...like pretzel! with a 'Q'

In an attempt to do a bird a week this is last weeks profit.

Considering the season I wanted to do a bird that had red and green in it. So naturally I chose a Quetzal.

A what?!

A Quetzal, the national bird of Guatemala. it's even on their flag!

my last bird was the turkey and the bird pose was an original piece from a several different reference sources, as opposed to my first five birds which were more like direct copies of one reference picture. All that to say that I am going to make all my future pieces completely original in pose, by referencing multiple sources.

yea, yea, boring, boring, where are the pictures?!


I started with a thumbnail sketch to get an idea of how to pose the bird. I actually like this sketch so much I might just do a miniature version on the left over green paper.

Here is the final sketch on newsprint. Like I said earlier I pulled from about five different references pictures for this pose.

Here is my first color pass. I felt like keeping a record of more of the process this time.

Here is the almost final bird, the branch still isn't penciled in and I still have some adjustments to make to the bird.

And here is a curent final, I plan to set it aside for at least this next week so that I can just look at it and see if there is anything I still want to fix or adjust before signing and framing it.

And here is a bonus, I kept my pencil shavings from the pencils that I used in this piece, Im just like that...

Pirates Caricatured

I watched Pirates of the Caribbean last night and decided to caricature my favorite characters.

Ragetti and Pintel

Barbossa

Will Turner

Joshamee Gibbs

and Captain Jack Sparrow, of course.

Sadly that is all but I cant wait to do more.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Ok its not Thanksgiving yet, but tis the season blah blah blah...

All my past colored pencil birds have been relatively small pieces. my biggest is 12.5"x16" so I wanted to do a bigger piece for a change. This piece is 19"x25" almost double of anything I have done yet. A bigger canvas means that I can put more detail into the piece but it also means that It will be more work. This piece took four days, I usually try to finish a piece in a day but I think that since I walked away from it and came back several times I was able to enhance it, I will try to do this more in the future.

Original sketch with pencil on Newsprint. All my past Colored Pencil Birds (im just gonna say CPBs now...) have been directly from a single reference picture, like my eagle 'Freedom' I found the original on a cover of National Geographic and then free-hand sketched a slightly larger version on newsprint before transferring that to black paper. But this one is my first piece to be a completely original piece, I used four pictures of turkeys to reference the anatomy but everything about it is 100% original. Im really amazed by how terrible this sketch looks compared to the final, several of my other CPBs looked almost just as good when in the sketch stage but all the same there you go.

I had a hard time transferring the original sketch to the black paper since the carbon copy paper I use comes up black, and on black paper that is tough to see. In the end I had to just re-sketch with a pencil on the black paper.

Here is a Close up of the tail feathers.

Close up of the Head, I love the texture I was able to get on neck

And here is the final, I am looking to start selling some prints and originals, If you know anyone who is interested let me know.

I love how the main colors on a turkey our our nations colors, Red, White, and Blue and the rest is brown like a flagpole (maybe im thinking too much...)

Is there a bird you would like me to do? leave me a comment saying what you want to see.

Simple Super-Villians

Clayface vs. the Dynamic Duo

Half-baked Bizarro, That's how he's always been...

Henry Jones Sr.

I was watching Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade the other night with my siblings and decided to caricature good 'ol Sean Connery. I'd like to do more sketches of movie characters like this. Give me some time...

Out of Blackness...

It's a ninja, duh!

I wanted to practice comic book style shading and found this outlined sketch, so I decided to shade it.

'Courageous'

My mom has always loved roosters. She had two reasons.

1. They call early in the morning and she always likes to be up early. (Although if you have ever talked to someone who has a rooster they will tell you that the rooster just crows when it feels like
2. It is a reminder to my mom of Peter's denial of Jesus. It reminds her to stand up for truth even at one's own cost.

"Have I not commanded you? Be strong and courageous! Do not tremble or be dismayed, for the LORD your God is with you wherever you go." (Joshua 1:9 NASB)

This was one of my fastest pieces. original sketch to final 2 hours

Anyway. Here is the final.

By the way that white mass below and right of his eye is not a growth, it is his earlobe. af first I was unsure.

Speak Friend and Enter

A few months ago when I was away, my mom painted one of the walls in my bedroom to be a chalkboard. Since then I have doodled on it but never really done any art on it. Then it hit me, the perfect illustration for chalk. A to scale rendition of the Door into Moria.

Each WIP picture is the result of about an hour or two's work.

 First I set up a grid so as to get the proportions right. each square is 1' squared the ending drawing was 6'x8' I did want to actually sketch part of the picture so I put in the rune at the bottom.

I put in the middle hammer and star first because they had very distinct places on the grid
The arch was pretty easy I knew bassed off of the refrence photo that the arch had a radius of 2' so I attached the chalk to a 2' piece of string to make the perfect arch. same with the outer arch just 8 inches added to the length of the string. Finally I put in the runes in the upper corners.

This was a pretty easy hour, I just put in the crown, stars and circle at the top of the arch.

I put in the columns and started the trees. This part was kinda hard because there was a lot of gestimation on where the branches were. some where close enough to spots on the grid that I fudged them a little. I also discovered that the rune I put in with the grid at the bottom was to small so I erased it but didn't get around to fixing it this pass.

 I finished the trees and apparently forgot about the Rune at the bottom again.

The final pass was by far the hardest, but also funnest. I had to insert the runes in the arch. I started at either end and worked to the middle to make sure that it would fit. And I finally put in that bottom rune, odd that what I ment to do first ended up being last.

The Final with the handsome artist for scale. Photo credit younger brother Joseph

The door is very fitting on this wall since the laundry room is on the other side, and we often refer to that as the Black Chasm! If I could change one thing I would paint the outlet black. 

Melon!
mr_anderson

'Intrepid'

Another colored pencil bird! Here is the original on newsprint

And the final on textured royal blue paper

stay tuned for the next installment...

'Bold'

I said I would have another bird, and here it is. I sketched the original a couple of months ago and finally had some time on my hands to transfer it to the paper and color it in with pencil.

Give me some time and I'll create more bird pieces.

Mine!

Could they be more annoying!?

spiderman

I'm going to color it soon.

Doc Ock

A friend, the incredible John Mathis, lent me some classic The Amazing Spider-Man comics and I saw Doc Ock again. His four arms provide the artist with the opportunity to display a strong Line of Action.

The Man of Steel

To follow up that last almost superman...

The real deal

I was originally trying to sketch Superman flying backwards, but the sketch kinda got away from me... My brother has this knack for being witty so after I told him it was supposed to be Superman he wrote the caption. 

The caption reads: Superman? Yea, he's cool...

Remember, remember the 4th of July...

The Fourth of July 2012.

It was Symphony in the Park night and they played Tchaikovsky's 1812 Overture, complete with cannon fire!

Fruity

Once again at Panera. There weren't any interesting people so I sketched a strawberry that was on the wall.

People...

I love trying to capture a moment. Time travels so fast and we miss it, but if we could only slow everything down and savor the moments...

 ...writting...

...fellowshiping...

...stitching...

...sketching...

...posing...

John Williams in the Park

At the Symphony in the Park about a month ago the Conductor conducted a montage of John William's greatest works. One of pieces was the flight in the asteroids.

And of course the theme to Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Drapery

I was at the beach and my sister was reading on the couch, so naturally I sketched what I saw. I like pen on paper because it is very unforgiving. If you mess up you have to figure out how to use and manipulate a mistake into an accurate line.