Taekwondo sketches

 The US Taekwondo Academy (where I take classes) decided to make a new logo. Here are my sketches for updating their eagle. They went with the third one - I'll be taking that one to final!

Penguin, James Penguin

A sketch inspired by one of my favorite Christmas songs, "Penguin, James Penguin" by #bradpaisley.

This is from the part where the lyrics say "Then a knight in shining polyester waddled through his door."

Dancing Gnome

My son is going to play Liszt's "Gnomenreigen" at a piano competition this weekend. To get him into the feel of little gnomes dancing, my wife asked me if I could make a quick sketch of one to give him the idea. He liked it!

More Malawi!

Here's another one from the Malawi schoolbook "How Animals Move." The way I did these is that I did a tight pencil drawing, scanned it in, and cleaned it up. Then, so I'd have something to work with, I added flat color behind it:

My wife pointed out that the colors look very Dr. Seuss! That's why I chose this one to show the process.

Afterwards, I add all the details:

I'll be posting more of these soon. There were 7 books in all!

Malawi - 84 color pieces of art!

I recently finished up a series of drawings for schoolbooks in Malawi. An awesome project, and one that let me learn a lot about a country I did not know much about! But they were monster deadlines - there was basically 6 months of work due - in 2 months. Yep, 2 months. There were a few weeks there where all I did was draw and sleep (more of the former than the latter). But now that it's finished, I'm really happy I did it! It feels like a real accomplishment, and for a worthwhile project as well. 84 drawings - and that's not counting the 40 or so other drawings done in the same time period for other clients as well.

Here's one of them - fish swimming in Lake Malawi. I'll be posting more of these in the mear future!

Work in Progress: the Evil Queen

This one ties together the other two work-in-progress sketches. You guessed it, Snow White. Although anyone who's gone through this blog knows I don't need much incentive to do fairy tale art, the TV show Once Upon A Time inspired this one. Her outfit is an homage to the one on the show.

If you're into the fairy tale thing, I recommend the show. Highly. Really a lot of fun.

It appears to be Snow White's time to shine - there are two movies based on her coming out in the not-too-distant future. Mirror, Mirror looks pretty fluffy, but Snow White and the Huntsman is one I'll be at opening night given the chance. Now there's a villain who deserves the evil in her title. In the trailer, the Evil Queen is not just bad, she's Sauron! Gotta see that one.

Making Glad the Heart of a Small Child

This is for my 4-year-old daughter, whose favorite book is Trina Schart Hyman's Saint George and the Dragon. And those who know me know I couldn't be happier about it – get the young dragonslayer started early. Besides, it's a great book with great art.

Anyway, the only downside is the book is a little long for a single night's reading (unless she starts going to bed waaaay early. Hold on a second, that doesn't sound so bad! Let me enjoy that thought for a moment... wait, where was I?). So she asked me to make her a knight bookmark. This is my rough sketch, but a tight one, so I printed these out for her so she could color it herself. And also for her brother and sister, because I know if I come home with one thing for one kid... well, those of you with children know where that one's going.