Season's Greetings!

Sky Dive Francis Escape Part 2

Over ten years ago, I came up with the idea about those Shadow Birds and a 14 year girl whose life is saved by one. I thought it would be fun if I storyboarded the odd chapter (I originally wanted to turn this story into a graphic novel and I may still do that). This board is about the girl's escape from her kidnappers. It's a long board and still isn't finished. However I thought I would post what I have completed.
And by the way, the girl's name is Francis. Her Shadow Bird's name is Redshanks.
Enjoy!

Sky Dive Francis Escape Part 2

View more presentations from pat_ann.

Little Bear

As some of may know, I worked as a storyboard artist for a TV show called Little Bear.  (The Maurice Sendack one!)  It was a gig I truly loved and here is an excerpt from an episode called "Little Bear and the Baby."

Enjoy-

My Handbag Sketchbook

I have a tiny sketchbook that I keep in my handbag. It's so small that I keep a 3 point mech pencil with it so I can do (what I think) a half decent drawing with it. I posted 3 images with 6 pages from that wee sketchbook. (I actually have smaller sketchbooks that fans have given me at conventions! When this one is full, I'll try those ones!)

Larry told me to post this sketch to my Blog!

So here we go.  Did it today in my sketchbook.

Cider!

Okay, I haven't posted any artwork, sketches, doodles in a while because of non-disclosure agreements for the past year!  Well, very soon I'll have one month to fill with nothing but my own work (and some small commissions to finish.)  So, that means I'll be posting artwork again! Here's a drawing that I did for the CTN Expo sketchbook and some prep doodles for it.

Jennifer Carson

I have a great friend who lives in New Hampshire named Jennifer Carson who is an amazing children's writer!  I illustrated one of her books named 'To Find A Wonder' the cover of which I posted earlier.
Jennifer keeps a blog on writing and if you click on the link: http://jennifercarson.wordpress.com/ you will find a site filled with story inspiration.
You won't be disappointed!

Not so long ago, Jennifer asked me if I could whip up a couple of character designs for a book that she is writing at the moment for visual inspiration.

I happily obliged and this is what we came up with:

The Night of Life Drawing.

Larry & I went to our last life drawing workshop for the season and instead of bringing a huge pad of newsprint, I just brought my 9" x 12" sketch book.  
I must admit I had a great night drawing a fantastic model.  Ended up with 4 portfolio pieces.
     -If you are one of my FaceBook Friends looking at this, then I apologize for repeating myself! :)

Concept Design

I'm going to be posting some character designs from one of my graphic novels: 'Abe and Haab Airlines.'
This book is in the preliminary stages so when I get to the actual page layout, I will be posting them too hoping to get critiques from established comic book artists.

So... Introducing.... Abe and Haab.  And their aircraft:  'Bird.'
(Haab is the Tarsier holding the rope.)

Albatross Act

After 10 months, I finally finished this!!

Memory

Yesterday morning, I was listening to a discussion about the future of the American wild mustang. As I was listening, I became inspired to doodle and here's the results. I haven't drawn horses from memory in ages!!

Mindless March!

There are times when I sketch, I do so with no incentive to achieve anything other than to scribble in a sketchbook. When I do this, ninety percent of these mindless doodles go nowhere and are not what I would consider worth anything. However sometimes, a doodle comes up that is worth pursuing and I will take it, clean it up and colour it in.
There is one of those little semi-precious stones amongst the rubble that I have attached with this blog post.
Can you guess which one I'm going to take further?

Tuesday, March Ninth, Two Thousand and Ten!

While I was working at the library this afternoon, I looked up from my laptop to look out the window and watch a three crows chase another crow around the library's back garden. They were flying so fast and weaving around the conifers so quickly that I thought to my self the one being chased is going to fly into one of the library windows.
So, as soon as I thought that, sure enough, that crow bashed head first into one of the windows! Fortunately, the crow only received ruffled feathers and probably hurt corvidae pride because it flew away.
And I will try not to premonish while watching birds in flight! :o

One more thing! Even though this happened on the weekend, I am now an official member of CTN! It's a great site full to the brim with magnificent artists! So please, pop on over there and check out Creative Talent Network dot com!!

The King and his Advisor.

Well so far, I would say this one is finished. Perhaps someday, I'll take a look at this one and decide to add colour, but for now I'm going to enjoy the simple tones caused by the dodge and burn tool from Photoshop!

BTW: the background was a creative commons image found here at Creative Closeup.

Happy St.Valentine's Day to all my ShadowBird Fans!

Doodles, Pencil Work and a Wee Test

Being in-between gigs can give me great opportunities to push the boundaries of my skills. Some of you may already know that I go bonkers over beautiful artwork where colour comes secondary to drawing's elegance. However, if the colour looks poorly planned, it can upstage line and ruin the whole message.

I apply this philosophy to my own work and doing so keeps me on my toes with constant improvement.

Right now I'm intrigued by combining coloured pencil with odorless mineral spirits and using that technique with limited watercolour. I have already worked up a wee test doodle using coloured pencil, odorless mineral spirits and felt tip pen(the little bird above), but I want to try it with pencil under a light watercolour wash. So I doodled up the two below for a second and a third test and if this works, I'll use this technique with the finished drawing at the bottom!

So wish me luck!!!!

~p~

New Look, New Attitude!!!!!

For the last couple of years, I have been navigating the world wide web without control. I see something online that I think I should be apart of (or a something suggested by someone), I jump aboard without plans! I have this thought that whatever site or blog that I create or join, doing so will help me network the ShadowBird/Sagawood idea. Not to mention my commercial art career.

Well, all this has done, is keep me from the things I love to do such as visual story writing, painting and just being plain creative! I was spending too much time mucking about online and not accomplishing much in reality. Thinking that spreading oneself all over the online artworld is a good idea is certainly........ Not a good idea!

So I'm cutting back! Keeping this blog up to date will be my focus for the time being. Once that has become a habit, I'll head on over to some of the other sites that I have signed with and un-sign myself. Not all of them but the ones that really don't relate to what I do or to the people who are interested.

Now here are some sketchbook and work in progress drawings fresh from the scanner!

Ciao Bellas and Bellos!

Oh yeah! I changed the look of my blog! It's more me! Flowery and faded (only in a vintage sort of way).