Amazingly Creative

MUTO a wall-painted animation by BLU from blu on Vimeo.

A friend sent this to me and it is sooo fresh I felt I needed to pass it on.
Check it out.

BYU Demo finished

This is the finish - it was a lot of fun working on it and talking to students. I was happy that they thought it was funny...or at least didn't beat me up for poking fun. I worked on it in class for about 4 hours and spent an additional 2 at home putting a few finishing touches on it.



This is the digital stage where my main concern is getting everything no lighter than about 50% value. Using photoshop I spent about 20 minutes laying in shadows and color and then printed it on watercolor paper - then I stipple a layer of acrylic gel medium over the print and it's ready to start painting.

BYU Demo

I was asked by Greg Newbold to do a demo in his illustration classes monday the 23rd...so I racked my brain to come up with something that would be fun but non-offensive to the students. I really like this sketch and I'm going to paint it but I'm concerned that student's might not like that I've decided to portray a BYU alumni overweight. :) Check back next week - I'll post the finish.

All my BoOks!

I made an image of all the books I've done so I can show it during presentations. I'm hoping to be able to fill in all the black spaces over time.

Illustration Friday - Celebrate

Here's an image I did for Harcourt last year - lots of fun trying to fit all the animals they wanted in.

Illustration Friday- Time

I'm pulling this from the dark corners of my archive - just want to be part of the I.F. party :)

L.A. Trip (CTA)

So here are some pictures from my trip to Los Angeles where I got to sign "Read Across America" posters for the CTA. As I mentioned a few months ago I was chosen to be their illustrator for a few years. I was also able to take my boys and we enjoyed a warm weekend sans snow.


The conference was held in the Bonaventure hotel - where they filmed part of the chase scene in "True Lies" - the first five levels was mall style shopping.


Then it was time for me to sign posters for the teachers to take back to their schools. My hand told me he signed about 800 but I told him to stop complaining.


Rick and Ryan Zeeb wrote a great book - "Snowpeople" and they sold over 550 copies - behind them is Sheri - the brains behind it all - Diana in front of me the "barker" -and then there's me with that really stupid look on my face - I think that was before I fainted.


My kids had to entertain themselves while I was doin my thang - They didn't get into too much trouble - although they got "told" to leave the 35th floor - only L.A. Prime guests allowed!


On the way home we snaped a few picts at some abandoned roadside dives - and drove into a snowstorm around Beaver - welcome back.

BYU Writing and Illustrating For Young Readers Workshop

Here is a link to the BYU Writers and Illustrators Conference coming up in June. I was fortunate enough to be asked to teach again this year and they used some art from my new gator book for the promotion. If you're thinking about or planning to write and/or illustrate for children's books this conference is great! The list of published authors and illustrators who have attended this conference continues to grow each year.

Storyworks

Just finished this piece for Scholastic's Storyworks magazine cover. I think it will release in May. It was fun to illustrate a fun assignment: "Kids having fun with a reading theme" This was produced 100% in acrylics as my printer has finally given up trying to please me - we are no longer friends and I have banished it to the garage....when there is room in the trash can it will beautify the bottom of it...sense any hostility?

Illustration Friday - Climbing

Dug this up from over a decade ago - originally printed for Hispanic Magazine.

Not Forgotten

In the interest of keeping new stuff uploaded here's a wizard I did a little while ago that was never used by my client - Klutz. I liked him but he didn't fit into the project so the poor guy got scrapped. Enjoy your 15 min little sorcerer.

Another Illustration Friday - "Pale"

I feel bad for not posting anything new but isn't uploading old better than nothing?
I've been working hard but I can't post anything from my big project because I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement which prevents me from letting the cat out of the bag.

I did this image in a high school art class I was teaching in California. I enjoyed working on the same assignments I gave my students - that's why I gave the assignment - so I could play along too! This assignment was simple - create an image for a T-shirt for our class that would represent what we do.

Illustration Friday Contained

I did this image a while ago but I thought it fit.

Blue Plate Diner

So my son Aaron and I were watching the food network show - Diners Drive-In's and Dives and we just happened to catch the episode where they featured the Blue Plate Diner in Salt Lake. We both love Guy Fieri and when we saw him interview the owner of the Blue Plate, Johnny Chopper and saw the love and attention to the food we both knew we had to go.

So we googled the Blue Plate and put it on our "to do" list. One day when we found ourselves downing some Blue Plate goodies, Johnny Chopper just showed up and my son says, "HEY Johnny Chopper showed up" and so after the meal when we struck up a conversation one thing led to another and yada yada I walked out with a trade agreement - food for art - I highly recommend it....the food for art thingy....and the Blue Plate.

So I told Johnny I would send him a sketch of an idea I got while stuffing my face with his food. I just thought it would be cool to do this painting of a blue plate that might be a flying saucer but might only be a blue plate flying in the air - perhaps someone threw it like a frizbee (a satisfied customer of course) but I wanted to keep it ambiguous.

After he saw and dug the sketch I wasn't happy with the way the cars were in front of his place and even though you can only parallel park I thought It would look cooler to have all the cars pulled in. So to make my job easier I just nabbed a bunch of cars off the net like the one above and tossed them into the sketch using photoshop.

After I got all the cars distorted the way I wanted them I changed the mode to grayscale to get rid of all the color. This allowed me to not only add my own color but with the distortions texture and color changes I'm safe from copy right infringement. Next I printed this out on watercolor paper and added texture to prepare it for acrylic paint.

Here's another car that should be up with the Cadillac but since I put it in the wrong place and don't know how to delete and move it you'll have to imagine that it's up with the other one.

And here is the final painting - It was a fun diversion from my regular workload

So I loaded the fam into the car and we headed for Blue Plate heaven to deliver the painting.

It's funny how enthusiasm for food changes in about a half hour - while waiting for your food to arrive it's sometimes hard to maintain your train of thought as you struggle to control salivation - after you're stuffed you're wondering what you were all psyched about? Well now we have a bunch of gift certificates and we can enjoy Blue Plate whenever we're up that way. YAY Blue Plate!!

Textbook Cover for Element

Ok, so here is a sketch for an english language text book for Element - the idea is that by learning english you become more free to pursue whatever you want - that doors are open to english speakers. My client wanted some of the buildings in the shape of letters to further the language angle.

I was asked to paint the background separate from the foreground so they can use it for other covers that we are currently working on.

This is a challenge because as I'm painting it's hard to control values and colors but here they are combined.

This is the final with the cover graphics

My New Look

I got myself a new look for the holidays - my wife saw it and let me have it for the rest of the day! Now I don't look like this anymore.

So my 9 year old said my art is for babies - so I wanted to see if I could still conjure something from my junior high days of drawing sculls in the margins of my tests. Yup - still got it. I did this doodle out in the car while my wife shopped for those last minute Christmas gifts. I showed it to 9 year old - he thought it was "bad" meaning good of course - score one for the old guy. Oh - and I fooled around with it in photoshop to add some mood.

California Teachers Association

My new friend Steve Gray, (a GREAT illustrator) introduced me to Sheri Miyamoto who works for the California Teachers Association to help her with the packet art for their conferences. It was really fun painting snowmen just in time for Christmas - and here are a few images from the project. The cool thing is that I will get to go to their conferences to meet and greet and sign books.

Blowfish

Just finished this fish for Pk Press for a greeting card. It's acrylic over inkjet print on watercolor paper.
This is how my paintings start now. I scan my sketch and paint flat color on it in photoshop. Then I print it on watercolor paper, add texture gel and paint acrylics on top.

Passing Out

95% of my blog is going to be dedicated to illustration but when I saw my son passed out last night I couldn't resist taking a picture and posting it. Passing out on the kitchen floor when your 9 years old - cute....passing out on the kitchen floor when your an adult - usually involves some sort of addiction problem. Sleep well little buddy some day in your future it will be hard to fall asleep in a soft comfy bed.

SOLD OUT!!!

YAY! Just found out last week that my book The Frog with the Big Mouth (written by Teresa Bateman) sold out in two months! New books to arrive at a store near you towards the end of December. This was a really fun book to work on and it was the first time I used photoshop to paint the backgrounds.

Brand New Book!

I just got advance copies of my new book The Three Little Gators by Helen Ketteman in the mail today! This book is scheduled to release sometime in early 09 and I'm sooo excited for it as I feel it's my best work to date. I really have high hopes for this book!

Art Auction

This is an image I did for a fund raiser for Reagan Academy School in Springville Utah last month. Stephen Pratt, the school art teacher suggested I call it "Neighbor's Cat", so I did and it auctioned for $300. It was a lot of fun to meet some of the other artists and catch up with friends.

My First Blog Post

They said it couldn't be done. They said I'd never do it. They said a lot of things - some of which I can't repeat. Yes - I'm finally blogging. If you've been tired of going to my website and seeing the same tierd images, this blog's for you. You know how some guys leave the christmas lights up all year? Never wash their car? and might have a brand new un-opened tub of sour cream that has become way more sour than cream in the fridge? Yup that's me. So I'm thinkin that the blog just might be the answer for me to sort of change my ways and get some new stuff out there. ....Like the creepy guy above - painted it as a demo in my UVU class this Thursday and thought, "hmmm, It would be kinda nice for people to be able to see this"....a blog...THAT'S IT!!! - so here it is - Mr. Creepers is a character out of a new book I'm working on. Hope to have it out next year.