Its a New Year and I'm Motivated

I've been neglecting my blog lately and been posting more heavily on Facebook. The main reason is I have a wider audience on FB, and I try to limit my online procrastination mode to one website at a time. That is about to change though. Jon Schindehette mentioned illustration new years resolutions on his fabulous blog Artorder, and the idea has stuck with me. There are a ton of them that I plan on working towards, one of which is more promotion, a painting a month, and attending at least one new convention.  Long story short, as part of promoting myself more I'm going to be a bit more rigorous on updating the blog.

Here's a sketch for a series of paintings I'm developing for my children's book portfolio.

Ogre Serenade

Here's a drawing that I can't wait to paint! This was inspired by a story by one of my agent's other clients, Gina Bellisario. I've never met Gina, she was just kind enough to let me use one of her stories to develop my portfolio.

I'm not sure about other artists, but I have what I like to call "project based self esteem". Being an artist is a tough road to plow in terms of making a living, and I really have to try hard to no be too hard on myself. What I have found is that if I'm working on something good (or at least something I'm excited about), those negative thoughts don't get a chance to enter my mind. I try to use this threat of negativity to spur myself into constantly working, hoping that I'll have a piece I can't put down, and no time to worry if I should have been a tax attorney instead of an artist.

Tree Fort of ADVENTURE!!

I never had a tree fort...but I bet if I did it would have been something like this one.

some portfolio work...

Decided to make a piece where I turned the cuteness up to 11. This started as a portfolio piece to showcase some kid friendly pallet choices, but has now developed a full story to back it up (which always seems to happen).

Jack Stuff

I created a facebook gallery (which you can see here) of the Jack pieces for those of you who weren't able to make it to the gallery opening last Thursday, I also added the images to my website under the illustration category here.

Here's the painted version of the evil steam powered pollutin' robot Progress.

My Show Opens THURSDAY!

Hey Portlanders, my show opens this Thursday at the Sequential Art Gallery in old town Portland. First five people to show up get a high five, a secret hand shake...or maybe, just maybe...a sly wink.

APE!!

I'm packing the car for the TEN HOUR DRIVE down to the Alternative Press Expo in San Francisco. If only there was some sort of flying machine that could transform this into a one our trip.

I'll be at table 536 if anybody is in the bay area, I'll warn you I have a cold. Hopefully being packed in a warehouse with thousands of comic book nerds will cure it.

I forgot to update the blog with the new direction my Jack project has taken. I'm now painting the drawings in watercolor instead of photoshop! Here's a taste of what the new and authentic version looks like.

The show opens on November 4th in Portland at the Sequential Art Gallery.