Howdy again,

Been painting a bit and I figured I should put some thing up on the blog. These paintings are mostly for my portfolio and a project in the works. You can see that I tend to a more graphic style. I have been working to broaden that and have begun to play with a more painterly approach as well. I like to offer clients several styles or approaches to setting a visual feel for their project with out losing the core of what is my style.  

When ever I get the chance I spend time in the collections of the Academy of Natural Sciences drawing and sketching skulls, bones and taxidermy mounts.
The museum also provides the opportunity to see a lot of cool animals close up in the dioramas. Since the diorama animals are not moving the artist is able to sketch in as much detail as wanted.

I will include diorama/ collection sketches from time to time to keep the dinosaurs from completely taking over. Today's piece is a watercolor and pen and ink mixed media. It is the skull of a female wolverine skull. Males have a much larger sagital crest.

Color and I have a bit of a love hate thing going. I do a lot of color sketches before doing a final painting. Often there is not good color reference for the things I would like to do but why let a general lack of reality stop me... Right?

Here is a black and white and a color pencil color sketch piece to show how crap color can kill an otherwise cool piece. I have since found good reference for all the elements of this piece and I will kick its ass.

This is the color cast of the gorgosaurus in my first post. You might notice some changes in pose. the entire sculpt was redone do to some creative problems posed by my three year old daughter who just wanted to sculpt like daddy.

Fossils are incredible objects, the colors, textures and shapes are artistically meritorious on their own. Once in a great while "millions of years" nature produces what will be found like this. Sculpture was created using a monograph by Laurence Lambe from 1917 on Gorgosaurus. The skeleton was found in the ground posed just as you see it here.

Color sketches of possible covers for coloring book.

Colored pencil on black and white line art.

Seuuwassea skeleton

This was done for National Geographic World magazine quite a few years ago but it is still one of my favorite skeletal drawings due to its simplicity.

Sneaky lines.

Line art is my favorite especially black and white. I find it so cool that from a simple line or a population of lines, your brain can be tricked into perceiving something that an artist has translated onto paper or onto the beach sand at the shore. It astounds me that our need for recognition goes that far into the abstract.

Here are some of my lines.

Fun with color!

I spend a bit of time out of doors sketching and getting into nature. Most of the dinosaur drawings start out do to something I see in those times spent out of the house. This drawing was hatched from observations of a wood-turtle I caught for a few minutes and released back into the stream. All of the orange colors the turtle had where around the head neck and shoulders. Male wood-turtles get more vibrant during mating season to attract potential mates. Years after observing the turtle in all its glory I did this and included another member of the chelonian family as a nice recognition of where the inspiration came from.

Getting off my bottom.

Noisy bar in Philadelphia. Good friend says when the hell are you going to put your art on a website or a blog or some thing? Not that I haven't been thinking about this for a long while but what the hell.
Then all of a sudden he and his girl friend, also a good friend of mine, have me surrounded and they won't take the usual blab about how busy I have been and all that BS. So here is me... Now shadap, the two of you. Also thanks for the kick in the posterior.

Also I am severely dyslexic so look for all the fun signs of that and don't feel you have to point them out.

Any way here is some of my art.

Gorgosaurus relief