Show Dog Copper

This is Cooper the cutie! The beginning of the painting done in @Procreate, he will be finished by printing the 5x5 image onto heavy matte paper and adhered to a wood panel with finishing touches of metallic paint and perhaps actual sequins. Please enjoy the time lapse video of the process. This a wedding gift to his owners.

Jake

It's been a long while since I've posted anything. I definitely need to be better at that. I found a new digital painting platform to create in Procreate. I am still learning all the tricks and what brushes I like best. I decided to try a practice celebrity headshot painting of Jake Gyllenhaal to start. Please enjoy.

Tiger Lilly

This is Tiger Lilly - one of the 6 dog portrait commissions I am working on for holiday gifts.

Vintiq Art Show

Self portrait 45

A painting I did for a challenge at work, given by the creative director. A photo wall will be made of all the designers. So we were to come with all the creativity we had to make the photo translate who we are. I was thinking about all of these costumes, images and face paint but realized this was what I should do. And at the end after the photo was taken and I had a new painted self portrait, I would give it to my mom for her birthday.

Pink Scallops

Pretty colored background for my next self portrait. I love pink and blue together like the star tattoo on my wrist, so I figured it would be a good color for the background. I have been painting pet portraits on these wood panels with this stamped background that I carved and individually stamped myself. I thought it would be fun to use it again for this piece. All the designers at work are getting our photos taken for a wall of fame or something egotistic like that. We were challenged to get really creative, so I am painting a self portrait and will hold it up over my face when photographed. It's also going to be in black and white - which is a total drag since I am the color designer. I might also hold up a sign that say "Why is this in black and white?" asked the colorist

Tiago Sousa de Oliveira and Rio de Janeiro

The boy from Brazil. May 15th 2015....memory worth having.

Portrait of Walter O'Keefe

Here is my first commissioned pet portrait for my HS friend Nancy - her dog Walter. Thanks to doing that volunteer piece for the Oakland Animal services I got a start on a new painting gig.

Home is where the Heart is...OAS

Here is Abernathy quite ready to be adopted into a loving home. I did this piece for the Oakland Animal Services for their hard-to-adopt pet event on Valentine's day. When someone adopts the pet they get to take the painting home too.

Stamping patterns

A stamp I just carved out of Speedball's Speedy Carve block. I am working a piece for the Oakland Animal Shelter and I wanted it to have a pattern as the background. It's inspired by a vintage column in Liverpool's Victoria building. My twist was incorporating a heart.

Daily sketches begin

I bought the Artist's Way over the summer and have just, in the last week, sat down to read it and go through the exercises. The one thing I am suppose to do - according to the book - is "artist's pages" which is just a brain dump first thing in the morning, 3 written pages of whatever comes to mind. A way to flush things out and clear my mind. I have also decided to put to use the nice 5.5x8 inch sketchbook my friend Guillermo gave me for Christmas to do another kind of daily log. I call the book "Day in the Life: ordinary object sketches". So that each day I also take time to draw something that happens to be around me.

This is one of my houseplants and my first "ordinary object" sketch.

Walken Situation

I was missing out on being part of an art show this year but was able to squeak by to get into this one. I was a tribute to Christopher Walken and was an awesome show to be a part of at the Pulic Works in SF on Black Friday November 28th.

This is a 16x20 piece stenciled and spray painted with a touch of gouache and cut black glitter paper for his hair.

Thinking about painting digitally

I've decided to start working on character pieces from my favorite shows on Showtime. I'm not sure if I want to paint them traditionally or digitally or both. So I took my sketch of Leiv Schreiber into Photoshop using a new brush called Stumpy Pencil that a coworker told me about. I turned it into a blue brush and threw in some sketchy marks over the top of my existing pencil sketch and I actually like the result. Now to paint it. That'll be the next step.

Foxy Mother

My mom really liked the fox I drew for the infographic image I made with the Yeti. So I thought I would take it a bit further by drawing a mother fox with her kits. Gouache and enamel on wood. 8x10

The Yeti and the Fox

I made these cute plaid bellied, wooodland creatures for an infographic presentation at work this week.

This is how Ty see Stella

Looking out for each other's backs.

Stella's Sides

I'm turning 44 this year and I always find it strange when things are coincidence. I have been thinking about doing these little profile portraits 5x7 then framing them in a double frame (the kind your grandparents always had of you and your sister). I was originally doing these small pieces to go into my Sketchbook Project for this year but never got around to meeting that deadline...no surprise there. Then I was just going to do sweet little profile portraits and put them in individual black frames and eventually have several ready for the TNF art show this year. But then I went down to LA a couple of weeks ago and went a Punk show and saw this great band called The Black Widows. They were dressed as ninjas and it occurred to me to have my sweet painting have a darker side. I came back home and painted these two ladies for my sister for her birthday and now have started my double portraits. To me the coincidence lies in the doubles....weird and amazing 44.

Selfie for the Sixty

 HAPPY BIRTHDAY MOM! I wanted to create another self portrait for my mom this year with a fun celebratory theme that included my sister Tyanne and my mom's furry creatures Thor and Ginger. Celebrate! Celebrate!

On a side note: I must always remember to just be inspired - not completely influenced. I love it when the more natural, unafraid me creates from the heart not just the mind. I tend to over think my pieces and I truly believe that was drilled into me as an illustration student. Perhaps that is the clear divide between illustration and fine art - the freedom to completely express yourself without a definitive  meaning behind the piece. I tried that freedom this time - when creating my mom's 60th birthday gift. To have a fun theme but not let that concept totally rule over the process.

"This Started Out as a Cat Painting" Series

These pieces all have secret cat names on the back to know what cat I started with in each. These are painted on reclaimed wood that were originally used in an installation piece in Atlanta. They are 15x15 and made out of vintage paper (some dating back to 1890), handmade stamps, graphite, acrylic and house paint. They were made for a show that The North Face puts on every year to raise money for the Bay Area Wilderness fund. I was proud to be part of the show as a The North Face artist.

The elements...to a start

All the pieces but where to start? Trying to push myself to create my pieces for the "Moonlighting" TNF artshow.