Hope for Josh

So I have a co worker who just was accepted for the teacher administration program at the University of Utah. As we were talking about it said to him, "I think you'd make a great principal. I'd vote for you." Then as we were laughing about the idea of voting for principals I decided that if he was going to run he'd need campaign posters and I needed to be the one to do them. So here it is. Vote Josh for Principal.

Comic Book Shop Logo

I ended up doing a logo for a comic book shop up in Salt Lake a bit ago. I like how it turned out. I had a lot of leeway, which is always nice.

Selfie

Pen and Ink about 6X6. I did drew this as a demo for my commercial art class when I was teaching the pen and ink unit. It was a lot of fun. I want to do a series.

Ella

Two summers ago we went to Nauvoo, Illinois to visit and sight see. There was a little kids station where they could dress up like pioneers and everything. I got the most adorable pictures of Ella and have had the intention of painting them ever since. I finally got around to it. I think I had more fun painting this that I have had on just about any other painting.  

Springhill Suite 2013

I recently had the opportunity to participate in a show at the Springhill Suite Hotel in Draper Utah again for the second year in a row. This year was a lot of fun. This time I was able to recommend a friend, Andrew Bird, who is a brilliant ceramicist. We both teach at the same school. Our tables were side by side so we just ate food and socialized with the guests all night long. Hurray for art shows!

Crawling Out of the Shadow...

Holy Cow it's been a while since I've posted. I think of last summer and how I posted every day. Oh well right. I've had an incredibly fun year teaching art at Bingham High School, so I'll take it. Next year I get a computer lab in my room with Wacom tablets and the Adobe suite on every computer, so I'm trying to learn enough so I can actually teach my students. I still have a lot to learn, but another great thing about my job is I have the whole summer to work on my digital art! Looking forward to that. 2 weeks and I'm done!!!

Recent Project

This is the most recent project I've been working on. I'm not in love with it but it was definitely fun. I continue to venture farther into the digital world of art. I learned the photoshop technique by using a youtube video by Patrick Brown, who is an incredible illustrator. 

Good Bye Christmas, Hello 2013!

I always have a hard time saying goodbye to the Christmas season. There is something about having the tree lit in my living room with all the other lights off, the music, and the fact that people are generally more kind. But at the same time I always get really excited for the new year. I have new goals to work on and things I want to accomplish. 

So here is an elf to say goodbye. (With embellishments from my 2 year old daughter)

Savior, Redeemer of My Soul

For my friend who lost his Mom this past week. 

More Experimenting

Just messing around. Trying to get better in the digital realm.

"Merry Christmas Jenevive!" on itunes bookstore!

So even though I haven't been posting much lately, I have been busy! This is the newest project I've been working on. My sister came up to me a few months ago to do an ebook based off a childhood experience she had at Christmas time involving her thinking she saw Santa Claus. I thought it sounded fun so I started doing some illustrations.

I created the images on Paper 53, which is a super cool app for the iPad. It creates a pretty intuitive feel. It's as close to drawing in a sketchbook as it comes while drawing on a tablet.

Once the illustrations were done and the text was written I put the book together in Book Creator, which is another iPad app that is really great.

Then all that was left was the technical side of it like creating an account in itunes connect and signing the contracts, obtaining and entering the tax info, getting an isbn etc.

In the end the result is a fun book I'm really proud off!

If you use an apple mobile device and you have 99 cents, please wander onto the ibooks and get my book! When you do please rate it and give me some feed back! It's called Merry Christmas Jenevive! You can search it and it'll come right up.

I hope there will be may more books in the future.

Springville Spiritual and Religious Exibit

So it looks like my daily posts, that were supposed to turn into weekly posts, have turned into quarterly posts. :( It is my first semester in my new job though. I'm starting to get into a rhythm so who knows. I may post more regularly, but at this point, no promises. Just hopes.

I entered this piece into the Springville, UT museum of art's religious and spiritual show. They do this every year and it's always a very good show. I hope I get in.

This drawing is about the point where you know you need to forgive someone that you feel has wronged you but you are having a hard time letting go of that anger. There is the desire to do what's right, it's just getting out of the way of your pride so you can do it.

Weekly Posts

I think I'm going to have to curb my posting to the weekends for right now. I hope and plan on coming back to daily soon, but with the school year starting there are already so many things to do tat I decided I need to simplify a bit. :)

This was an example I used for my students. We were covering modified blind contour today. I had a lot of fun doing it. There were some great drawings done by the class today as well.

Classroom put Together

It's been a long first week on the job. Good, but long. I'm not used to waking up at 5:40am. But surprisingly, I'm finding it somewhat refreshing being up at that time. I finally got my room put in order. It feels good to walk into a nice clean classroom. The only thing I'm sad about this last week is that I missed posting. :( I may be a little spotty on updating the blog for the next few weeks or maybe months. I guess we'll have to see how the work load adds up. 

New Job, New Class, New Experience!

I started this week with meetings for my new teaching job. I also started unpacking my room. I lucked out because this summer they wrecked the old rooms and built a new art and home economics wing. The rooms are beautiful and clean. There is a ton of light, which I love. Our rooms are also decked out with some pretty sweet tech. I never experienced this kind of stuff when I was in high school! The only snag is that when I walked into the room the boxes were stacked to the ceiling. The whole room was in disarray. These pictures above are AFTER a full day of unpacking! As you can see I still have some ways to go. However, I'd rather do it this way. Now I'll know where everything is and I can organize the room from the beginning just how I like. I'm really excited about it. 

Work in Progress

I think it's kind of fun to see a painting in the early stages. Usually mine look so chaotic in the beginning stages you can hardly tell what is what. I enjoy making a huge mess in the beginning and tightening it up as I go. Somewhere along the way I find the right level of completeness that suits me. I have a long way to go on this painting still. Hopefully I will be diligent in posting the progress so you can see how I move through it. 

Oil Painting Jos Van Riswick

I've watched a bunch of this guys' oil demos. He's awesome.

2nd Study

I like this one much better than the first. It's just more interesting. Also I used a darker pencil so I was able to get better contrast.

Study

Study for a painting I'm working on. I've noticed I get a lot tighter in my drawings when I use pencil as opposed to pen. 

Done on a White Board

I'm kind of on a video kick right now in my posts. I go in phases. There's simply no end to the amazing video resources to be found on Youtube. Not all are good, but if you do some digging, there's some pretty awesome stuff.

Insanely Crazy Good with a Marker

This guy is officially nuts with his drawing skills! His name is Kim Jung Gi. This is only a portion of the video. The whole this is actually about an hour and fifteen minutes. I would recommend watching it. But have some kind of podcast or music in the background because there's no audio. :)

T.V. Time Sketching

We don't have a T.V. We watch anything we want to see online. It's worked out well for us. But when we went on vacation to see my wife's family we watched a lot of T.V. Mainly the olympics. However, I can't just sit and watch. I have to be doing something. And that something is drawing. So this is some of my T.V. Watching drawings. 

Mr. Rogers Remixed

I loved Mr. Rogers as a kid. Therefore, I love this video. It's actually a very catchy tune. :)

Miniature Show at Repartee Gallery

These two pieces, plus one other small cityscape I can't find right now in my images are on display at the Repartee Gallery in the University Mall in Orem, Ut. If you think you'll want to get some of my paintings or drawings eventually, you should get them now, because they are cheap! (inexpensive, not cheap) Someday I'll be a world famous artist and you'll have to pay a ton of money to get one of my originals! :) haha. Maybe someday. 

Sketchbook Again

More sketchbook stuff. :)

Colored Robot

Here is the color version of my robot. I liked him enough to make him my friend. 

Robot

Well, today is the last day of my vacation and I have to say, I'm proud of myself for having a post for everyday while I was gone. It's all about those small victories. :)

Old Nauvoo Burial Ground Sketch

When we were at the burial ground it was raining. It was gray and wet. It seemed very fitting for the mood of a cemetery. 

Nauvoo, IL Visit

This was the old Nauvoo burial grounds. I looked to see if I had relatives buried there but I didn't find any. There are a lot of unmarked graves apparently. It was very picturesque but also a place of sadness. So many of these people sacrificed everything for their faith, many of them forgotten by history and mankind. But not by God. 

Brigham Young's house. Very cool design. I learned that he was an expert builder. He built an above ground root cellar in the back of the house because of the high water table. He also drained his property before he built because it was a swamp. 

The rebuilt Nauvoo temple. This is the jewel of Nauvoo. It's phenomenal. And it also happens to be where I got married. :)

Joseph Smith's mansion house. It now belongs to the Community of Christ church. 

Barbarian Man

I am going to Nauvoo, IL tomorrow and staying over night so I doubt I'll have internet. Thus, I am double posting today.

What can I say. It's a guy with a big axe. How can that not be fun to draw.

More from the Ball Point Pen

Quick post today. :)

Posting from the Road

I am in Iowa this week and next. It takes a lot of advanced planning to keep the blog updated! But I was lucky that I had this image laying around. I thought I might miss today, but a little searching around paid off. :) This is an old sketch but one I have always liked.

Amazingly Creative Animation

I am floored by the imagination and creativity of so many people in this world of ours. There are so many more ways to create art today than ever before. That's good because we need more good art now than ever before. :) The artist's name is Johnny Lawrence.

Ball Point Pen Drawings

I go in phases but perhaps my favorite drawing implement is a Bic ball point pen. I think I'm better with graphite pencil, however....a Bic doesn't smudge! I have a hard time with smudging in my sketchbook. Plus, my personal opinion is that using a pen forces me to draw better. I have to make better decisions and fix mistakes without erasing. 

Andrea Finishing the 50 Mile Relay

Andrea and I ran a 50 mile relay with my brother and sister this spring. As you might expect, it was hard. This is her at the finish line with her medal (Everyone that finished got one.) 

Annie Farley This Tuesday

Check out my friend and fellow artist Annie Farley. She's going to be talking about her art at the Woodbury Art Museum located in the University Mall (Above where Nordstrom's used to be) on Tuesday Aug 7th @ 7pm. She's very talented and hard working. It will be well worth your time. 

Hodge Podge

I've mentioned before how I can't seem to settle down on one style. I think my painting is working itself in a particular direction with more consistency. My sketchbooks though are all over the place. I'm ok with that though. It helps me stay fresh with my ideas and gives me a place to "play" with my art. 

Time Lapse Drawing

This was a video I had to do for one of my education classes. It was an instructional media class so we were learning about making instructional videos. It was fun. The music is by Egan's Theory.

If You Have the Passion...

I'm never going to force my daughter or any other kids we may have to follow in my footsteps as an artist, however, I will definitely be infinitely supportive if one of them decides to follow a dream in the arts. (Or any other dream for that matter.) I may have chose a less fulfilling career that was "secure" if I didn't have supportive parents, teachers, and other role models to encourage me and urge me on. In fact, my Dad still will often call me and say, "Hey Phil, I had an idea for your art stuff...You should do such and such." Of course not all the ideas resonate with me, but he's had several that are really good that I will end up using or am in the process of working on now. I guess if I'm to sum up the tone of this post, it's this. Art may not be the "practical" direction for career choice, but if it's your passion, don't suppress it...pursue it! Who cares if it's hard to make money or whatever. If you love it enough that you can't do anything else, you'll be happier for it. Besides, you might make more money doing something you love because you'll want to be there working rather than dragging your feet into the office because you have to pay the bills! So there's my rant. I will now descend from my soapbox. :) If you can't tell I have an opinion on the matter. 

More Practice

More attempts at digital painting. As long as I can stomach it I'll post it. That way I have sort of a journal per se showing me my progress. 

Last Day of Art Camp

Today was the last day of cartooning camp. It was a smaller group, which made life a lot easier actually. It's a bitter sweet moment because, where it's always nice to finish off a week of a bunch of wild and crazy kids, time I'm not able to go back and teach in the fall because of my new job. So...for now I say goodbye! :)

We did a pass along story. 

I had to bring my daughter with me this morning. I was a little worried, but she fit in pretty well. All the girls LOVED having her there. 

Old Illustration

This is a painting I did in my illustration class a long time ago. I thought it was really cool once. Now I'm not so sure. There's still things I like about it such as the clouds and the hair, but I see where I would make a lot of different decisions now. Fun to look back though. 

Character Study

This is a sketch I did for a painting I'm developing. I liked how this was going until this morning when I realized he's supposed to be bound somehow. SO...I decided I'd post it instead. :) Obviously he's getting hit across the face.