I was trying out the awesome brush tutorial for feathers on Paul Lasaine's blog, and ended up with this little penguin. I tend to paint digitally much the same way I would paint in acrylics, without taking advantage of all the cool custom brushes that make painting textures so much easier, so this was an interesting exercise. In retrospect I should have kept the white feathers darker; they flatten it a bit too much. Also, definitely need to study lots more rendering and light effects!

Ipad paintings

I'm gearing up for Christmas vacation, so to get in the spirit, here are a few Ipad paintings I did the last time I flew to Wyoming. A painting of the plane wing en route, and a few REALLY quick ones I did each in about 30 seconds on a drive through Wyoming.

The scenery was changing at a ridiculous pace, from rolling foothills to rocky canyons to big hills with large green bushes. As a kid I thought Wyoming was kind of ugly, but now I'm starting to see the appeal. Big, bleak windswept areas have a certain charm after living in cities for a few years.

Color Sketches

I've been trying something new lately, painting 30 minute digital paintings from random photos, just trying to capture the overall light effect and color as quickly as possible. I don't know a lot of the tricks to speedpainting, so I'm just using a round or a square brush for everything. Here are a few of them:

They're nothing much to look at; more of a learning tool. I'm hoping these will help me in getting more accurate light effects when I'm trying to paint from my imagination later.