Girl Scouts

Here are some illustrations I did last summer for Girl Scouts of the USA and Trophy Nut Company. They were done for a program called "Nuts for Knowledge" where the Girl Scouts sell nuts and snack mixes to raise money for their troop. The illustrations were used on program materials and activity sheets geared to different levels of Girl Scouting. You can see everything at their website: Nuts for Knowledge. It was the perfect project for me since I got to paint lots of cute kids and cute animals - it was a lot of fun. :-)

Gaffy Goose

Ever since I did a ton of Museum research a while back, I've been a bit obsessed with the whole idea of Wunderkammer - Cabinets of Curiosities. In order to keep it somewhat under control, I've tried to keep it to finding one cool thing a month or thereabouts. Super happy about March's find (a little early but it was a one-time deal) - a Two-Headed Goose which I just won today at the American Dime Museum Liquidation Auction. It was a bit tense, but bidding live is SO cool! I'm thinking it's a really bad thing I've discovered the whole world of Live Auctions on eBay.

One-Eyed Abe

This here's a close-up of the picture I did for this week's Imagine Learning Art Challenge. I wanted to try painting skin tones from a b/w photo. This was done primarily in Painter with the Artist Chalk brush. I did a bit of touch-up at the end using some of the airbrushes to add a little extra grit, and then in photoshop added a touch of the noise filter.

Friendly March

Been hearing from lotsa folks that this has been arriving in their mailbox - so guess it's ok to post. This was a really fun project. I was given the magazine's theme for the month, and told to come up with something. I was fairly stressed trying to think up clever ideas - and finally settled on two I thought were alright. At the last minute I thought, I really should have three sketches, and quickly did a sketch of the above. So naturally that's the one they picked! I actually liked this idea best as well.

I wish I'd worked on her hair a bit more so it was more hair-like (less helmet-like), and fixed the center chrysalis that is absolutely in the wrong perspective... oops. Oh well. I hope I get to do this again sometime. All done in photoshop from thumbnails to final.

Oz Force - WIP

I just realized I haven't finished a work art challenge since early december.. uh.. I will try to do better. Above is the most recent topic - The Wizard of Oz. I wondered: what if Dorothy didn't return to Kansas and joined with her friends to form a band of intergalactic space heroes? Obviously, they would be super awesome and have cheesy space guns.

This is just the pencil drawing. I've got the color comp worked out (emerald green uniforms of course!) Hopefully I'll get a chance to finish it later this week - I'd like to actually finish one of these!