Cross Roads Oil Painting

Progress! I have most of the painting roughed in now. Still developing the background,

New Painting and some News

I know I have been away for awhile. I have been making lots of changes here at the studio and expanding what I do. For a long time I have wanted to combine my love for illustration and story telling with my wildlife art. The trouble has been that my illustration work has always been very different from my fine art work. Even though the same techniques and thought processes go into both types of work I have never been quite comfortable in bringing the two together in one place, a bad idea I picked up somewhere in art school. Something about high and low art. But through some soul searching and encouraging from some wonderful people ( even if they did not know that's what they were doing at the time) I have come to realize what a dumb and uninformed idea that really is.

Art should always be what it is to us as it is to children, a free expression of thoughts and ideas. Kids draw things they love or things they think about, good or bad. They are expressing ideas and emotions. It doesn't matter if they are drawing pokemon, dragons, people, flowers or something that they make up. Whether the drawing of them and their Mom and Dad looks realistic or like three squiggly potatos holding hands it doesn't really matter to them,as long as the people they made it for like it and get the message it carries.

So what does all this mean for my studio? Well it means that I have spent the last few months illustrating and learning to make a fun line of rubber stamps for the studio that we are making entirely in house. A website will be up and running in a week or so that will feature both my illustration work ( rubber stamps, character illustration, illustrated stories, and a blog for rubber stamping ) and my fine art work ( watercolors, oil paintings and drawings ) some sections will be added over time, but new stuff will be added frequently to all sections.

The new painting I am starting has been a bit of a challenge. Not technically, but the concept for it has been evolving for several weeks ( that means I have painted over it and started over several times ). So I went out and did some sketching and took some photos. Today the concept finally gelled into a simple design that I hope will convey a story for myself and others. Here is the sketch for it.

"Cross Roads. A Change in Direction."

More rubber stamp illustrations

I was asked to create a line of stamps for Stamplistic, a local stamping and scrapbooking store. Jennifer, the owner thought she wanted to do something fun with mailboxes. She wasn't exactly sure what so she turned me loose on the idea. After a few sketches this is what we came up with! They are great for dressing up the front of envelopes but they make terrific cards too.

We also made some matching postage border designs to go along with the mailboxes.

Some samples of what I have been up to.

Sorry it has been awhile since I last posted. I have been very busy with some freelance illustration work for Stacy Rich at StacyStamps. I recently completed several pen and ink drawings for her of  some common backyard birds. Two of which are taken from previous paintings. The stamps will be released to the public for sale on September 25th.

Just a quick sketch post.

Busy, Busy, Busy...

Things are going to be getting very busy around here for the next few weeks! Today I am starting work on a new project. A complete redesign of what Broken Road Studio is. I hope it will be a little bit of some thing for everyone. I will tell you more as the project develops. 

Cliff Swallow Study on Ebay

  

















  I haven't put any miniature paintings up on Ebay for awhile so I thought this little guy would be a good place to get started again.

Here is the link to him on Ebay.

4x5 Cliff Swallow Study (SOLD)