Cardinals Acrylic Painting

Finished this painting tonight!  It is fluid acrylics on a 14 by 20 inch sheet of coldpress watercolor paper.  Had a lot of fun painting it and I had to do very little adjustments to the scan.  I will paint a couple more paintings over this winter break - another wildlife one and a portrait.  Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to you all!

Front Cover Finished! All illustrations for my book are done!!

My book is almost done!  All the illustrations are finished, all that remains is the logo and font.  I will have to talk to the printer company to figure out printing costs and then make adjustments to the colors to get the illustrations print-ready.  The last step will be a kickstarter but that will go live sometime early next year - probably in February. 

 The front cover has a little more extra rendering than the other illustrations.  I also did a little more rendering digitally as well mostly on the rabbit's armor and fur.  Overall, it came out well, I look forward to working on the logo and font next.  Be on the lookout for my kickstarter early next year!  I will make some announcements a few weeks before it goes live!

Special Thanks, Finished Illustration

 I finished painting this illustration last night.  Scanned really well and not many adjustment layers were needed.  Love how this one turned out, it was originally supposed to be the back cover, but it feels better as the special thanks.  Only one more illustration to finish which is the front cover!

Back Cover, Finished Illustration

I finished painting the back cover today.  It was originally intended to be the front cover but after a critique, it was suggested that I make a new front cover where the hero is standing instead of sliding on his back.  Painting this illustration went fairly smoothly, there are a lot of opaques in this one - the fire and dust are almost completely opaque.  It is much harder to paint smooth flames using transparent paint.  With opaque paint I can get much smoother and softer blends with the flames.  Quite a bit of adjustment layers in the scan since yellow-oranges always create an issue.  The scan matches the original fairly well.  Only two more illustrations to go!!

Title Page and Dedication Page, Finished Illustrations

I finished painting the title page a couple days ago.  The dedication page was finished about two weeks ago.  I worked on adjusting all the colors of the scans this weekend.  Not too many adjustment layers were needed and I am getting faster at the process.  Only three illustrations remain!  I will work on the special thanks page next.

Page 1 Finished Illustration!

I finished painting page one yesterday and got it scanned tonight.  Luckily, I did not have to do that many adjustment layers.  It scanned quite well so what you see in this digital image is very close to the original.  All of the interior pages are done!!  I am quite happy, only five more pages to go and the book will be almost done!  I start teaching next week but I still hope to complete two illustrations in September and two more in October.  Hopefully I will be able to finish the final illustration in November. 

Lesson planning for teaching takes a considerable amount of time so I am not sure if I will have all the art done in November.  Friday's and Saturday's are exclusively lesson planning days which shortens the amount of painting time I have in a given week.  Regardless, if I do not have all the paintings done by the end of November, it will most certainly be finished before the end of the year arrives.

Pages 24 and 25 Finished Illustration

I finished painting these this Saturday, got them scanned and adjusted all the colors today.  Not a whole lot of adjustment layers needed on this one thankfully.  These are the final interior pages of the book, I only have to finish page one and then all of the interior pages will be done!  All that remains after the last interior page is done are the front cover, back cover, dedication, title page and special thanks.

Page 23 Finished Illustration

Finished another painting this weekend and it has a similar color scheme like the previous page.  The main concern with this piece was to make sure the door behind the fox was painted very lightly to make sure the head of the fox stands out.  The next two pages are the final two interior illustrations as well as a double page spread.

Dakota Johnson Portrait - Suspiria (2018)

I am a big fan of the new Suspiria film starring Dakota Johnson and I really wanted to try and paint a portrait of her.  Portraits are one of my weaknesses as an artist so this was certainly a challenge.  I first did a line drawing using a col-erase blue pencil.  The paper is coldpress watercolor paper and all the paint is transparent.  I only used five colors - primary cyan, permanent violet dark, dioxazine purple, alizarin crimson hue and primary yellow.  I don't think I nailed the likeness, but I still learned a lot painting it.

Page 21 and Page 22 Finished Illustrations

I finished both of these recently, forgot to post them here.  I am almost finished with all the interior pages - just four more to go!  After the interior pages are done, I have five more illustrations to complete which includes the covers, dedication and title page.  Almost done!  I hope to have most of my book completed before I begin teaching fall classes.  I want to have my kickstarter up and ready to go sometime this fall. 

Page 20 Finished Illustration

Painting this illustration was fairly simple, it was adjusting the scan that proved to be troublesome.  Pretty much all the colors had to be adjusted.  I did a lot of color balance adjustment layers and I managed to get the scan to match the original as close as possible.  The colors in the scan always seem to be slightly darker than the original.  Still, I am happy with the results.  When painting, I just treated the dragon as part of the background, almost as if I was painting a landscape.  The fox is the only area of the painting with absolute darks ( paynes grey ).

Pages 18 and 19 Finished Illustrations

This is my first double page spread!  It was a lot of fun to create but it also required a lot of thinking since it is such a complex composition.  It was a fun challenge.  Adjusting the colors of the scanned images took a few days since I had to do a lot of complicated layer masks.  It seems my scanner likes to cool down any and all warm colors so I had to adjust all the yellow greens, oranges and magentas.  I have 12 more pages to go and I hope to have most of it done by the end of summer!

Page 16 and 17 Finished Illustrations

 Here are the next two pages for my book.  Still moving at a steady pace, I should have pages 18 and 19 finished before the end of the school year.  Pages 18 and 19 are one illustration - a double page spread, so it should be fun to paint.

Page 15 Finished Illustration

This illustration was a lot of fun to paint!  All the colors are very cool in temperature which is very different from my previous illustrations.  I wanted to use cool colors in this illustration since it is a haunted house scene.  Normally painting with cool colors is a challenge for me because whenever I do, I have a tendency to go too dark in value.  Page 16 is a warm beach scene which will be a striking shift in temperature compared to this page.

Page 14 Finished Illustration

I finished page 14 tonight.  Had to make a lot of adjustments to the scan to make the colors match the original.  The painting is mostly transparent paint but the fire and lighting is almost completely opaque.  I am learning something new with each illustration I work on.  So far it is quite rewarding.  At this current pace, I hope to have at least five more illustrations finished before the school year ends.  I have adjusted my work schedule so that I am able to get some painting time in six days a week.  Fridays are devoted entirely to lesson planning.  Onto page 15!

Page 13 Finished Illustration

I'm really happy with the way this page turned out.  It scanned well, I only had to adjust the yellow-oranges in the scan.  I'm getting a rhythm going with these and I seem to be finishing them at a rate of one illustration every 2 weeks or so.  I have about 16 weeks of teaching to get through as well before I am free for the summer.  Fridays and Saturdays are strictly for creating lesson plans for classes, the remaining days are used to focus on getting these illustrations finished.  I should have 19 or 20 illustrations done when the school year is over.

Page 12 Finished Illustration

I finished this illustration last night.  So far I think it is my favorite one.  I had a lot of fun with the color theory and it scanned really well.  I only had to adjust the blue-greens and yellow-greens.  For some reason turquoise always scans as a de-saturated blue and yellow-green always scans more green than yellow.  Yellow-green also scans much more saturated.  The adjustment layers were easy to do this time, much easier than the previous ones.  What you see in this scanned image is remarkably close to the original art.  Onto page 13!