Happy Christmas!

Blake and I dressed in Christmas gear. I gave this to him a few days ago as an early Christmas gift (and as a way to give his room a little Christmas spirit!) Hope you all have a wonderful holiday!

Love,

M

star wars request

I had too much fun doing this caricature! Courtney and Josh. 30 minutes.

extreme caricature...

well, i guess this isn't TOO extreme. but i tried. thanks david, for modeling.

Courtney as Jane from Tarzan

about 25 - 30 minutes.

Quick Sketch continued..

I painted over the sketch using Corel Painter. As you can tell, this isn't fully developed. I'm not sure if I'm going to take this to finish....

quick sketch

HOWDY

I did this caricature of my boyfriend and me during my down time at work today. I like the way it turned out! Funny thing is...we actually dressed up as a cowboy and indian for a friend's birthday party a couple of weeks ago.

Thanks for visiting!

-M

more caricatures

They were such a cute couple! You can't really tell from the picture, but Fiona was wearing these really awesome purple contacts. HyPnOtiC.

Michelle wanted to be turned into "Belle" from Beauty and the Beast for her 19th birthday. She was such a sweetheart and had her caricature done once before on her 3rd birthday.

Thanks for lookin'!

-M

oh hai

I love doing caricatures of couples. It's just fun to see how people interact with one another. These are quite old (about a month or so). I definitely need to work on exaggerating gesture and form. I'm workin' on it!

My friend Cynthia and her boyfriend Chris.

Nick and Abby, an adorable couple! They were smiling the entire time.

And just for kicks, a caricature I did of my boyfriend and I. I should be posting some pages from my sketchbook and other things besides caricatures. Gotta work, work, work. More things to come!

All Good Things,

-M

neglect.

Dear Blog,

I have not been a good blogger again. My internship, job and personal life have been keeping me busy! My internship will be ending in about 2 weeks, so after that I will be moving forward to new opportunities! I'm sad to leave, but I'm excited for what lies ahead. Anywho, before I get to personal on here...here's some caricatures from last month! I have newer favorites from the passed week, but for some reason my phone is not letting me send them as attachments to my email. wamp wamp waaammmmppp. **Note: I always ask permission from my subjects before posting their caricatures on my blog.** ENJOY!

-M

Kendall was an absolute doll, and such a polite little lady. About 20 minutes.
Ross, one of my co-workers. He's absolutely hilarious and a math wizard. About 25 minutes.

watercolorin'

Here's the latest project I'm working on. I'm going to be in another art show in July with some art friends and the theme for the show is Pirates VS Ninjas. When I think of pirates and ninjas I think of cheesey action movies, so I decided to do a drawing (or ATTEMPT to do a drawing) of an action scene. I'm painting with watercolor on a 18x24 sheet of arches watercolor paper. This progress shot is at about 3 hours of work. I probably have about 4 more hours to go. I want the colors to be more vibrant, but the paper is so absorbent that it sucks up a lot of the pigment. I guess I need to use more pigment and less water?

Here's a caricature I did last week of a cool kid named Ian. Him and his twin brother, Ethan, both had their caricatures drawn separately. It was really cool to see how I interpreted Ian and how my co-worker, Kim, interpreted Ethan. I wish I took a picture of Kim's painting because it turned out awesome! This caricature took about 20-25 minutes. **Note** I always ask my guests' permission to use and take photographs of my work before posting.

It's June already!?

I've been bad about posting lately....I plan on doing some 30 minute speed paintings and scanning in sketches. But for now, here is a caricature from work! 40 minutes.

what an eventful month!

The month of may has been nothing but fantastic; both in my professional/college and personal affairs. Last Saturday I walked for my college commencement and just yesterday I heard back from a company that I had wanted to intern for, and learned that I got the part! Those are just little snippets of how wonderful this month has been to me. ANYWHO. I apologize for the delay on posts...but here is my finished cyborg self portrait to make up for it (kinda)! I am pretty happy with the way it turned out.

I'm planning on this summer to be filled with lots of hard work, fun, and of course lots of growing. CHEERS!!

All Good Things,

M

chicken run, finally finished!

I think I'm finally happy with this illustration. I have been working on this off and on for forever (most of the work came in the passed 2 weeks) but I'm happy with the end result.

more caricatures

here are just a couple of my favorite caricatures from my shift tonight. the side view of alyssa took about 12 minutes and the caricature of jordan and chelsea took a little under 40 minutes. they were so fun to draw!

fave caricature of last night

this was the last caricature i did before my shift ended last night. 2 charming little ladies. 40 minutes.

cyborg revamped!

I decided to redo the cyborg painting because I wasn't liking where it was going. I think a huge part of it had to do with the fact that I started painting way too early. I hadn't really established form or value, and I got lost during the painting process. I still have quite a bit of work to do, but now I feel that I can move forward! I really like the value study. I can't wait to bring out the darkest darks and lightest lights in the final. So far, I'd say this is about 5 hours of work or so.

cyborggg

I'm turning myself into a cyborg. I changed the angle a bit, but I think I may scrap this and revert to the pose in the original picture or even do a different concept. I'm struggling! But I still have about 3 weeks to work on this. Hopefully this turns out the way I want it to.

hi ho, hi ho!

This is a scan of an old background drawing I did about a year and a half ago. I don't know why I never went ahead with painting it, because I actually kind of like it. Kind of. It kind of reminds me of Snow White. I'll do some digital color studies soon!

kind of.

Work In Progress

This is an illustration I am currently working on for my Advanced Digital Illustration class. I'm starting to eliminate initial sketch lines on another layer and block in color. I think the house in the background may be off perspective, so i'll need to fix that before I go into detail.

Flashback Friday

Hmm...that sounds pretty catchy, eh? Maybe I'll make that a weekly post. Anywho, sorry I haven't posted in a while. I should be posting some new sketches or newer work...but decided to take a walk down memory lane and post an idea for a background drawing I did about a year ago. Looking back at it now, it's quite flat. I think if I were to change it I'd make the plants in the foreground larger, the log more cylinder-ish (new word?) and add more texture to the ground elements. That's enough critiquing for now! I'm going to go enjoy some me ice cream...and continue working on an illustration about a girl dropping her ice cream cone.

-m

finished ballerina

In an earlier post, I had uploaded some sketches of this character. I actually like the sketches more than this character illustration...this could be cleaned up a bit more and I need to fix the anatomy but I'll throw in the towel for now.

sassy

Quick sketch from my sketchbook. Look at dem curves!

quick sketch

Caricaturing...

I've been working at Disneyland as a caricature artist for about 8 months now (been working in the park for about 3 years), and I realized I haven't taken many pictures of my work. I wish I could show how much I've progressed over the past couple of months. Each day at work is fun and interesting since I get to meet and paint people from all over. I'm really lucky to be working here, and it's such great practice!

This picture was a special request. It was their 2nd year anniversary, and they wanted to be standing outside of the castle in their wedding attire. I accidentally deleted the finished product, and I'm bummed out! It came out really vibrant with green grass, a pink castle and bright fuschia, violet and red flowers. It took about 2 hours to finish. (they didn't stay the whole time, they just left pictures for references.)
This adorable couple was visiting from mexico. I absolutely loved their hats! Took about 40 minutes.

She was visiting from Utah. She told me to give her a "California Tan" haha! approximately 15 minutes.

Meet Lacey

Having some fun with a new character, Lacey. She's silly, adventurous and her favorite food is ice cream.

In Class Doodle

This is a quick doodle I did today in class. This boy is fierce! I'll probably angle his arm and axe a little bit to make it look more dynamic.

Poseidon's Lair?

Here is my finished painting for project 2 for my advanced digital illustration class. It was supposed to be Poseidon's Lair, but looking at it now, I feel like it looks way too feminine. I don't really get a sense of Poseidon, the god of the sea and earth shaker. haha. I'm glad I realized this once I finished with the painting. Oh well. This is due tomorrow and I don't think I'll have time to create a new painting......... This is me bi-failing.

All Good Things,

M

quick sketch

A quick sketch of a viking! My friend Jennifer asked me if I'd be interested in making a painting for an upcoming show next month, and the theme is Vikings and Marauders. Fun!

Tiny Dancer

Developing a character. She is a ballerina in the distant future, a time where humans have mutated and adapted to environmental conditions due to hundreds of years of pollution, nuclear war, drug abuse, and exposure to toxic chemicals. Since it's in the future, I'll probably re-design the costume to make it more futuristic looking. This was hand drawn, scanned, and toned in digital water on Corel. Enjoy!

-M

chicken, re-visted!

I finally started painting this sketch that I did a while back for illustration friday. I think I'm going to be taking this one to finish and hopefully it'll be going in my portfolio. I'm still struggling with the feathers of the chicken, and have lots of refining to do. I like how it looks as if the boy and his chicken are on fire though! Go, chicken! GOOO!!!

- M

Illustration Friday topic of the week is: swarm

I guess I'm cheating for this week's illustration friday project, since I'm re-using a painting that I finished about 2.5 months ago. But I think it fit really well with the topic of the week "swarm".

This painting is based on a dream that I had a couple of years ago. I was running through an open field, and a swarm of bees started following me, and slowly started to take over my body. I kept running faster and the bees transformed into beautiful flowers. I painted this in acrylic on illustration board. I hope you enjoy it!

-M

Finished. Finished? Finished...

This will be due tomorrow morning at 9am. It's finished for now. I'm just kind of tired of looking at it so I need to start something brand new. I've been sketching a lot lately. I'll post some sketches soon.

-M

Poseidon's Lair Concept

I needed to start a new painting because I got tired of looking at the castle, so I decided to start drawing thumbnails for project number 2. The concept that I'm playing around with is "Poseidon's Lair". I went a little further with one of the thumbnails and drew it on painter and painted with digital watercolor to explore value. Anywho....I'm not sure how I feel yet about Poseidon's Lair, but I'll continue to work up more thumbnails/value studies and hopefully I come up with something better.

-M

Ice, Ice baybehh....

Here is a new painting I started on today. I'd say this is about 2.5 hours of painting, probably at it's 30% mark. Before that I had done at least 10 thumbnails before I came up with a composition I was satisfied with. The purpose of this assignment is to illustrate "The Castle of the Great Winter Lord". We also had the option of illustrating a treehouse, an abandoned battle ship, an underwater sea lab, etc., but I decided to go with the winter castle. Although I'm still a slow painter (speed will only come with more practice!!) I'm having a lot of fun with it so far. Especially since I'm starting to get a little more comfortable with corel painter. I'll update later on in the week with more progress shots.

-M

Tom Hardy Study

This was a watercolor study I did a few months ago. At the time I was looking at the works of J.C. Leyendecker and Robert McGinnis, and I think the influence shows in this watercolor sketch. I just love everything about the original Tom Hardy photo. His dapper attire, the lighting, his expression, and of course the dashing Tom Hardy himself. I could have gone a lot darker to add more contrast, but I was kind of enjoying the simplicity of the value range.

Thanks for visiting!

-M