Yerba Mate

This image started out as a sketch in my sketchbook, then a demo for the digital painting class that I teach and then I ended up finishing it just for fun. It is based on my memories of a place I lived in Misiones, Argentina.
If you know anyone from Argentina, then you will know all about mate, the herbal tea that all Argentines constantly drink through a metal straw called the bombilla. Misiones is where they grow the herbs. That's what the green rows in the background are. And Misiones is known for its tierra colorada or red dirt which turns all white shirts to pink.

Aspen Trees

Silliness

Here are a couple digital pieces done just for fun for the Avalanche blog. The Mer-Man one was a combination of two themes: Masters of the Universe, and Zodiac signs. The other one was obviously a Wizard of Oz theme. Lately there has been a lot of construction around my home and where I work, and I just can't visualize a road without orange cones anymore.

Red Rocks

Digital composition based on the oil sketches I did in southern Utah below.

Morning on the Shore of Tibble Fork Reservoir

Recent Drawings from Life Drawing Session at Work

The first three were drawn in my sketchbook with a Prismacolor pencil. The last one is bigger in charcoal. All were done in an hour or less.

Zion Painting Trip

Last weekend I was able to go on a painting/sketching/reference gathering trip with some BYU illustration and animation students and faculty to Zion National Park. They are doing a student project on environment design and will be using the sketches and reference they gathered for their designs. Since that's kind of what I do for a living I got to come along. It was a blast.

These are the paintings I did while I was down there.

Drawings

Here are a few drawings that I did in the class I taught last fall.

And a couple more for good measure.

More little paintings

Here are some plein air sketches from this spring and summer.