Recent Doodles

There are more preparatory sketches for this piece than many others, since it was a special commission. I was asked only that it show a little boy, and involve trains.

The Little White Dog originally appeared in the sketch for this piece. This would have been his fourth. But I decided the little boy needed someone who could appreciate the boredom of Grandma’s house on the same level: a sister.

There’s another little cameo from a past painting in this piece; the girl from “Blue”.

In the sketch, the bartender was originally a male. I changed it in the final because I wanted the titular “Catch” to be the only man in the scene.

This was a sketch for a large family portrait I had in mind. I happened across a book on the Kennedy family, and the cover had a photo of several generations of the enormous family all together. I thought I would try something similar, since I’d always wanted to do a piece with a lot of people in it. This would have 15. But I decided the time wasn’t right for it, and put it down. For now.

I can still make out some of the notes though, “D3″ for “Daughter #3″ “S2″ for “Son #2″ and a flow chart of arrows connecting parents (or circles that would eventually be parents) to their children.

Here’s a sketch that literally never got off the drawing board. I did use elements of it in later works though. I’m very drawn to fashion of the 1920s. I was going for that asian inspired ‘Evening Kimono’ look here.

This was the complete opposite of the background painting exercise. I wanted to do several quick studies of characters without working them into a background. The white around the figures is exposed canvas, which leaves a more weathered look. As these were simple sketches, I was ok with that.

I wanted to concentrate solely on background with these paintings. Normally, the background of a painting exists around the figures. I wanted to see how I approached setting with no figures to influence it.

Here’s the third appearance of the Little White Dog, shown with someone strikingly similar to the lady in “In The Kitchen.”