Come Out of Your Cocoon

Ever feel like you are sitting in your cocoon, stirring around, growing, developing talents and abilities, and beautiful WINGS, and soon you'll come out and be AMAZING and confident and excited to meet the world!? That's what this painting is about. In our own timing, we blossom. Again and again and again!

Caged

Dragon's got a new pet and he's readin up on "Pet Training!"  Ever felt trapped. Caged. Controlled. Given up. Watched. Don't give up little Princess!! Mario is on his way!!!

More heads!!

So this class got WAY more fun!!!!  Look at them!!!!

Well... if you wanna.  :)

Name this man!

A personal fav.

(name this actor!!)

(neice)

(nephew)

(my mama!)

(Daddio)

(guess who....)

Baby Thumbelina gets kidnapped!

This was our most recent assignment in Will's class, "Children's Book Illustration."  We had to choose a scene from Thumbelina.  This is where Mr. Toad shows up and kidnaps Thumbelina!  Rude!

THREE ANIMALS TRAVELING (unfinished)

For "Children's Book Illustration" we were to do "three animals traveling" and I decided to do animals escaping the circus together by way of cannon!

Will Terry was more concerned about the design and composition than rendering to finish, so a lot of the class didn't finish this one, and spent more time on the planning and design.  This is how far I got!

The Rooster who Longed to DANCE

This is a story idea about the Rooster who was expected to SING (it's his duty to wake up the farm) but he really longed to be a dancer.  So at night he would dance til the sun came up.  Living his real dream!

My own MURAL is finished! And in the paper. :)

Had awesome help with the painting part.  Here's the link if you wanna see the article!!

UVU Press Releases » Blog Archive » UVU Art Students Create Mural For Orem City Fire Department

Story Idea: My Pet Hippopatamus!

In "Advanced Illustration" we get to choose our own assignments.  This was my first idea.  :)

This kid wants a PET HIPPO (of course Mom and Dad musn't know--hippo is top secret) and this is where he hides hippo at night.

IN CLASS Head Models

In class we have 3 hours and I paint much larger.  

 I know.  His hat-hair was awesome.  And his sunburn.

Head Painting at Home!

So we have to paint FOURTY EIGHT, yes 48, practically 100 (feels like it), heads OUTSIDE of class as homework.  Yes yes yes it's good for me.  Worth it.  Valuable.  All those words that mean good for me.  But... seriously.  48!  That's 96 hours!  

So here's a handful of the paintings I've done with the help of many friends who were kind enough to come sit and watch a movie while I painted them in my living room!  Yeah they're pretty awesome.  Thanks friends!!!

(below) Denise comes to paint with me almost every time.  It's much easier with a painting buddy.  Thanks Denise!  She's getting quite good.

PAINT BLOTS!

So sometimes when I'm done painting I look at my pallet where I did all my paint mixing and think... "Ooooo, pretty!"  Totally art!  Can you imagine if I cropped in on a single part of one of these?  Hey why don't I try it real quick... awesome.

And now cropped:  (pretty eh?)

My fav:

These remind me of my fav chinese artist:  "Chu Teh-Chun."  (look him up right now!)

From "PAINTING THE HUMAN HEAD" class--this was my painting pallet at the end of a day.  My friends and I made a game where to fold it, SMOOSH it, open it... and go, "Oooooh... I see a bunny!  I see a crazy face!  I see bears fighting!"  Here is one example:

Starting to GET it!!

These are the last two days of in class model paintings.  Amy gave us a demo the time before these, and I think it reeeally helped.  Look look!!  They look like people!  First one has jaundis.  Poor guy.  His name was Boris.  Today we painted Ryan!  He's looking much more healthy.  ;)

"Bugs"

Bugs

I like bugs.
Black bugs.
Green bugs.
Bad bugs,
Mean bugs,

Any kind of bug.

A bug in a rug,
A bug in the grass,
A bug on the sidewalk,
A bug in a glass - 
I like bugs.

Round bugs,
Shiny bugs,
Fat bugs,
Buggy bugs,
Big bugs,
Lady bugs,
I like bugs.

- Margaret Wise Brown

Still needs a lot of touching up.  Lady bug still has no spots.  But here it is!  First assignment for Will Terry's class.  One of the most AMAZING children's book illustrators I know.  How did I get so lucky to have him teach me this class!

Lee be my art friend (see her awesomeness here), among many other wonderful things, and she lets me come to her and her hub Tyler's house to do homework.  You know those days where you have to paint aaaallll day like until midnight even? ...You don't?  Oh.  Anyway, it's WAY easier to keep going when you wanna poke your eyeballs out... when someone is suffering next to you.  Thanks to lots of laughs, jokes, stories, movies, music, Tyler entertaining and encouraging, while we paint, it all helps me to just keep swimming... just keep swimming...