You Know You Want One

Okay folks.  The time is at hand.  My BFA Final Show is near.  The show is going to include a whole bunch of children's illustrations, some plush toys and even a picture book dummy of a story I'm writing.  The show goes up mid July in the HFAC (Fine Arts Building) on BYU campus.  The opening reception is July 20 (that's a Tuesday.)

I've been working on an illo for the invitations that I'm going to send out soon.  This is what I've got so far:

The name of the show is:  Monsters Make Me Happy (an art show for kids).  The name was Tiff's idea.  I love it.

So if any of you out there would like a copy of this image (in color) for your very own to keep and cherish forever, then please send me an email with your mailing address in it.  (My email address is bign.strong@gmail.com).  In about two weeks you will receive a postcard invite to my awesome show.  Then all of your wildest dreams will come true.

A Job For BYU

I just finished up a job for LDS Philanthropies (located on BYU campus.)  It was a fun job.  Really nice people.  These are some of the illos for the job.

Another Spot

Rarrrrrrrrghfhghfhgfhtharrrrrrrrr. That's what monsters say when they dance. I think.

I'm trying a new way of planning out color. Instead of doing a straight up color study I just decided to put some little color swatches together to see how I like it. Some people plan out their light source and try and decide whether they want cool light and warm shadows and such ... but none of that really makes sense to me. I just put down what looks right to me.

Spots

But not on dalmatians.

These are some quick spot illos I did this week. I think I'm getting close to understanding this process. Now I just need to do another 40 or 50 of these so that I can get good at it.

Leafs (!)

Fall/Autumn is great.  My favorite time of year in fact.  Fall/Autumn is so great that it is the only season that holds the honor of being named twice.  I know right?  Blows my mind too.  Step back Winter; you can't handle the grandeur.

I was messing around with some paint on Sunday and I came up with this.  (gouache and ink)

Monster Comics

A rough comic I've been working on. I'm going to pretty-fy it up more over the weekend.

Mail Monster

Not "Male Monster." Though it doesn't look very feminine to me.

Little White Dog

Some more images for work.  This book is about places in the neighborhood.

Eat, Eat

Some more Chinese textbook stuff for work. This story teaches about size relationships (an early math concept.) The text I got started with a kid and a cat. Cat eats and cat grows bigger. Cat eats again and cat grows bigger again. You are now bigger than the dog, etc. The only reason I could think of for the cat to be growing so fast was for the kid to be a mad scientist. Seems logical to me. What, you have a better idea? I don't write these things. I just draw the silly pictures.

Pig Flu Hates Me

So, Tiffany and I got very mucho sick last week.  All week.  We had an unhappy visit from this guy:

I'll spare you the gruesome details but let me say it was unpleasant.

T-Rex-a-saurus

So today I decided to visit the dinosaur zoo and I'm glad I did.  I got some great sketches over at the T-Rex exhibit.  Most of the time you show up to see a T-Rex you never get to see it or it just lays around in the sun.  But today they it was feeding time and even though it was obvious that the T-Rex wanted to hunt and not be fed (you can't just repress 10 million years of instinct) it chased that goat all over the pen until it got it.  Wonderful.

Also, I found this great old piece of paper to draw it on too.

Counting in Chinese

Some more stuff from work. This is a book teaching counting from one to ten in Chinese. Who is more appropriate to teach this than the Monkey King? Nobody, that's who.

In the story the Monkey King is born from a rock and then, seeing he is alone, creates multiples of himself from his hairs. Then he has ten friends. Count them.

Pretty fun idea for a counting book.

Two Posts in One Day? Is This Possible?

Some more stuff I've been doing for the early reader books for the Chinese Immersion Program.  I think my boss was expecting this story to be about two kids and not two owls.  She's cool with it.

Experimental Pork

This is an experiment I'm working on for my portfolio. I've got a bunch of these ink drawings from work (the Chinese early readers) and I want to give them an interesting color treatment that has more appeal than the junky color they currently have. When I get a bunch of these together it will really beef up my portfolio which feels sparse and unfocused at the moment.

Which of these do you like? What's working? What isn't working? Please be honest, this is for posterity.