Oil Paintings .02

More oils from my first gallery series. I chose painting kids because I love the innocence and honesty they naturally express in their eyes. My next series which includes much larger pieces focuses more on adults so I can explore deeper world weary emotions etched in their facial features.

This series, however, was challenging in the sense of painting a smooth child's face without getting too slick with the brush work. All in all I loved working with the models. When you think about it, oil painting is basically the art of capturing an emotional moment using animal hair attached to a stick to apply paint—no Photoshop "command z" to make mistakes go away.

Anyway, my son, Josh, posed for the painting Chores and the talented film director, Tim Hodge, posed for both Drifter and Hondo which was included here in an earlier post. My apologies to all of the victims—I mean models.

The Runaway

First Shave

Chores

Drifter

Jenny's Prayer

The Lil' Sheriff

The Westerner

The Day By Day Bible .01

My new book, The Day By Day Bible, gave me the awesome opportunity to illustrate a children's Bible. This is something I wanted to do for years. The design sensibility was much more simplified from my normal style due to the deadlines involved but the emotional impact was maintained by the broad strokes of color. I created over three hundred digital paintings while also designing animated films—it was rough but everything got done on time.

I can't tell you the thrill I feel having played a small part in developing this book and bringing it to market. It will touch so many lives in the process. The recent agreement with Wal-Mart has not only made this project successful in terms of sales but also in terms of outreach to a very diverse and broad market. The book has just been released yet we are already moving forward on the second printing in order to meet market demands—simply amazing.

Special thanks to: Karyn, Luke, Jackie, Julie, Jan, Talinda and Dr. Ken Taylor who taught me the true nature of success.

UPDATE:
We just went into our third printing which is so amazing. I'm really thrilled about the success and outreach of this project. I'm currently art directing and co-illustrating a new series of books which will be launched sometime this year in America and England. I hope it does as well as this.

Abraham

Frogs In Pond

Moses Parting Sea

A Big Fish

Out Of The Grave

Joy Again

The Slave That Ran Away

The Man of Sorrows

This is my Conté crayon sketch depicting The Man of Sorrows in Isaiah 53. I didn't use a model for this—just let it happen. I love the imagery in this passage of a man most would pass without a second glance. The text is very sad and I did my best to convey this in his eyes. This Conté sketch was recently sold at an auction with the profits directed toward Masterpiece Ministries—which provides a series of workshops for young adults concentrating on painting, writing, dance, theater, film, music and graphic design. Timothy Botts, one of the most incredible calligraphy artists in America heads up the program.

The Man of Sorrows (Isaiah 53)

Oil Paintings .01

After working in film and television with so many great artists, I caught the oil painting bug and finally took a crack at it. I love expressing human emotions and relationships using this medium. The samples here are from my first series in which I focused on the person caught in a moment and used minimal background treatments. My son, Josh, posed for "Bored" wearing his official Indiana Jones fedora. After spending considerable time posing for a commercial painting beforehand he naturally inspired this image as he took a break.

Hondo

Wanted

Grampa's Home Blend

Grampa's Coffee

Bored

A Snoodle's Tale

This is a digital painting for the animated film, A Snoodle's Tale. It was a blast painting the backgrounds on this film. The saturated colors and fun shapes really made it a joy to design. This was the main location where the characters jumped out of a door on the top of the clock tower and slid down the slide. Alas, the budget hit the film hard and the end result was good but not what was in my mind—the hard reality of commerce over art. All in all, however, a great experience.

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