I was excited to take this job. I was happy to draw and illustrate this fun assignment: “Kids having fun with a reading theme”. It was a lot of fun to come up with the whimsical idea of a kid all freaking out on this wild magic carpet ride while his dog is hanging on like a pit bull and he little sister, or brother, not at all afraid of the potential danger all around, just curled up with a good book and having a great time.

This was done during my “transition to digital” phase. I started my transition by saving time just going into Photoshop to crank out a quick back ground. Just spray in a gradient and print it out on good paper and vuala! Most of the boring part done. So this piece was a little painful because I produced it 100% in acrylics. Not because the client wanted it in acrylics. Not because I had more time to kill, but because my printer has finally given up trying to please me. We are no longer friends and I have banished it to the garage….And then we moved, and I hope that hateful printer is still in that garage thinking it will still have a life someday, and wondering why I haven’t come and apologized and plugged him back in. Sense any hostility?

100% ACRYLIC PAINTING ON PAPER, THE OLD FASHIONED WAY.

So it was back to my old fashioned way of painting with acrylics. Tone the paper and painstakingly dry brush a gradient back ground and then finally get to the painting. Eventually, even that became too painstaking for me, and I have pretty well converted to 100% digi. (That is short for digital, I think) Ho the dread learning curve. Now I’m happy I made the switch. lol