This painting was commissioned by a friend of mine as a Father’s Day gift. She wanted something that would show how encouraging and devoted her husband is to their daughters, and decided to focus on when her oldest daughter first rode her bike without the training wheels. I thought this was a great idea, and did this initial sketch:
As you can see, the father is focusing on his bike riding daughter, but is still aware of, and protecting, his younger daughter, who is very interested in a butterfly. I did a revised sketch which basically followed the shapes in the rough sketch, but I updated and clarified the expressions and clothing. I also tried to make the faces look more like the real people I was trying to depict:
The next step was to try and figure out what how to color the image. Here is my color comp, done in Photoshop. I had access to a video of the event I was depicting, so I was able to be very specific about the colors of the bike, the helmet, clothing, etc., which was very helpful:
When it came to the final painting, you’ll notice that I decided to add some more trees to fill in the background, and I changed the colors of the young daughter’s clothing to reflect the colors of the father’s favorite sports team. This was one of the most detailed paintings I’ve done to date, and I’m really pleased with how it turned out. Thanks for reading!
Month: May 2017
Christmas fish
This is the image for my 2015 Christmas card. I was in a staff meeting at work, and was thinking about undersea creatures (because so far my Christmas cards have featured underwater animals), when this idea of a normally predatory angler fish setting aside his violent tendencies to use his luminescent lure as a “Christmas tree” light popped into my head. Here is my initial sketch:
I figured that I would have a coral shaped like a tree, with some starfish to look like decorations. I eventually got rid of the various other fish though, because I really liked the look of the little dumbo octopus (a real deep-ocean octopus) I’d drawn, and decided to just have more of them. I also added an eel to look a little like a streamer wrapping around the tree. Here is my cleaned-up sketch:
I think those octopuses look really cute, and I am particularly proud of the gentle and satisfied expression on the face of the angler fish. The finished image is pen and ink with watercolor (and a little help from Photoshop). I’m really pleased with how it turned out.