Dragon Sketches

2 hours total

I spent most of my time designing their silhouettes and then used a clipping mask to quickly rough in some form....
Fun times!

Schoolism Live Vancouver featuring Pixar Story Artist Louie Gonzales

Aside from being a full time artist, I have the incredible honor of coordinating Schoolism Vancouver. This past Saturday and Sunday we featured Pixar story artist Louie Gonzales, who provided an incredible life drawing workshop.

We had a great drawing model, Vanessa Loubert, on stage while Louie guided us through an intensive curriculum aimed at strengthening our ability to communicate story through our character poses. He went over line of action, shape, silhouette, space, exaggeration, extrapolation, and story. We all drew the model after each lesson, and used our smart phones to email Louie our work which he drew over on the projector...sooo insightful! By the end of it we were all very charged up and more clear as to how Pixar remains one of the best storytelling studios on the planet.

Throughout the workshop Louie emphasized the importance of two questions to ask ourselves when drawing:
1) What is the main idea of the pose?
2) How can I best represent that idea?

Make sure you join the mailing list and watch all the free interviews on Schoolism.com and join our Facebook group for future updates and discounts.

"The Fantastic Dream" watercolour

This commissioned work was deeply enjoyable for me, and a big honor. Craig Allen Conoley, owner/director of Partus Films, hired me to create this watercolor painting based on his childhood memories, dreams, and family memoirs. Craig will bring this to his tattoo artist to have permanently committed to his left arm as a sleeve.

I have had the privilege of working with Craig on Ian Keteku's "Kay", and am a big fan of his work.

With a focus on surreal composition and alternating value patterns, I did my best to honor the very personal concepts of this piece.

"The Fantastic Dream"
watercolour and colerase pencil on 140lb hot press cotton paper
12x14 inches

"Transcendent 02" Digital painting

Snuck in some personal art, amongst all the production work...

Sandra Wong poker player painting

Here's a painting I gave to my friend and co-worker, Sandra Wong, for her birthday. She is one inspirational lady as CEO of Lucky Lady Games, official Casino Champion poker player, and all around proprietor of awesomeness.

Gouache paint on pastel paper
5x7"

Monday's Sketch and a talk at Capilano University

Monday morning's warm up sketch...
1hr PS

A little talk I gave at Capilano University's always awesome animation department. Walking around their desks after, I was humbled giving advice to such a talented pool of artists.

Don Mossi sketch

Quick ballpoint warm-up sketch of Don Mossi, the greatest face America has ever seen.

Wormdeer speed painting

Wieeerd dreams last night....
45min PS

"Cognizant" speed sketch

40 min PS

Amanda Todd Painting

This painting was featured alongside a thoughtful article on the Georgia Straight's website...