family portraits video

just thought i'd check in and show you one of the freelance projects i completed mid-november 2011. clearly, i'm pretty behind in posting!

the client had already created his website, but wanted an illustrative logo for his company as well as an illustration based off of the logo. the company is a "small video production company" that creates "journalistic-style story telling, on-site videography, artful editing, and musical underscoring to [their] clients". pretty cool concept.

he was very specific and knew exactly what he wanted: a generic-looking tree. it needed to have a family-tree feeling.

sooo i created those. and then came the illustration (which had to be delivered in layers; he wanted to animate it so that the trunk came first, then the branches, fruit, etc). because the animation was going from logo morphing into full illustration (or something like that...i don't quite remember now), i had to place the illustration and logo in the exact same place in their frames. it took a bit of doing. here are the final images:

i also offered some branding consultation regarding typography, colors schemes, and layout. i'm excited to see how the company will turn out.

maybe sometime i'll post my experiments from this project (some of which are kinda cool). maybe. sometime. :)

a different painting process

i just came across my phone pictures, and found a few process photos that i took. they're not great quality, but it's interesting to see how a piece comes about. sometimes.

this was from bob barrett's head painting class last year. i love taking classes from multiple artists, because the techniques are always different. i try to emulate each professor and eventually i find what works for me and what doesn't. for example, in justin taylor's class, we often started with tight drawings underneath. in bob's class, we painted directly onto the canvas as shown below. 

similar to figure drawing, i found that i painted these best when i blocked in whatever was most obvious to me in the particular composition. in this 3-hour study, there was a strong light/shadow contrast. so i blocked in the darks and background first, because they were most prominent. the background created a cradle for the shape of her face. then i was able to work my way into refining the edges and shapes.

the end result may look familiar, because it was shown in this post.

that family class

remember this post? it was from justin taylor's head painting class. first off, justin taylor is an excellent artist (i want to paint like him!) and just an all-around stud. secondly, my classmates and our models were great. in fact, my tiny class was like a little family. or a therapy group. probably both.

after we practiced drawing for a good chunk of the semester, we started to paint. (dangit, i was supposed to post the drawings first but they're too light to photograph; i'll have to scan them. so you'll see this process backwards)

i really jive with justin's painting style: it's very drawing-oriented. when we eventually began painting, we did a drawing of our models first, transferred it to our substrate, then painted monochromatic over it, like you see in the first painting here. justin demoed on my drawing, so i finished fairly quickly and did another painting straight onto the board after (which is on the right):

then we did some studies without drawing first.
meet david. he has an awesome neck. 

then we did a series of short 20-minute paintings (left). eventually, we delved into color (right). 

(our model amanda is great, so though i'm really not a fan of this particular piece on the right, i put it up for her sake)....

...after we added white to our monochromatic paintings.

(i had to end with my favorites of this batch)

of course, we had a final project in full color, which was more conceptual in nature, and i finished it...two and a half months later. well, finished-ish. you'll see soon enough.

the big TOMS event way back when

there was a huge TOMS event that i was able to work way back on oct 15, which was super fun! it was at jmr at the gateway mall, and it was kind of a big deal. i couldn't figure out a way to blog it til now, when i caved and got the flikr pro account. (woot!)

as you can tell from those first self-portraits, we got shiny complimentary shoes and official TOMS shirt for working it. they asked us to write biographies and they put them up in front of our stations; i soon discovered i really enjoyed observing people look at the biographies before the event and get excited. i was happy to hear good things about my examples on display.


...aaaand check the commentary.

then, in december, i got to do another event! documentation of that one, and a commission, coming relatively soon. :)

remember that you can contact me to paint on your canvas shoes, too. custom paint job, just $30 (those materials are so dang expensive). i love me some swag.

este-hirsche!

so, i bowed out the estefan film during the summer, only because i started to go a little crazy with everything i had going on. i've hopped back on for just a few projects here and there. this is a portrait of estefan, in an al hirschfeld style. it's not fully approved yet, but we'll see how they like it. it was really fun to branch out into a style i've never tried.

and what did i see...

the other day, i walked into the h-fac and was pleasantly surprised to find this poster, plastered all over the walls:

i was happy because it's my drawing from last year's show. :) i was humbled that this drawing received 1st place last year, and even happier to share the so-called "winners podium" with my amazing friends natalie and nikki, whom i miss!

i'm excited to see the show for this year's competition: this exhibition is always one of my favorites.
i hope you come, too!
[feb 16 - feb 28, byu h-fac]

happy holidays from a legendary family

okay, have you been waiting in suspense?! 

happy late Christmas and new years! 

i took each of my siblings and made us all famous statues (though no actual body parts were photoshopped, with the exception of my arms  (or lack thereof). it took...some doing. at least, i was up all night Christmas eve and jonny (atlas) stayed up with me. so it's kind of our sibling Christmas card.

it's not the most thorough photoshop job, but it gets the point across. 

points to who can name the statues all correctly!

maybe i'll make a bitty (but rad) piece of art for the winner..... 

:)