Muddy Colors

Studio tip – keeping your paint tubes clean

Fri, 25 Sep 2020 06:00:01 GMT

I have a quick studio tip to share with you today. I am a really clean painter. Getting paint everywhere bugs me. I don’t paint with gloves or an apron and I rarely get paint on my clothes. That’s not bragging, I just work better when I keep my paints and where they go organized. Sometimes I wonder if I am not missing out on the full studio experience by not flinging paint everywhere and…

SWFG artwork

Thu, 24 Sep 2020 09:00:03 GMT

Hi everyone. Omg third quarter 2020! Home stretch on this crazy year. I’m sure 2021 will be way better, because that’s how it works right? RIGHT??? Gotta say, this has easily been the least inspiring year I’ve experienced on this planet. Sometimes, I’ll get ideas for personal work, but then I’m like, what’s the point really? Everything feels so contrived, and I just can’t help but shake this feeling like there are bigger things I…

Brave New World

Wed, 23 Sep 2020 09:00:33 GMT

Many illustrators are also teachers. During the pandemic most of us have had to convert our previously in-person teaching to an online format. There are many complications to consider when trying to build a virtual experience for the students which cab be as valuable to them as the in-person education they had been expecting until a few months ago. We are all learning to adapt. An important part of making the whole thing work…

A Sketchbook 2020 Preview

Tue, 22 Sep 2020 09:00:56 GMT

Ever year since 2008 I’ve put together a sketchbook. The first couple of years were just a hodgepodge of whatever work I might have done that year that wasn’t for a client or any particular project. It wasn’t until 2011 with my collection The Hidden People that I hit on the idea that was to shape my personal work for the foreseeable future: a new series of work on theme. Taking a year to build…

Wizard Dwarf taught me a lesson

Mon, 21 Sep 2020 10:07:07 GMT

I have struggled for a long time trying to create a video that shows my process of painting acrylics. Most traditional painters, in my line of work, choice oil as their medium of choice. I too had the idea that I was going to do that. But after trying oil paint for a day or 2 I found out that my delicate temple of a human body, could not agree with the fumes and chemicals…

Psyche And A Year Of Digging Deeper

Sat, 19 Sep 2020 10:00:19 GMT

“I would stand and look out over the roofs of Paris and think, ‘Do not worry. You have always written before and you will write now. All you have to do is write one true sentence. Write the truest sentence that you know.’” – Ernest Hemingway I just now saw that quote as I’m finishing up this article to post, and it couldn’t have been more fitting, so I decided to include it. Besides, it’s…

Best Of: The History of Dragons in Art

Fri, 18 Sep 2020 05:00:00 GMT

‘Flight of the Paladin’, by William O’Connor, ©2012 The most iconic image in all of fantasy art is the dragon. Powerful, ancient and beautiful it has for millennia captivated the minds of artists, writers and story tellers. But many of us may not know the origins of this terrific beast. I therefore present this brief history to illustrate the history of this mythological creature that has possessed out imaginations for so long. Ancient…