Quick Study from a Brave still. Just a warm-up.

You know what more fun than self portaits?

Painting the negative space behind the portraits.

Total Recall Warmup Turned into Study.

Put about 5 hours into this. First time I've done something digital that I am happy with. Excuse my while I stretch out my sore fingers.

Senior Show

For those of you who are poor, don't know me when this is taking place, live far away, or just don't care, this is a little preview of my Senior Show. I say preview, but it's pretty much the whole thing. Except it's not on a wall and it's not framed. 

 Mercy

 Peace

Purity

I've learned a heck of a lot over the course of this semester, and I'll probably type up a post on it soon. Anyways, have fun, and let me know what you think!

Oh, and here's a copy of my Artist Statement, so you know a bit more about the pieces as a whole.

            I once read about a regal dwarf who said, "“A reader lives a thousand lives before he dies. The man who never reads lives only one." And in that moment, I realized that I am approximately 200 years old, give or take a decade, and I wondered what that would do for my taxes. You see, when I was young I got sick. We lived in a house that had black mold, which inflamed my Asthma and I couldn't play much at recess. During one of those lonely recesses my teacher saw my sitting to the side and gave me the second greatest gift in all of my life. She gave me a book. One of those Chicken Soup for the Soul books, with the cheesy heartfelt stories. It was ok, but I still finished it fairly quickly and when I was done, I asked my teacher for another book. Well she didn't have one, but she said there were bunches more at the school library. I had never been to the library so I went and looked around. What a wondrous place! All these books just for me! And, being a 10 year old boy, I found a war story titled Fallen Angels. Boy. That was a good book. I devoured that story, and returned to the library to find more. I found Holes, and Hatchet, Brian's Winter, Julie of the Wolves, and my favorite, My Side of the Mountain. Books, or really the stories and characters inside of them, became my life. I have fond memories of adventures on desert islands, adventures on frozen tundra, and flying with dragons. I have fonder memories of getting into trouble because I would stay up too late READING. I swear, my parents must have been so proud. As I got older I went through cycles, as we all do, of reading and not reading. But what I did find was a larger library, and more books, and a voracious appetite for stories. I used to come home with a stack of books that stretched from my fingers to my nose. Not just fiction, but anything that caught my fancy. I would sketch plans for airplanes and gliders, for bow & arrows, forts, anything. And my appetite kept growing, and my mind thirsted for more information, anything interesting, I would find a book and teach myself.

Then something amazing happened. I found a book. A very special book. I actually still have it. It was James Gurney's Dinotopia. It was on the bottom shelf of the Young Adult section of the library. In it was a story filled with images, paintings of a land with populated by dinosaurs AND humans. Such a rich world was created within these pages I would read them over and over again, pouring through the images and castaway in daydreams. I actually convinced myself (and still am, a little) that this place ACTUALLY EXISTED. Thinking back, I can cite that book, those stories as to why I wanted to be an illustrator. To draw and create these worlds, these stories that were just SO REAL. There is a life to the characters, a vitality to the story that births the warmest feeling in my heart.

As I have said, I am roughly 200 years old, give or take a decade. This extra ~180 years have been spent riding a Skybax, and delving in dungeons and fighting wars across the universe. My goal in life is to share, as James Gurney shared with me, a place deep within my imagination where life is greater and adventures longer than I can ever dream.

Thematic Teaser

Three Black Queens

Click for full Res. Image

        This here is a little taste of my past semester. Next Tuesday is my Senior Show, and I should be getting those photos up Monday. Afterwards, I have to finish another ~6 paintings for Thematic Illustration. All the drawings are done, I just have to paint them. This one is acrylics on watercolor paper mounted on board. Expect more posts this following week!