Speed painting from life

It's been a busy month! Here's a speed paint looking out the window of the cafeteria at Brighton ski resort.

In case you haven't been keeping up on Phil's Christmas...

Here are a few pages from Phil's Christmas. It's the reason for the lack of posts over here. For more, go here!

Phil's Christmas starts today!

For the third year in a row, my sister and I are doing a countdown to Christmas with an illustration a day (she writes them, I draw them). Check it out over at Phil's Christmas!

Here's day one:

Sketches

More studies from Life (Life the series, not "life." How confusing.):

Bedtime sketches

A couple quick sketches from the last two nights.

Night sketching

While waiting for class to start.

Painting in the park

From life. I haven't done digital painting outdoors for a while. Getting a folding chair really helped things! Why didn't I think of that before? Who knows. But I'll certainly be doing more now that it's easier than trying to find a place to sit on a bench or a rock.

Chocolate Lab! It is a blog you should probably look at!

The other BG painter and I have started a blog for us Nickelodeon folks. Ok, so far it's just the two of us, but maybe eventually there will be others. In any case, you should go check it out because the other BG painter (Fred) is an amazing painter and you can see his work over there. You'll know it because it's the ones that aren't mine. Also, they say "Fred" below the posts.

Click the image to go there.

Reference and a lost polar bear

Poor polar bear is lost.

I've been watching "Life" - amazing cinematography and generally fascinating. Watching is slow going, however, because I can't stop pausing and painting little studies.

Sheeps

Someone glued the sheep together!

Arrival and Circle Tiger

Reference studies

This morning's doodle:


Reference studies from photos today.

Doodles from today and last week

One from life and one doodle

I'll leave you to figure out which is which.

Today's sketches!

I did a plein air painting class this weekend, so I guess this is sort of based on one of the locations, even though the weather was nothing like this.

And these two are just for fun

Long drawing

Look at it big and scroll starting from the left and going to the right. Blogger won't let me upload it any bigger than this, unfortunately. You can see it full size here

Hallway

My morning sketch from today

Driving and robot

The view I see when I drive to work and a robot.

A new job! And some sketches

So, I haven't posted here in quite awhile, and that's because I got a new job! I'm working at Nickelodeon as a Background Painter now! It's pretty amazing. I get there a little early in the mornings and usually do a little sketch. So here are four of those I did this week.

Take off!

I watched Lilo and Stitch last night - I think it may have influenced my ship design here. :D

Forest

Just a forest doodle. Still planning on posting stuff from my trip, but I need to collect it all. Lots of sketches and some pretty unreal photographs.

Norway!

Hey! I'm in Norway right now, hence the lack of posts here. I've been sketching, but this post is going to be all pictures. I didn't take these, my sister Laura, who is quite the photographer, did.

My sister and I (she's the one who looks like a person, I'm the one who looks like Cousin It) have been traveling around here since June 9th. This is probably one of the most beautiful places I've ever been. We started out in a tiny town called Solvorn, where we stayed at the homiest hostel I've ever visited. It's run by a guy who used to bike around the world before he started Eplet Bed and Apple.

They have the friendliest sheep I have ever met. These guys are like dogs - they come running up to you, they want to be petted, and they love feeding time. When they eat out of your hand, they snuffle food up with their funny, velvety lips.

I used to ride a bike all the time. And about 10-12 years ago, I pretty much stopped. My last two short bike excursions in the past two years were a bit terrifying, so I was a little nervous to go out riding on real roads. But it was great! This is me being determined. In case you can't tell.



More cool stuff from that area. We hiked on that glacier!

Then we went to Geiranger fjord, which was very dramatic:


This shot is from 2 am - this is about as dark as it got there at night.

We saw a rainbow over the fjord! (it's above the lit hillside in the middle-ish area)

Now we are in the Lofoten Islands above the Arctic Circle. I can't do justice to how powerful this landscape is. The islands rise straight out of the sea into tall, jagged cliffs. The land feels imbued with ancient and powerful magic. Solvorn and Geiranger seemed like places for fairies and trolls, but Lofoten seems like a land of gods. Towns are only on the edges, right near the sea. The interior is left to sheer cliffs, heather-covered hillsides and the occasional hut. Hiking up the mountains, it feels like you could turn a corner and the town below would have disappeared, leaving you in a different world. I'll leave you with this picture from when we drove into Lofoten on a foggy afternoon. Soon to come - pictures of the peaks, midnight sun, and some very smelly dried fish (I guess you'll have to trust me on the smell).


Also - tonight we skinny dipped in the Arctic Ocean! It was... brisk. And amazing.