A Little Early Christmas

I just finished this one for the Friend magazine. The funny thing about working for certain publications is the lead time. I end up doing summer images in March and Christmas stuff in August. This one was no exception as it will go to print in a few weeks to begin distribution right around Thanksgiving. I know not all magazines work this far in advance, but the Friend typically works so far ahead, that I often forget I even did something until it shows up in my mailbox.

The intent of this piece is to help remind folks that there is a bit more to Christmas celebrations than decorations and presents and that we should take a little time to remember the real reason for the season. It was nice to take a few days to think about the upcoming holiday and think about what it truly means. Enjoy!

Daisy Dog

A recent piece I did for Angels on Earth magazine. The story deals with an abused pit bull dog that a family adopts and names Daisy. Despite the serious neglect, her spirit was not broken and adapted readily to her new home. The concept was to show how content and happy the dog was once she got out of the abusive situation. I had particular fun with all the little details on the dog house as well as the flowers. This one was done digitally over a rough graphite drawing. Unlike some of my previous digital paintings, not much of the original drawing is evident in this one. All the textures were created by hand and imported into the textures palette or applied in multiply mode at the end (crackle texture). 

Battle of Bosworth 2 - Finished

For Want of a Nail - Oil on board, 19" x 10" by Greg Newbold

As I explained when I posted the sketch version of this piece, the symbolism of King Richard III's fall is carried by the rumpled battle flag on the ground and the thrown horseshoe. I preferred this to the the proposed mob battle scene. I think it says more with less and the first piece is plenty to set the battle scene. This ended up being more fun than I thought when I took on the project. I especially likes painting the contrasting textures of the flag, the grass and the horseshoe.

Cloud Watching

Cloud Watching- Digital, by Greg Newbold

I remember laying on the grass as a child and watching the clouds float by while imagining what creatures those fluffy shapes formed.  My imagination ran wild and I pictured dinosaurs and dragons, fish, birds and all sorts of crazy things. I would suspect most of you have done the same at one time or another. I just finished a little picture for a children's magazine to illustrate this very thing.

Orrin Porter Rockwell

Fishing For Pukes- Graphite, digital by Greg Newbold

Orrin Porter Rockwell was among the most colorful characters in early Mormon history. Rockwell never fit the mold of other straight laced church goers right down to his beard and hair. He never cut it after LDS prophet Joseph Smith delivered a Samson-like exhortation that if he did not cut it, "neither bullet nor blade" would take his life. Later he did donate his hair to make a wig for a woman who had lost her hair to typhoid fever. He also gained the nickname "The Destroying Angel" as well as a reputation for being quick on the trigger after being acquitted of attempted murder. This illustration depicts a time when Porter was held in a Missouri prison for nine months without being charged. To amuse himself and the children outside the cell window, he would dangle some of his food, which consisted of barely edible lumps of cornbread called "corn dodgers", out the window. When asked what he was doing, he told the children he was "fishing for pukes" which was the unflattering nickname many from Illinois bestowed on Missourians at the time. This entertained the youngsters who would bring him more food since the state was not legally responsible to feed it's prisoners (go figure). Rockwell became a lawman in the Utah territory and he was either loved or hated depending upon which side of the law you happened to fall. This is another illustration for an BYU magazine article.

More on Porter Rockwell in this book

Adjusting the Color

Martha Hughes Cannon- Graphite, digital by Greg Newbold

Samuel P. Cowley- Graphite, digital by Greg Newbold

J. Golden Kimball- Graphite, digital by Greg Newbold

After a little contemplation, I decided that the background color on these portraits was competing a little too much with the skin tones. I adjusted the color by dropping the saturation and shifting the hue slightly on all three. I like them better and thing that this subtle shift lets the faces command more attention. Sometimes I think I have the tendency (as I am sure a lot of artists do) to overdo the color saturation when what is really needed is a more subdued touch. In this case, I think this shift makes for better images. Plus, I sort of like the feeling I get of hand tinted photos (scratches and all) which was really the goal all along.

See the previous versions here

Angel Sketches

I'm doing a piece for Angels on Earth magazine right now. I was given a sketchy outline of the article this will accompany about a woman who found herself being comforted by an angel in a field of buttercups following a car accident. The art director mentioned that sometimes the stories are deleted or altered after the art is finished, so the image needed to be more vague.

Version two is the same layout without the woman. I think the first version has more emotional and narrative heft, but I obliged the request and came up with the alternate. I am still trying to get the AD to let me do the first. What do you all think? 

Dangerous Snake

Exaggeration is to paint a snake and add legs.

-Chinese Proverb

Just finished this piece for a magazine story where a Man and his boys are out gathering firewood but lose their keys. I am continuing with my pursuit of some semblance of Photoshop painting proficiency. I feel more successful with each finished project, so I think I am almost where I want to be.  I doubt anyone can master all the nuances of Photoshop but at least I am getting comfortable with the tools I need to paint a pretty good picture.