Happy New Year

As my gift to you, here is a magical link to beautiful high resolution images of Muchas Slav epic. My favorite art ever.

Merry Christmas

Cindy Loo Hoo

Facebook page

I've finally decided to broaden my footprint a little. I've got a new Facebook page just launched. Please come by and give it a like or follow or whatever. Hopefully it makes my art a little more accessible to some viewers.
Thanks

Spectrum 21 - Norm at a bar

I was pretty excited to get my Spectrum book the other day that contains this digital painting. I am honored to be amongst the fantastic artists. If you get the book you will notice it printed pretty dark but all the same I am pleased to have something in there.

I was not previously aware of the artist Norman Lindsay but I loved his picture when I came across it in this post about him over at the Muddy Colors blog. I was browsing some of my own previous digital paintings and started to notice the missing random caricatures of late. If you follow the link I've followed my reference pretty closely but it was filled with such great shapes.

fig. 63

Conte on 18"x 24" paper

Masters of Anatomy - Last chance

Update-It's up! The Kickstarter page is live and looks like the books are getting snapped up fast.
There are even more artists then before, up to 100 now. A lot of talent.

I am excited to be contributing to a Kickstarter book called "Masters of Anatomy". It's a great idea that will be collecting anatomical male and female drawings based off of Andrew Loomis' ideal proportions from a bunch of really fantastic professional artists with a wide range of styles. Be sure to take a look at the list of talented they've got lined up Here.

waiting

A piece for The Weekly Standard. I had a little more time then the usual one day turn around on this, typically I get one real shot at the drawing but this time it wasn't quite there so I was happy to give it another try which turned out better.

fig.62

It's been a while since I had a figure drawing session. I have noticed I get some pretty good drawings after a break. I think it gives me time to stop over thinking the drawings and lets the natural drawing take charge again, hopefully with some improvements gained through the months of struggle.

It is really hard to draw a face/head when it is upside down. After a couple failed attempts I had to spin my large drawing pad around to work out the face structure straight up before moving on.

Nu Pastel on paper 18"x24"

A guy named Red

 

A drawing from the sketchbook. I liked the head but I think I was loosing my focus as I moved down as it got late last night and the it gets less successful as it approaches the bottom, then by the typewriter it's completely off the rails.

Figure 50

I am honored to be picked as the representative for a new website and painting competition called Figure 50. They have selected a figurative artists from each of the 50 states and I am presenting for Utah, which I think has a pretty good shape and location to frame my daughters portrait. They will decide on a new winner every 4 months starting Jan 1, 2014.

Also, here is a floating head as a offering from the sketchbook.

Scientist

Got to do this for The Weekly Standard this a couple days ago. Imagine it a little more green but Blogger seems to have trouble with the colors so I had to dumb it down a lot.

Sherlock and/or Khan

Pick your preference.

Jungle Book

A submission to the Avalanche blog in hopes of rescuing it from it's death throes. Always loved those classic Disney boy movies like Jungle Book.

sketch #78

A little drawing. the format worked a bit better in my sketchbook then on a blog. It's about 12" tall. Done from a full photograph so it's a little tricky deciding what to include and what to leave out. Enjoy.

homestead

Painted

Finally, a painting to post. I typically feel like coming up with the an idea is the hardest part of doing a painting in a lot of ways. Fortunately in this case I had this nice drawing I did recently just waiting to be painted. The reference pictures I took were done in black and white so I had to make them up but I am satisfied with the results.

16" x 20" Oil on canvas

sketchbook #78

Todays

Cut

A digital painting I did for an illustration recently. I liked the idea a lot and was reasonably pleased with how the painting turned out but in the end it didn't end up being published. Oh well, next time.

Bookman

sketch #77

Profile

sketch #76

A quick drawing from the sketchbook.

Sewing

I came across a lovely old black and white photograph by Frank Sutcliffe. I wish I could take lovely pictures so that I would have more reference available. So here is the digital painting taking liberties with the face, value, and color obviously.

Below you will find a few steps along the way. I really liked the simplicity of the original drawing I almost wanted to leave it with that. But I soldiered on to a monotone painting which began to get too overworked for me, after I started adding color to it I decided to try to lose some of the detail.

sketch #75

A tribute, in color

You may remember this guy from the drawing about 4 posts down. I liked the drawing enough to do a painting which turned out very well in my opinion. I am pretty happy with the loose feel that I got. Tried a slightly different method which I intend to try again next time around.

Oil on board, 9"x12"
Below is a detail which has a lot more canvas texture that it should because I used a scanner to get this image.

Some Guy

Scribe

From a photo I came across. It's been a little while since I got a decent digital painting so here it is.

A tribute

To this guy! For having such a good look.
Pencil on my new toned paper sketchbook which is 9"x12"

One more small thing, my compliments to Strathmore for using Scott Burdick's drawings on their newer sketchbooks. I haven't conducted any formal survey but I would swear every sketchbook company was seeking out high school underclassmen for artwork they could use as cover art for sketchbooks.
BTW, have a listen to Scott Burdick's presentation on Beauty, it is excellent.

ill

A recent painting done for The New Era magazine of a sick young girl.

Leyendecker in 2 tones

Found myself a toned sketchbook last week. I love the ability to work in both directions, darker and lighter, since I don't think I use a good range of the one. I all of the sudden feel like I am working on a piece for a museum, just feels nicer in the end(until you run a figures head off the page of course).

I'm copying the great J.C. Leyendecker of course.

71

And another.

sketch #70

TV

I did this for the Weekly Standard last week. I am pretty pleased with it. I was trying hard to keep some of the drawing in there and keep it loose. One of the things I've been trying to push against is overworking some of these digital works because they start to bleed into the "slick" category which I don't like. I am also pretty happy about the likeness.

sketch

from my sketchbook.

sketch #68

from the sketchbook

Convicted

I was really excited to do a cover for the Weekly Standard last week. It was again a really quick turnaround but it was about 2 days instead of the 1 that I usually get but the art director is awesome so that helps a lot.

little man

Here's the little man of the house. I swear this is the expression he wears 70% of the day. Pure innocence.

I have had many requests to record my drawing process, I will see what I can do.

Field

An oil painting recently completed. I've spent enough time on it I can't really make objective judgements of it. I have wanted to work on an more fully developed painting for a while and I've enjoyed it and learned a lot. Now I just need to come up with a new concept for the next one.

Oil on board 20"x30"

Here's a detail view: