White Boxer Dog | Sketchbook

I tried a new product today and loved it - Art Graf Black Carbon.

I did a little sketching to start, and then dove in. The black carbon can be used wet or dry. The very bold darks that I achieved came though dipping the carbon in water.

Cheshire Cat | Pastel

Here's my latest - Cheshire Cat from Alice in Wonderland. He's such a kooky cat. I hope you enjoy it!

Prints and iPhone cases at Pixals.com:

Pizza Chef (Pen) | Sketchbook

Here's a ball point pen doodle from my trip to a super delicious pizza place. Yum!

Birdhouse | Sketchbook

Here's a doodle of a birdhouse. It was a quick little sketch with a ball point pen on notebook paper.

Grapes | Watercolor and Charcoal

Here's a watercolor I created at my art lesson today. Painting in a loose watercolor style is so much fun!

Wine, Grapes and Cheese | Watercolor

Last week my wife and I visited family on California. We spent some time on my wife's dad's boat at the end of the week. I wanted to do some painting, so I took a look around the cabin. Right next to the table was a pile of bottles. I don't drink, but I figured they would make as good a subject as anything. After a little bit of doodling and painting I had a picture.

A Pirate I Am | Free eBook

My wife suggested that I write a pirate song for my music education resource site MakingMusicFun.net. I had such a great time creating the song that I took it one step further, and illustrated the story. The book includes piano sheet music at the end so you can sing the whole book while your kids look at the pictures!

Lyrics (First Verse or Three)
Verse 1
I'll pillage a village to grab all the loot,
I'll hijack a ship and I won't give a hoot.
I'll kidnap fair maidens, the fairest I meet,
Then give them a smile and tickle their feet.

Chorus
A pirate I am,
I'll sail my tall ship upon the sea,
A bad egg I'll stay,
So long as my mummy loves me.

You can download the whole book for free if you're interested:
A Pirate I Am | Free Sing-Along eBook on MakingMusicFun.net

I gave the artwork for the book a paper art look. It was all created digitally, but I tried to maintain that cut paper, layered look in every image. Sometimes that meant limiting the details (because the paper would be to small to manage), and keeping things loose, because when you're gluing pieces down they don't always line up perfectly. Hope you like it!

A Pirate I Am | Illustration and Free Piano Sheet Music

This weeks Illustration Friday word is "Crooked".  I designed this character, and even wrote a pirate song this weekend.

Here's the first verse and chorus:

I'll pillage a village to grab all the loot,
I'll hijack a ship and I won't give a hoot.
I'll kidnap fair maidens, the fairest I meet,
Then give them a smile and tickle their feet.

A pirate I am,
I'll sail my tall ship upon the sea,
A bad egg I'll be,
So long as my mummy loves me.

Here's the free sheet music for piano if you're interested:
A Pirate I Am for Easy Piano | Free Sheet Music


One more... I wanted to design a shipmate for him, so I came up with this one too.

In the Hall of the Mountain King | Listening Map Worksheet

I created this character and additional graphics for a music listening map for my website, MakingMusicFun.net. The final worksheet, seen below, helps kids to visually understand elements within a piece of music. This one focuses on musical form, pitch, and note length.

If you're interested, you can download the worksheet here:

In the Hall of the Mountain King | Listening Map Worksheet

Evil and his Brother Skippy | Sketchbook

A little funny stuff for you. Hope you like it!

Burst O' Fun (Popcorn) | Sketchbook

Another entry for Illustration Friday's word of the week - "Burst". Popcorn is bursting ... as so is she!

Pizza Chef | Sketchbook

Here's a doodle from my sketchbook. I started with a few gestures lines and wound up with the torso, said to myself, "What is this?" A little bit more doodling and he was a pizza chef.

Maybe I can talk my wife into pizza for lunch? Yum.

Burst of Excitement | Illustration Friday

Burst is Illustration Friday's word of the week this week. It started out as a sketch with a ball point pen that was handy, and then evolved into a watercolor. I thought the addition of a frame might spruce it up, so I pulled it into Adobe Illustrator for a final tweek.

Girl Looking Up | Sketchbook

More fun with Photoshop. I finished this sketchbook doodle with pencil on paper, and then enhanced it some with a default brush. Most of the enhancements were to punch up the darks.

Imagination for Illustration Friday | Sketchbook

Imagination is Illustration Friday's word of the week this week. It started out as a pencil sketch, and then received a few tweeks in Photoshop.

African Drummer | Watercolor

This one is a bit outside my typical subject interests, but it seemed like a fun project. I love the look of wet in wet, and a loose, painterly style. This one took me about an hour from drawing to final image.

At the Movies | Sketchbook

Here's a pencil sketch from my sketchbook. I started with a doddle of the girl on the screen, and it evolved into an old movie theater.

The Big Roar (Lion) | Watercolor

I'm working on an art project for the Arizona State Fair. I created a version of this lion awhile back, and just recently doodled the toddler. They seemed like a good match for this project.

Here's the pencil sketch/value study for the watercolor.

Monster Vase Face (Optical Illusion) | Illustration Friday

I decided to include a second entry for Illustration Friday's word of the week - Identical. I created this image a few years back for a drawing lesson on my art website MakingArtFun.com. Women's Day later included the image in an article on optical illusions in their online magazine.

A Perfect Match | Illustration Friday

This week's entry for Illustration Friday work of the week - Identical. They look so happy!

Girl at Ballet Barre | Sketchbook

I've been working on gesture poses, and came up with two ballet themed doodles of a girl at the ballet barre. It seems, in the one at the bottom, that the dance instructor is quite the task master and the girl has had just about enough.

Hands (The Sequel) | Pencil Drawing

Here's another go a drawing hands.

T is for Tall | Illustration Friday

Illustration Friday's work of the week is "Tall". I had fun with this one, and couldn't seem to stop. It's now 2:41 in the morning, but I finally finished it.

"Teacher" for Illustration Friday

Illustration Friday's word for this week is "Teacher" so I drew a student with an apple. Not too imaginative, but a nice challenge as I'm trying working on my ability to draw hands.

Steampunk Girl with Telescope | Website Illustration

I created this illustration and website design for a telescope site. (This is a little cropped piece of it.) A steampunk theme seemed like the perfect thing, as the accessories often seem to include a telescope - not necessarily one like this - but a telescope all the same.

On the Flying Trapeze | Digital Illustration

I was browsing Pinterest.com and got inspired. This illustration wound up in a totally different place than the piece I was inspired by, but at least it challenged me.

If you're interested...
I photographed a sketch of the girl, then created the scene with flat color (for the most part) and drop shadows in Adobe Illustrator. The highlights and shadows were added in Photoshop.

The Wee Little Scare | eBook

I created a counting book for my general music classes awhile back. (I taught music in Christian and public schools for 14 years.) I thought I might be able to spruce up the look of the illustrations, so I gave it a go.

Below are a few pages from the book. The publisher I'm working with on another project has accepted it, though it's in line behind a bunch of other stuff. When it comes out it will be available as an interactive eBook. I'll let you know when it's published.

You can also print it from my music site, MakingMusicFun.net - The Wee Little Scare | Music/Counting eBook.

You probably know where it's going from here... :-)

Meet Bach | Digital Illustration

Johann Sebastian Bach is the third composer bust that I have created for my series of interactive apps/iBooks that I am working to create. I'd like to do five composer resources, but want to wait to see how they will do on iTunes/iBooks before I invest any more time in this series.

In case you missed the last Meet the Composer series post....
An interactive eBook/App publisher contacted me a while back to create a series of music composer resources. They will include content from my music site, MakingMusicFun.net, as well as stuff specifically created for these editions. I'll share more about these resources as they progress. Here's a little of the artwork so far.

Meet Mozart | Digital Illustration

Here's the next in the series of great composer illustrations for the cover of an upcoming interactive resource that I working to create.

In case you missed the last Meet the Composer series post....
An interactive eBook/App publisher contacted me a while back to create a series of music composer resources. They will include content from my music site, MakingMusicFun.net, as well as stuff specifically created for these editions. I'll share more about these resources as they progress.

"Freeze" for Illustration Friday

Illustration Friday's word for this week is "Freeze". I thought of the moment in The Christmas Story when Ralphie's friends Flick and Schwartz argue over whether a person's tongue will stick to a frozen flagpole. A "triple dog dare" issued, and Flick's tongue gets stuck to the pole.

This my variation on that scene, with the character wearing a Santa cap.

Meet Beethoven | Digital Illustration

An interactive eBook/App publisher contacted me a while back to create a series of music composer resources. They will include content from my music site, MakingMusicFun.net, as well as stuff specifically created for these editions. I'll share more about these resources as they progress. The composer bust will be used on the cover.

And then this funny pizza guy will be used in a quiz...

"Test your knowledge of Beethoven by completing this 10 question quiz. Answer at least 7 questions correctly and Beethoven gets a delicious pizza for dinner. Miss 4 questions or more and Beethoven goes to bed hungry."

It's so fun to be kooky!

Kooky Goose | Sketchbook and Watercolor

A little bit of doodling, and a little bit of finding out what a goose should look like and voila... a pencil sketch of a kooky goose!

I love composing music that walks a fine line between jazz and classical music. I thought I would try the same with this character, combining illustration with a traditional approach to painting a watercolor landscape.

Swing Daddy-O | Digital Illustration

I went to a Big Bad Voodoo Daddy concert at the Ventura County Fair this week. The bass player struck a pretty cool pose that stuck in my head.

Here's the sketch that I started with...

 Here's what the final image looks like.

I even sent it to Big Bad Voodoo Daddy. We'll see if they "dig it".