Studies

No place I'd rather be than in the classroom painting in front of the live model. If any of you bloggers out there live in Toronto, I'd love to have your painting company. I go to a studio called Artists 25 every Thursday night. Check the link for a map. Incidentally, I'm in the front page picture on the site, painting the African lady in this post. These are 2.5 hour oil studies done these past few weeks.

New Studio Space = New Painting!

Finally got my own painting space! It's just a room in my basement...but it's devoid of computers, phones, and televisions. In short, I love working down there. Here's the first painting to come out of it. It's part 2 in my series of weird chefs. The walls were painted blue before I moved my stuff in, and interestingly enough, it inspired the palette for this painting. Oil on board.
And above that is a shot of me "at work" (I'm really just posing). These photos were taken by my awesome photographer friend, Alyssa Bistonath.

DS Sketches 2

More DS sketches. Just a testing ground for ideas, really. At my core, I'm not that intuitive of a designer. Usually have to fight long and hard for anything decent. I think that struggle is pretty evident in these.

Batman

This is oil on canvas, after the immortal Jeffrey Jones. If you've never painted Batman before, DO IT - it makes you feel tough.

Lunch Sketch

Well, it started as a lunch sketch. Ended up working on it for about another hour after that :)

DrawerGeeks Redneck

Had a lot of fun with this DrawerGeeks topic. In fact, it's always more fun for me when I'm trying to tell some sort of story with the picture. Even something as simple as this. I think I'll try to steer my stuff more in that direction this year.

Gift for Art Director

The art director on the television show I work on has the physique of a street fighter, and likes to go bow hunting on his vacations. The TV show features cute, dancing animals...so this illustration just had to be drawn by someone. I decided to do it as a 'gift' for the holidays. He enjoyed the humour, and I haven't been fired yet. And I'd be lying if I said the way the trees are designed wasn't at least partially stolen from Todd Harris.
On a side note...any parents out there recognize those characters?

Nintendo DS Sketches

Alright, let's kick off 2008 with some DS sketches. I picked one up as a Christmas present for myself (after being inspired by Sparth's and Sim-R's DS sketches), and have been addicted to it from day one. I recommend this to EVERY painter. It's absolutely perfect for on-the-go plein air sketches, as well as for quickly recording what happens to be in your head at the moment. Of course, the Nintendo DS is pocket size, and boots up in about 3 seconds. Hats off to Jens Andersson for giving us this great app!