A Beautiful Face

Another big brush painting. What makes a beautiful face beautiful?

Old St. Nick

One more installment of my large brush series that I've been jokingly calling "Thumbnailism". This is digital and it took 30 minutes.

A Small Aramaic boy named Jesus

I used various photos from my image reference library for this one. I combined about 3 or 4 various images of little boys faces from the Middle East. This is digital and it took 30 minutes.

Christmas Shopper Crossing Street

This is my latest installment of "Thumbnailistic" painting. I am forcing myself to use a giant brush which prevents me from rendering all the little details. This was digital - 30 min.

Father Christmas

This isn't a particularly exciting composition. I feel I need to start thinking more about the layout and design of my daily pieces before I start doing a lot of rendering of details. I have a direction! For the next week or so, I'm only going to use big brushes until I master the art of thumbnailism. lol

Portrait of Mecho Art

Today I did a straight portrait of a Facebook friend. This for me was an exercise in basic shapes and modeling . I used a really big brush, which keeps me from fussing about details. This was digital and took about 30 minutes.

Bad Santa

digital - 25 min.

Frankensnowman

This was a quick sketch before going to bed this evening. It's just another example of why I never worked for Hallmark. digital - 15 min.

Alastair Sim as Scrooge

To my mind, Alastair Sim was the best "Scrooge" ever in any film made so far. He starred in the 1951 version of A Christmas Carol. This is digital and it took about 20 min.

The Grinch

Today for my daily sketch I went digital and painted one of my favorite Dr. Seuss characters, The Grinch. I have been painting more paintings with real paints lately and when I come back to digital, it is like eating candy! It is so easy compared to painting with real paints. This took about 10-15 mintues and was done with a small wacom bamboo graphics tablet in Photoshop CS5. I used one custom brush originally created by Chris Wahl for painting in photoshop.

John Lennon

Yesterday was the 31st anniversary of John Lennon's murder. So on Facebook for my sketch of the day, I sketched a portrait of Mr. Lennon. I didn't have time to finish it. Today as my sketch of the day I spent an additional 20 min.-half hour finishing it up more. This is acrylic on paper. It is 8.5x11".
This week this piece is up for auction at Daily Paintworks.com. Click here to look at the painting in more detail or a portfolio of my recently sold work.

This evening I spent about 30 minutes sketching turkey skeletal structures. This is more an intellectual exercise than a piece of fine art. Watercolor on paper.

Portrait of a Gentle Stranger

Nothing special. I didn't feel like sketching all day and around 10:30 this evening I forced myself to sit down and doodle something. I really enjoy drawing with a brush so after a few minutes I got into the zen of it and started to enjoy the process. This is watercolor on heavy watercolor paper. It took less than 30 min.

An Unraveling Life

I won't have much time today to do a 30 min. sketch so I dashed off a really fast one instead.

Uma Thurman caricature-001

This was my first attempt at a caricature of Uma Thurman. I'll try a more detailed sketch tomorrow...maybe.

Birth Nightmare

Once again I found myself late at night and still not having done a sketch of the day. One advantage to working in digital, is that there is no prep no mess no clean up afterwords... your work can still smell though hehe. This was a stream of consciousness drawing. I didn't have any set ideas before I started it and this evolved. When working from my head sometimes other artists' paintings that I've seen or grew up with come out. There is a little bit of Bosch here I suppose.

Her Majesty

This was a quick sketch before going to bed tonight. I don't have any oil painting at a stage where it would be interesting to post them yet. So I went digital for today's sketch of the day.

Devil Face-001

Today I went back to painting in oil paints ... but with a twist. I want to paint with oils on paper! To do this safely so it is archival I have been devising a way to prepare the paper so it doesn't actually come into contact with the oil paint. I first blocked out an area with gesso on paper. Then started painting with oils on top of the gesso. This is about 7x9 inches and its on a larger 8.5x11 heavy stock craft paper. It took about 30 minutes to get this sketch together. But the whole painting may take days to complete.

Shark Attack-002b

If I keep this up, I'll never become a successful calendar artist. Oh well. My wife told me I can't hang this in our living room. Oh well. lol This is a 7x10" acrylic painting on heavy card stock paper. I have been working on this for about two days. I'll try to do something more pretty tomorrow. :-)

Shark Attack-002a

I started an acrylic painting of the digital painting I did yesterday. Unfortunately I'm very slow when I paint with real paints and I couldn't finish it today. Here is a teaser of a small detail of the painting. I will try to finish it tomorrow.

Shark Attack-001

This is a quick digital study for an acrylic painting I plan to start tomorrow. My goal was to make a bucolically beautiful seascape that when you examined it closely was full of bloody violence.

Vincent Price-004

Today for my sketch of the day, I finished a commissioned piece that I did for a person who bid on a similar earlier version I put up for auction but lost the bidding on it. It is done in a similar style but it is far from identical to the first one. This is a 5x7" acrylic painting on an 8.5x11" piece of orange toned paper. I coat the paper with massive amounts of acrylic medium before I start the painting to put a barrier between the painting and the paper. If the paper ever deteriorates, there will be enough acrylic surface that it will still hold together as a piece.

Monkey Eyes

This was a quick sketch before turning in for the night. I love money faces, especially their eyes!

Michael C. Hall as "Dexter"

Today's sketch of the day was digital instead of acrylic. It took about 30 minutes to do.

Bones-001

This was a quick doodle before going to bed tonight. I didn't feel like painting or drawing today. But I forced myself to put in some time doing it anyway. Tomorrow will be better.

Self Portrait in an Anxious Situation

A quick sketch before I run off to get a medical procedure done today. I'm a little anxious about being put under - I've never had general anesthesia before. This sketch is my self therapy. LOL

Victorian Doggie-001

Today after doing three straight days of making dog portraits, my brain needed a rest...or a primal scream. I call these sorts of sketches "brain pharts". Usually in one of my brain pharts, I'll combine two very different items to make something different. This is acrylic on paper. The size is 5x7 inches. It took me 20 minutes to do.

"Cassie"

This is the last of a set of three doggie portraits that I did for a good friend, Lisa Fox. I have never painted dog portraits before and I wanted something like this in my online portfolio. This was 6x6" acrylic painting on letter sized white paper. It took about an hour 15 min.

"Magic"

Magic is a little Pomeranian dog that is owned by Lisa Fox, who also was the owner of Nibblit which I painted yesterday. Magic is "special" in that she is the only hunchback doggie I've ever met. She also has another quirk in that she can only turn in one direction. Like Zoolander, she is not an ambi-turner. Magic was given a great loving home by Lisa and Vic and Magic is exactly what her name implies. This is acrylic on paper. The painting size is 6x6 inches. And the paper size is 8.5x11". It took about an hour to do.