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This is a color and lighting painting for a DreamWorks Halloween short called "The Pig Who Cried Werewolf".

The remarkable Harry Beckhoff drew this tiny picture of a man scared by a black cat in 1913. What a marvelous design. Many artists would feel constrained by the actual size or shape of a cat.  Or they might struggle over the fact that a cat walks on the ground around our ankles, so you are obligated to draw the entire body if you want to show the face. But Beckhoff understood that the design comes first.  Everything else flows from that.

The computer gaming industry was launched using just a few primitive elements. Two or three colored pixels were all that was necessary to construct a story in the minds of viewers: a red pixel might represent a missile trying to knock out that green pixel before it hits blue pixel earth. Later would come photo-realistic graphics, complex story lines and motion sensitive technology.  But the most important step-- turning viewers into believers-- was achieved with just a few basic visual symbols.  Our imaginations did the rest.   It's amazing how a visual image--even a single red pixel--  gives our minds a starting place for belief in scenarios where mere words might fail to persuade.   Even the most far fetched ideas become more plausible once we can visualize them. The newly released movie Argo tells the true story of the rescue of American diplomats hiding in the Canadian embassy in 1979 after  a mob of Islamic militants took over the US embassy....

Here's a reminder that my "Painting in watercolor and gouache" workshop is this coming this Saturday, October 20, 12-8pm. To enroll contact LAAFA. This painting is watercolor with a few touches of gouache on Arches watercolor paper, 15"x20".

Howard Pyle (1853-1911) was the father of American illustration.   His powerful compositions (such as these horizontal stripes across a background color field)... ...had their origin in Pyle's small sketchbooks where he developed the designs for his pictures. In some of Pyle's sketches we see him carefully mapping the placement of figures and objects in space: But my favorites are the ones where we see Pyle wrestling with the abstract designs of his paintings:   These images are courtesy of the good folks at the Delaware Art Museum which owns a treasure trove of Pyle's sketchbooks showing the master at work (Thanks, Mary and Erin!) Figure study

A village scene I did for one of the Shrek projects.

These unpublished sketches are by the illustrator E.F. Ward (1892-1990). In an era before photography became convenient, illustrators filled sketchbooks with meticulous reference sketches of props and period costumes.  Like a squirrel storing nuts for the winter, they kept records of little details and touches that might be useful for some future assignment.   Today, an illustrator who wanted to draw someone in an historical outfit would not have to go through this.  They could easily pluck a dozen reference photos from the internet. Lest you think that Ward's detailed sketches are anachronistic, he also did a series of faster, smaller figure studies and gesture drawings.  Done for a different purpose,  they were drawn in a much simpler style: In good, workmanlike fashion, Ward only devoted as much time to a sketch as its purpose warranted. Ward's sketches reveal a hard working, talented artist.  We don't remember him much today because he had the gre...

Fundamentals and advanced techniques for creating dynamic images with traditional gouache and watercolor media. Saturday October 20th, 12-8pm at the Los Angeles Academy of Figurative Art.  Enroll now online or call (877) MY-LAAFA (695-2232) The workshop will include: 12-2:30pm: Slideshow presentation illustrating the materials, process and approach for successful painting with water based media. 3-5pm: Instructor demonstration from a costumed model. 5-6pm: Dinner break. 6-8pm: Student painting time from a costumed model with instructor feedback. See you there!