Category: Illustration

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Bailey

This is my latest painting.  While I treated it like a commission, this was a labour of love, as it was a gift for my mother’s birthday.  Bailey belongs to my folks, but as anybody who has ever met a shih tzu knows, my folks actually belong to her.  She’s a real sweetheart and my parents just adore her.

I’ve wanted to paint this for a couple of years now, but could never seem to get out from under the work.  I finally made the time this summer and I’m pleased with how it turned out.  I couldn’t have done as good a job two years ago, but then I’ll probably want to do another one two years from now.

This one was incredibly tough because it was personal.  While I try to do my best with every painting I do, this one will be done on canvas, framed, and since I already know where my Mom is hanging it, will be displayed prominently in their home.  I’ll have to see this for a long time.  So I nitpicked it to death, and given unlimited time, I could probably work on it ’til Christmas.  Sometimes you just have to hit ‘Save’ for the last time and move on.

While I’ve still got other illustration commissions to work on in the next few weeks, this will be the last painting I work on until after Photoshop World, so sometime in mid-September.  That’s actually a good thing, because I’ve finished three in the past few weeks (including the DVD), so I’d like a little break from it.

But I’ve got big plans for a number of new paintings in the Fall.  Some of them are commissions, some are for my Rocky Mountain Wildlife series, and at least one will start off my Pacific Coast Wildlife series, which I’m very excited about.

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Catching my breath.

Looking back on my career so far, it would seem that I spend most of my time living through periods of deadline panic with large projects, followed by periods of lesser panic where I figure that NOW I can finally gain some control over my life and relax.  This delusion is then followed by the next period of deadline panic with a large project.  I’m a slow learner.

Last week, I finished another DVD for PhotoshopCAFE, which definitely falls under the ‘deadline panic with large project’ category.  While I know that it will be ready for Photoshop World in Las Vegas the first week of September, I would imagine it will be available sooner than that online.  This was a big one for me.  While my first DVD effort was on cartooning, I’m pretty comfortable with that process, so even though the actual recording was hell (why mince words?),  the subject matter was fairly routine, as I’ve been drawing cartoons in that fashion every day for a number of years.

This second DVD, the recording and painting were both challenging, but still very enjoyable.  The editing, however, was just challenging.  I enjoy painting more than any of the other creative work I do, so I wanted the painting in the DVD to be my best effort.  While I’m pleased to say that I think I achieved that, I’m relieved that it’s done.  I ended up taking an involuntary day off once all the files had been sent, because I was completely exhausted.

Finished a commission of a cat painting this week.  There’s a great back story to this one, but I can’t share it, or the full painting, until after the client gives it as a gift.  Keeping secrets is often part of the job.  But I’m happy with how it turned out.   Recording the painting DVD created a little pressure (self-induced, of course) to up my game, and I’m looking forward to my next wildlife painting.  I’ve been thinking about this one  for almost a year and I’m excited to get started on it.

This week, I intend to finish a painting of my parent’s dog, Bailey, a wonderful little shih tzu with a great personality.  Been wanting to paint her for awhile and pleased I finally get to give this gift to my Mom.

I’ve got one more large illustration gig to wrap up in August, but other than that, I’m almost caught up.  I still have my regular editorial cartoons to draw, and five or six extras to get done in advance for my week away at Photoshop World Las Vegas at the beginning of September.  But, all in all, I think I’m finally going to be able to find a few days of downtime soon, gain some control over my life and relax.

Did I mention that I’m a slow learner?

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Of DVD’s and Don Diego

This is my latest painting, one very close to my heart as this little fella, name of Don Diego, belongs to a good friend of mine in Nebraska, and is the subject of my latest DVD from PhotoshopCAFE.  While I still have some editing to do, and am a couple of days away from being completely finished the DVD, the painting portion is done.

I’m quite pleased with how this process went.  I found the last DVD very difficult, but this one felt very natural.  Recording it was a real pleasure, and I forgave myself a few flubs here and there, in favor of authenticity.  I’m really looking forward to seeing this DVD make its debut at Photoshop World in Las Vegas this year.

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Second go ’round.

This is a work in progress.  Bailey is my parents’ dog, and the painting will be a late birthday present for my Mom.  This painting served as my rehearsal for the early stages of another DVD for PhotoshopCAFE, because in it, I’m painting another little dog.  At this stage, the rehearsal is over, because every painting is different and digital painting is not a step-by-step exercise.

Recorded a couple of sessions this morning, and I’m amazed at how easy it is this time around.   There are a few simple (and probably very obvious) reasons for this.

This is my second DVD.  I found the first one, Cartoon Illustration Techniques in Photoshop, to be incredibly stressful.  I’d never done a DVD before, I was learning the hardware, software, and was obsessed with making sure I included everything I possibly could for the beginner as well as keeping the experienced user interested.  That’s actually tougher than it sounds, because as in all things, once you’ve learned a skill, you often forget how to break it down to simple steps because it has become instinctual.

I took guitar lessons a couple of years ago.  My instructor is a very talented musician and excellent teacher, but every once in awhile after he showed me a particularly difficult finger picking song, he would go to break it down into a sequence and he’d have to take a few minutes to remember how he did it.  The playing of that song was so instinctual and set into sense memory that to break it down into individual chords and finger movements was tough for him to do.

That’s what it was like teaching all of steps I go through every single day when drawing editorial cartoons.  And while I’ve heard from a number of people that bought, enjoyed and learned a lot from that DVD, I’m glad I did that one first and saved the current one for second, because frankly, this one is a hell of a lot more fun.

This DVD is not for new-to-Photoshop beginners.  Anybody who wants to learn digital painting should already have a working knowledge of the software, at least for the techniques I’ll be teaching.  I don’t have to say, ‘this is how you open a document,’ or ‘this is how you create a layer.’  With the cartooning DVD, if I missed a step that I take for granted, it could really confuse someone who has never used Photoshop before.

With painting, there aren’t many ‘step by step’ lessons possible, because every painting is different and if I tried to do the same painting twice, the end result wouldn’t look the same.  With this DVD, I’m only doing one take for every session, and oddly enough, I’m fine with it.  The painting itself will take 15-20 hours.  I’m not going to redo two or three hours unless it’s absolutely required.

So this time around, I’m winging it, creating a painting from scratch, from the first brush stroke to the last.  Most of the stuff I’m talking about is whatever pops into my head based on what I’m seeing and thinking about the image in real time.  Listening to the playback of the sessions I recorded this morning, yes, I did notice a few uh’s and um’s.  Thankfully, not many as I do try to speak well on a daily basis, but nobody’s perfect.  With the last DVD, I would re-record the whole session to minimize that.  This time around, I’m leaving them in.  Because what’s also in there, which can’t be scripted, is animation in my voice, the excitement that I feel when I paint.  I love that!  Having that in there is worth a few um’s and uh’s, because I know that multiple takes would make that go away.

Recording the last DVD took a long time, kept me up nights, and was one of the most stressful things I’ve gone through in the past year.  This time around, I decided that I’m going having a good time with it.

So if you do decide to part with your hard-earned money and take a chance on hearing what I have to say and teach about digital painting, I hope it’ll be evident to you just how much I love this work, and that as a consequence, you’ll forgive a few uh’s and um’s.

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Photoshop Creative Magazine


The latest issue of Photoshop Creative magazine goes on sale today and if you turn to Page 9, you’ll see a little image of my Ground Squirrel Totem painting at the top of the page. “3 of the Best…” is a regular feature in this magazine.  Last month it was landscape painters, this month it’s animal portrait painters, and I’m very honored that they selected my work to be included in the list.

Anyone who visits regularly knows how much I love painting these Totems.  It’s strange that painting animals was never part of the plan, but then again, neither was being a cartoonist.  Funny how life turns out.

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Tangled

My wife and I watched the Disney film ‘Tangled’ again last night.  I bought this DVD before I’d even seen it which was rare for me, but there was something in the trailers that told me that even if the story was weak, the artwork would be worth it.  I wasn’t disappointed in either.  I posted on Facebook that ‘this artwork makes me high,’ and I wasn’t kidding.  There’s something about cartoons with a lot of life in them that just gets me excited.  While Disney may not do it for everybody, and I’m not a huge fan of every one of their movies, this style makes me want to be a better artist.  It makes me hungry to sit down and draw.

No matter what creative avenue you’re strolling down, if the scenery isn’t doing it for you anymore, and you’re bored, find something that will reignite that old passion and put a spring in your step.  I have a few go-to books and movies that do it for me.  Tangled is now added to that library.

I’ll often get people asking me if I want to animate, and the answer is a flat out ‘No.’  A number of years ago, when the general consensus seemed to be that Flash animation was the next step in editorial cartooning, I did create a weekly animated editorial cartoon called ‘Beaver Fever.’  Sort of a Rick Mercer/Jon Stewart wanna-be cartoon beaver with guests and commentary, that sort of thing.  A lot of people liked it, including some big media outlets in Canada, but nobody wanted to pay what it would take to keep me doing it, so I scuttled that ship.  I didn’t enjoy the work.  It felt tedious and mechanical.

Knowing what you want to do is essential in any career, but equally important is knowing what you do not want to to do.  I do NOT want to be an animator.

But I love movies.  I mean, I REALLY love movies.  I’m not obsessed with them, by any means, but I can watch some movies over and over again.  Tangled will be one of those.  I would love to work designing characters for movies one of these days.  Not full-time or anything, just a commission once in awhile.  It would be great to see some animal I created brought to life on the big screen.  That’s one of those things I regularly throw out there into the ether, because it seems to have worked well for a lot of other dreams that have become reality in my career.

Never underestimate the power of passion.  Glen Keane has worked on some of the best animated movies out there, often as Supervising Animator.  I’m talking about Aladdin, Beauty and the Beast, The Little Mermaid and of course, Tangled.  There are many others of course.  Those who followed the comic strip, Family Circus, as I did growing up, will be interested to know that Glen is the son of cartoonist Bil Keane, and was the model for the character Billy in that strip.

While I have known and admired Glen’s work for years,  I am most in awe of an artist who has been working in the field for as long as he has, a man who has done and seen it all in the world of animation, and yet still has that passion in his voice for his craft.  You can tell he is still excited to be doing what he’s doing.  Watch this video and you can see it.  Listen to how he talks about this character.  To Glen, she is real, she has life, and most importantly, she has passion.

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Now Available at PhotoshopCAFE!


While the hard copy of my first DVD will be making its debut at Photoshop World this coming week in Orlando, it is now available for purchase as a download from PhotoshopCAFE. The hard copy will be available in the next couple of weeks.

This is a little surreal, having my own training DVD, but part of the natural evolution of being an artist. ‘Learn it, do it, teach it’ is a fairly common saying, and it does tend to bring things full circle. While I will always have more to learn, and will never be finished working to make myself a better artist, it’s been an interesting experience teaching a little of what I’ve learned so far.

This was a huge undertaking for me, and I wondered if I’d ever get it done, but I’m very pleased with the result, and already planning my next title. By all accounts, the second one should be a lot easier.

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Coming Soon: My First Training DVD


Regular readers will know that I’ve been working on a DVD for PhotoshopCAFE for a number of months, now. With a final push through a very busy week, I managed to get everything finished this past weekend. The final editing days were difficult, but I managed to meet deadline, and the DVD is now in production.

Entitled ‘Cartoon Illustration Techniques in Photoshop,’ I recorded over 4.5 hours of training, taking the viewer through the entire process I use to turn a sketch into the finished image you see above. The majority of the lessons are done in real time, so I’m actually working while talking, and only a couple of painting sessions are sped up and narrated. This is the process I use every day when drawing my syndicated editorial cartoons and when creating cartoon illustrations in the same style.

This is my first DVD for PhotoshopCAFE with plans to record more on other techniques in the near future. It will be available for purchase online and at the PhotoshopCAFE booth at Photoshop World in Orlando next week. As soon as it’s available, I’ll be posting links.

While the entire process was difficult, and more than a little frustrating at times, I learned a LOT about audio and video recording, had incredible support from Colin Smith at PhotoshopCAFE, and am pleased with the result. My intention at the beginning of this was to record the DVD I would have liked to have had when I was first starting out cartooning in Photoshop and I think I achieved that.

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Great Horned Owl


This is the latest painting in my Totem series. Hard to believe I started this image in November. I’ve worked on it at a few live painting demos, and when I could make the time, but I’ve gone weeks at a time without touching it, due to my heavy workload.

I’ve received a lot of publicity and attention over the previous paintings, especially the Wolf and Moose after the Photoshop World Guru Awards in September, but I’ve been frustrated lately that I hadn’t been able to get another one finished, even though I’ve had two on the go for months. The last thing I want is to be halfway through 2011, and still be talking about paintings I did in a year ago.

With that in mind, I took whatever bits of time I could this past week to get it done, as well as a home stretch effort on Sunday of about 6 hours of painting. I nitpicked this to death at the end, and probably could keep doing so for a number of hours, yet, but eventually it gets to a point where you’d only see a difference on extreme closeup, and it would be minimal at best. My biggest concern was that I wanted the end result to be better than, or at least as good as the Wolf and Moose paintings. Hopefully I achieved that, but I’m too close to it to be objective.

In the end, I easily spent over 30 hours on it, and at this moment in time, it is my best effort. I found myself smiling a number of times while painting, because it seemed I was being smiled at, and that’s always a good feeling. Even had a few moments where the image seemed to be painting itself yesterday, and that never ceases to surprise me. With my headphones on, music playing in my ears, painting without thinking and no distractions, that’s as close to a perfect moment as I get.

While I’m pleased with the final image and that I have finally added another painting to the series, I would like to find more time to devote to these paintings, so there aren’t months in between each one. Next up will be the Bighorn Sheep, which is the other painting in progress at the moment.

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iPad Painting: Daniel Day-Lewis


Here’s another painting drawn on the iPad for fun and practice. This is Bill ‘The Butcher’ Cutting from the movie ‘Gangs of New York.’ According to the DVD extras, Daniel Day-Lewis was so committed to the role, that he stayed in character while on set, even when the cameras were off. I’ve seen this movie a few times, and for me, the character of The Butcher is the best part of it.

Had a few requests for progress shots from the last iPad painting I did, but since I hadn’t saved any file copies, I kept that in mind while painting this one. Click on any of these images to see them a bit larger, although size is limited by the iPad resolution.

Image 1-3

Image 4-6

Closeup

Now that I’ve done a couple of paintings and a number of cartoons with the iPad, I’m aware of a few limitations, aside from the resolution, that make it difficult to ever really do any finished work.

First, the brightness of the iPad. If I paint on full brightness, it’s a little hard on the eyes, so I paint with the brightness set to about half or 60%. When I send the images by email to my desktop computer, they’re a fair bit darker than they are on the iPad, so all of these images have had exposure adjustments in Photoshop.

My desktop and laptop computers are colour calibrated, so it’s a little unnerving to paint in colour on the iPad, because it doesn’t look the same when I bring it into Photoshop. This is why I painted in black and white first, in order to get the values right. After that, I added a colour layer in the ArtStudio app, then I flattened it and continued painting. As you can see, most of the work, however, was done in black and white.

While I’m pleased with the way this painting turned out, I might have chosen a difference reference photo to work from, as I think I could have found a better pose for the character. But since this is as far as I intend on taking this image, no harm, no foul. It was good practice.