New Art!

So the semester has started and so far I'm off to a pretty good start. I've got a few paintings started and I finished up one last night.

Here we have a little girl named Lily and her new friend, the Monster of the Deep.

This will be (one of) my entries for this year's Society of Illustrators contest. Unfortunately the colors are not quite as vibrant in this scan as in the original; I'll have to see what I can do to fix that before I send it in.

Watercolor, colored pencil, ink on wet media illustration board. 10 x 21"

Clockwork Cardinal

And a third entry. This one was a little trickier; it took some time to get  the composition just right. I quite like the colors, though.

And another one!

Didn't initially plan to do another painting so soon, but there's something soothing about these quick little pieces, and besides, once I found pictures of the pied kingfisher, I had to paint it.

A new year and new art

Sorry for the radio silence lately. Between finishing up finals and then the holiday rush, I ended up a bit out of the art loop.

However, I got a chance to sit down and paint yesterday, just a bit of fun with some extra paper and a chance to break in the new palette I got over the holidays.

I really enjoyed playing with the negative space here, and I may well do a few more like this, with other birds. It's a nice little break from more elaborate work, anyway.

Parallel Parchment: In the Lab

So, my third and final image for my independent study dealing with environments within Parallel Parchment. This one features the Guardian and a bit of his backstory.

As quick as these paintings were, I did enjoy them. I may work on continuing the series later on, over the break, as I develop ideas for next semester's projects.

Winter Sneaks In

So, it's finally winter here-- we got our first snowfall today. Only a few inches, I'm afraid, and most of it melted during the day, but it's enough to signal "winter" in my mind. I just can't get into the spirit of winter while it's still green out.

So it's appropriate that today's update features another CG Society daily sketch, with the prompt "Winter."

Pretty rough, but enough to get the mood. I like to keep these sketches pretty loose in general, since it's a study, not a finished piece. I might go back and tidy this one up later, though. I rather like it.

Photoshop, 30 minutes.

Parallel Parchment: Productivity!

Well, I've managed to be productive the last few days, somewhat surprisingly. I picked up a freakishly addicting DS game (I won't say which) last week, and it has been vying for my attention for much of that time.

But no! It is finals time, and I am resisting. Sort of. At least, I'm getting things done anyway.

In fact I have not one but two-- two! new pieces of artwork to show off. These are a bit looser than I would normally paint, but I think that helps to nail the lighting effects.

Both are pieces from the Parallel Parchment project.

Just a view of the Great Tree, which is the heart and soul of the Library and still one of my favorite things to draw. Even if properly showing scale is rather tricky.

 

 

For this one I had a special request from a classmate to do something with Morwenna. Since Wenna's job is to monitor things that come in and out of the library, this includes when new sections are added to the library proper. For this I got to thinking of a culture that did not have books, specifically, but instead stored their knowledge by carving it into trees. (Don't ask me why they have trees but didn't invent paper, I don't know.) So Morwenna is checking up and making sure that everything is in its place.

Photoshop was kind of a pain about saving this, so I had to replace some of the glowy effects with a slightly different one, alas. I'm still pretty happy with it overall.

So that's two pictures done. I'm planning on drawing up one more, I think, and then possibly coloring a fourth if I can figure out what I want to do with the lighting. Otherwise we'll settle for three (and one half-finished traditional piece) and call it good.