ago, Clint and I drove down to Coronado to attend a friend’s wedding. It was a beautiful day, absolutely gorgeous, and just perfect for getting married outside. I had some time to kill before the wedding started, so I pulled out the trusty sketchbook.  I love the way the sun was making the red roof of the hotel just light up a fiery red.

I must have looked a little odd, all dressed up, and standing there with my sketchbook. I had another wedding guest wander over and stand behind me to watch over my shoulder. “Don’t mind me…I just wanted to see what you were doing.”  Its a good thing I’ve gotten over my fear of having strangers watch me draw.

Last weekend, my mother-in-law came to visit, and on a wet and rainy evening, we happened to drive past a Krispy Kreme.

“Look! The ‘Hot Now!’ sign is lit!” she exclaimed in delight. Well, of course we stopped and went in.

As I was sitting at the table waiting for my husband and his Mom to come back with their coffee and donuts, I noticed a man standing at the counter.  A rather large man, his shirt straining to keep all those beefy muscles under wraps.  His arms were crossed in a very “Don’t come near me or I might eat you” attitude. And it just struck me as hilarious, because…well…he was waiting for a doughnut.  You can put out all the tough guy attitude you want, but dude, you’re in a Krispy Kreme…buying a doughnut. It makes it a little harder to take you seriously as you lick glaze off your fingers.

Note, that I did not say any of this to face (nor show him his pretty drawing), cause I was fairly certain he could kick my ass and hang onto his fresh doughnut without breaking a sweat.  Stupid I am not.

A quick sketch I did for this week’s theme at IF: Warning. Inspired by the Mouse Guard series which I am loving.  Pencils, only 15 minutes (wanted to see how much I could do in that short time).  Colorized in Photoshop.

I’m not sure if he is warning them from going that way, or telling them that they shouldn’t continue on their current path. Either way, I think I would listen to him.

Let me begin by saying…I love my husband. So very much. No one is more supportive of me and my art. He is usually the first person I show my art to, and the one whose opinion usually matters the most.

Being married to an artist is not always easy. Or should I say, being married to me can be a real pain in the butt some times.  I’m an artist, a geek, a girl, and often times…a four year old who wants her way NOW.

One of the “fun” benefits of being married to me is being subject to my artistic whims. Which means if you happen to be sitting across the table, couch, or room from me when I decide to draw, you must sit there and be drawn.  You cannot escape me. (Strangely, I’ve started to notice my friends and family refusing to sitting in my line of sight when I have the sketchbook out. Whats up with that…?)

Over the years, Clint has been the victim *cough* subject of  many sketches.  I have a giant life sized drawing of Clint on purple paper, as my final project in figure drawing class in college.  I have drawings of Clint playing video games. I have ugly drawings of Clint that looking nothing like him at all, and pictures drawn in crayon. I even have a picture of the SHAPE (just the shape) of Clint’s head…drawn on a napkin, at a wedding, after a few glasses of champagne.  I was trying to make a point. (LOOK! YOU HAVE A UNIQUE SHAPED HEAD! ISN’T THAT COOL?) Anywhoo…

Clint has gotten used to me drawing around him over the years.  The embarrassment has worn off for the most part.  Take your wife to a sports bar pizza joint to watch the game, and what does she do? Cheer for the wrong team? No.  Spill beer all over some one? No. She pulls out her watercolors and starts drawing the bald guy sitting in front of her. Sigh.

Picture it for a moment.  Our evenings out go something like this: We arrive at a lovely English pub, and get seated a our booth. Clint pulls out the menu to decide what beer he wants. I pull out my sketchbook and pen.  Clint looks up from the menu to find me staring at him intently…in a really creepy way…while drawing furiously in the book.

“Really?” he says with a sigh.

“But…the red wall behind you! Its sooo red!”

Now one of two things happens. He will either decide to ignore me and return to the menu, OR he will start making funny faces and wiggling around in his seat. I prefer to be ignored, though the funny faces make for a more entertaining picture.

After a while, I will put down the pen. Usually around the time our food arrives.

“So, do I get my wife back now?”

“Yes,” I say grumpily (see comment earlier about a four year old).

Now he wants to see the drawing I just completed of him. I hand it over for inspection.

He starts laughing.

“What is this? I look like some french dude. Posing for one of those weird french paintings!”

“Hey!” I grab the book back from him in a huff. “You do not!”*

He laughs and starts making weird…french…noises. “Ah-huh-huh. Oh chante! I should be drinking a cappuccino!” And proceeds to make sipping motions with his hand while holding his pinkie in the air.

This is when the ev