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Third Interior for Suburban Jungle

2012-05-22T09:49:19Z

The cave dwellers.

All Done

2012-05-09T18:51:24Z

This is for a novel to be published very soon!

Half-Done

2012-05-08T16:32:54Z

Though some would say 'half-baked'. I'm sure. I am moving from underpainting to overpainting on this cover project. More texture work on the hair and background, though I hesitate to add anything to the face. I did make the teeth less sharp, which, in my opinion, makes them more horrific.

New Cover Project

2012-05-02T21:01:27Z

This concept sketch just approved by the publisher is for a new novel by a writer I have always enjoyed illustrating. I will be starting work on the painting immediately. My daughter (bless her!) posed for this, and no, her teeth, complexion and general hygene are actually perfect!

You can follow along with the creation of this cover painting HERE.

Suburban Jungle Endpapers

2012-04-18T01:22:46Z

I saw that Steve Clark put this up on Google+, so I guess it is safe to do it here too. Here is the endpaper image for the third book in Brett McBean's Jungle trilogy, pencil on really nice Strathmore bristol stock:

Beginning "Suburban Jungle"

2012-03-24T15:30:30Z

I just started working on the illustrations for the third and final book of Brett McBean's apocolyptic Jungle trilogy. I do the spot illustrations for the two signature pages first, because they sometimes take the longest to get completed due to the sheets having to travel from Australia to the UK to the USA and back again! These are being done in watercolor. I just finished sketching them out on tracing paper, and am about to transfer the images to the watercolor block using graphite paper. I can fit both on a single sheet of WC paper.

Grandkid Art

2012-03-18T11:35:23Z

I painted this to go up on the wall of my grandson's bedroom, He arrives in June! After taking this picture I obtained some Faber-Castell brush pens - that allow variation of line width depending on how hard or soft you press as you draw, laying down a true waterproof ink line. I plan on experimenting with these when I do a little children's picture book called "Max, who wasn't having any" in a new version from that which I originally did in the early 1980s.

Values

2012-03-08T12:07:08Z

From Paintings/In Process/Cloudscape-2:

There will be basically just four values in this painting: the house in shadow, the house in light, the clouds and sky in shadow, and the clouds in light. I assigned them here, in the first underpainting layer. This is just Prussian Blue and water, and trying to keep up with the drips. Last night I looked in on this in the dark room and squinted a bit, and saw what the painting will essentially turn out to be, more abstract than real, exactly what I am going for. BTW, this is the first official photograph I took with my new Nikon D3100. This thing has so many buttons it is a bit intimidating!

Next Up

2012-02-28T00:03:45Z

This next one will just hint at the cloud structures rather than knock you over the head with them.

I spent part of this evening tracing the outlines of cloud formation photos off the big screen of my iMAC. I will use these as the basis to create the large clouds for the painting, just using the edges that agree with the light source.

Easel Painting

2012-02-09T19:32:22Z

This one is nearly done. I hit a definite spurt after my eye surgery. Suddenly I could see color where I apparently wasn't before, not as vivid, anyway.

Started with this idea.

Here it is on a 32 x 48" canvas.

And here it is about 90% done. I still need to put some horizonatal purple clouds in the foreground, and darken the house a bit more. Hopefully the dark house against the rich sunset clouds, with the light on in that room window, will do the trick.