Dandelions for Turtle Magazine

Before this piece I've never drawn a character with such curly hair!

The untamable locks were in part inspired by by 2 year old daughter who's own curly hair is getting bigger and more unruly every day. She always wants me to draw her and so I decided that it was time to man up and figure out how to render crazy long curly hair in my regular style. It took a few attempts to get it right but I'm very pleased with the result. Since it was so fun and I was so pleased with the result all of my characters now have curly hair!

This piece is featured on the back cover of this month's Turtle Magazine. Thanks for the super fun assignment Turtle!

Stripping for Spring

To celebrate the coming spring I created this and another piece which will be debuted here next week (check back soon!). After living in Edmonton for 4 years and then moving back to Ontario, spring seems so early now! Man I hate winter.

 

You can see from the original sketch below that I made a few adjustments to the final piece. I eliminated the naked winter tree and gave the snowman a scarf to help the visual flow from left to right which is really important in this piece. The scarf also helps tie in the gold colour throughout the entire image. The tree was a case where something looks good in a sketch but is obviously out of place once seen in colour.

As an added bonus, this piece has also been made into a handy desktop wallpaper that you can download in full size here.

Sweater Be Gone!

It's been a while since I've had the chance to participate in an Illustration Friday topic, but I have a very slight lull for about a day and so I had the opportunity to do a sketch for this week's topic of "sweater". It was inspired by the fact that we've had a couple days of unseasonably warm weather, and I have the urge to run outside and shed clothing much like in the piece. Don't worry neighbors... I won't actually do it.

Once finished I'll be using this piece for a promotional email next month to celebrate spring, and as my new homepage header at The I Spot. Check back next month because I'll also post the finished product here.