I started making some tags and paper patterns, and tried to make a digital epoxy. It's just a clear png that can go over any one inch picture to make it look like an epoxy. I also made a new brush just for fun. If anyone has ideas to improve the epoxy and make it look more real, let me know. I'd love to hear them.

Friend Magazine - April

A small and fast illustration for a children's magazine called, "The Friend." My model for the dog had just gotten a bath the day before and only gets picked up when he needs a bath so he was growling the whole time, and I think he scared my little model. She opted to pose with a stuffed dog, and then I drew them like they were together. This style is really fast, this took about four hours or less from start to completion. Art direction by Brad Teare.

icons

Some icons done for a software company. They were to represent things like big and small, fast and slow.

painter

Introducing...

bear attack article

This was a fun project about a little girl that gets attacked by a bear. They were debating a bit about the age group and if it was ok to show the bear, or if a scared little girl and a big bear shadow would do the trick. I was happy to do such an exciting story.

I called Hogle Zoo to try and get some reference of a bear and felt like a stalker. "Do you have any black bears? No, not stuffed teddy bears. Real ones? Are they out today by chance (it was snowing)? What kind of cage are they in? Do you think I get good pictures of them in that kind of cage?" I couldn't find any scrap of a black bear from behind at this angle. Not that is was absolutely necessary, but I get stubborn. Apparently grizzly bears are more photogenic. Finally someone mentioned the Bean Science Museum at BYU, and I called and asked if they had any black bears (not grizzlies), and if they were standing. Art direction was by Eric Johnsen.

development

A recent project for a local developer who wanted a concept drawing for a new community. They needed a concept design integrating a community with walking paths and parks into the existing and future commercial areas surrounding it, so that the area could be rezoned.

pencil

Another drawing of my friend. For some reason they always scan funny. There's a nice posting by William Whitaker on the concept art forum for anyone interested in a realist approach to painting. Click here for the link.

pre-k

The robot dog and little girl were just for fun. I think I was having flashbacks to the Jetsons.

These are also for a younger crowd. The two girls are so that ESL students can talk about the differences between the two after coloring them in.


Here's one for the little people. I wanted to post some vector work, but it's all pre K age. This one is designed to be colored, cut out, and taped to a paper plate to make a frog puppet. Guaranteed to entertain for at least 4.67 minutes, or your money back.

flash

My friend Maryn has always been a big fan of drawing in flash and since I love illustrator, I thought I'd give it a try. I almost hate to admit it, but she's right. It is "blazingly fast." I think it will be fun to sketch around in.

shoes

This one was fun to do, especially the wallpaper in the background. I was living in a 104 year old house at the time and liked the pattern of the ripping tattered paper in our living room. I swear the colors are richer in person.

Candle

Thought I'd post the cover of my children's book. I finally got to see the finished product. They did a good job with the graphic design, but as always with reproductions the colors in the paintings turned much more golden than the originals. But I bet most people won't notice. I interned with Paul O. Zelinsky a few years ago and he was telling me there is always a huge difference once things go to print, and even showed me his Rapunzel originals which were amazingly rich. But he was right, we compared his reds to those in the book and they weren't nearly as gorgeous. Many thanks to my models Jennessa, Barry and Michelle, for all their wonderful help!
deseret book link

soft edges

One of my friends was nice enough to model for me, so I thought I'd post a recent drawing. It was done with a .3 HB mechanical pencil. Someone once told me that my drawings had too many hard edges so I've tried to soften it up a little over the years - well, I assume that's what the guy meant. He said they looked like hermetically sealed mayonnaise. I didn't really understand it either, but it's one of the funniest comments I've ever recieved.

Letters

Another image from Imagine Learning, each artist was assigned three or four letters to illustrate and animate. We all recieved our letters at random, but it was a fun challenge to think up a new and creative way to illustrate the word as well as animate it. The letter "P" starts out with a close up on the cook who throws his pan up into the air, and it rotates until it is standing on the handle in the shape of the letter P.
Zipper was a challenge to animate, it pans up from the bottom and then the zipper starts forming the "z" and then glows. These are some of my favorites from IL because we were all given templates for our letters; they had to be a certain font/letter shape, we had to do capitals and lowercase versions and they all had to end up with the letter centered like the template we were given.

J was great; there's a surge of bubbles and then the jellyfish expands and contracts while glowing.
Yarn was a challenge. I wanted something entertaining and yarn by itself just wasn't a visually engaging item to me. So for the animation the mouse rolls a ball of yarn accross the ground and pushes it into a hole while the screen pans out and you see the letter in the hole filled with yarn that starts bumping into each other when he pushes the top ball in.

goodmorning

I worked on some freelance projects before working full time at a software company called Imagine Learning. This is one of a series of pictures that accompanies a read along style song to teach kids learning english vocabulary about morning and night.

I just finished my first children's book, "A Candle in the Window" so I thought I'd post some of the paintings.