Narnia

In the spirit of winter, I figured I'd pull these images out of my archives. These images were done a few years ago for The Chronicles of Narnia. I did these while I was working at ILM. In my entire time working there, this ranks as one of my favorite projects. I loved reading The Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe, and getting to create some concept art for it was a dream project.

Mr Tumnus

Tumnus detail

In the end, the large share of this project was completed in New Zealand, rather than Lucasfilm, and I did not create much more work on it than what I am showing you now. The dream of working on this film was a very short lived one, but I enjoyed every second of it.

All images copyright Lucasfilm Ltd. 2003

Happy Holidays!

In honor of the holiday season, the Blue Sky Studios Challenge for this week was to draw something pertaining to Christmas. Have fun safe holiday season.
Peace.

This drawing is my contribution to the Blue Sky Art Dept. gift exchange.

3 o'clock draw off

So these drawings are a product of a little 10 minute break at the studio. Several of us got together in the common area of the art department and started to make drawings and caricatures of eachother. These are my drawings of Dice Tsutsumi and Nash Dunnigan.

dice
nash

Sneak preview. . .

These paintings are a sneak preview for my upcoming children's book. These images will not actually be in the book, but I did them to help me figure out the style and color palette, that I will be working in.

I painted this with a limited palette of primarily yellow ochre, cad red light, cerulean, primary blue, and burnt umber. I have been looking at a lot of Arthur Rackham and Edmund Dulac lately, and want to give the paintings an older fairytale feel, while still having a contemporary drawing and design aesthetic. I hope you like them.

This Little Piggy. . .

This week for the Blue Sky Studios Challenge, we were suppossed to draw an automobile. I didn't really feel like drawing a car, but I did want to Draw a Pig. So here you go.

The Sketchbook has Landed...

About a month ago, I was invited to participate in this program called Sketch Travel. It is a really great idea that was started up by an illustrator in Paris named Gerald Guerlais. The general idea is somebody makes a drawing in a sketchbook, and passes the book on to the next artist. Eventually the book will travel all over the world. After the book is completed, there is going to be an exhibition and auction, with all proceeds going to charity.
Well last week the sketchbook that started in Paris and travelled to San Francisco, made it into my hands in New York. The drawings and paintings in it were absolutely stunning. I felt very honored (and a little nervous) to be invited to contribute to this book.
Below is a copy of my contribution.

I am going to pass the book onto Peter De Seve, who will pass it onto Dice Tsutsumi and then this precious sketchbook will be off to Japan.

Blue Sky Challenge

This is my latest contibution to the Blue Sky challenge Blog. This week's subject matter is to do an image inspired by the classic novel Moby Dick. I hope you like it.

Demos from San Jose State

These are drawings and paintings are demos I did for my class, when I taught at San Jose State University. Teaching this class was so much fun. It was very inspiring to work so many talented students, who were very hungry to succeed. The whole class read Roald Dahl's story, The BFG, and created a body of artwork based on the book, throughout the semester.

gouache and watercolor demo

pencil tonal demo

color key demo

Old sketchbook

These are relatively old paintings I just found in a sketchbook I left at my parents house, when I went back over the Thanksgiving holiday.

I used to like pause movies on my dvd player and make really quick color studies. It probably isn't good for your dvd player, but I found it to be a really great exercise in learning how to paint color keys. It also helped me get more accustomed to painting in different color palettes. This study is from the opening sequence of the Godfather.

I did these paintings in a figure drawing workshop. I can't remember how long the sessions were, but I think they took around 10 to 20 minutes or so. All of these are painted in gouache on a Canson toned sketchbook.