Golden Fish Nominated for Chesley Award

Today I found out that my Golden Fish piece was nominated for a Chesley Award for "Best Cover Illustration: Magazine."

Irene Gallo over at Tor.com was kind enough to feature the image on her related blog post.

And here's the link to the nominees for this category at ASFA!


 

The Tides of Avarice Wins Award!

I just got word from my author client John Dahlgren that his book The Tides of Avarice, which I did the cover for some time back, has come in 2nd place for the Fiction-Fantasy category of the International Book Awards! This out of 4,000+ entries. Congratulations John!

(You can learn more about the book at the official site.)

Boy Studies

Posting another series of studies. This time from randomly selected images by Jason C. Taylor. It really helps to have multiple photos of the same kid to learn from!

Otherwise, doing well and keeping busy. I can't believe May is just about over.

Creamy New Brush: Sketches

Trying to get more loose sketching into my day... Here are a number of random sketches from today that I did after falling in love with a brush on the current ImagineFX disc.

(This brush is from the "Safadi-Painting-Dream-Team" set and is simply called "as 2." It is one of the creamiest natural media feeling digital brushes I've ever used. And that is saying a lot.)

 

Study: Painting of a Smiling Girl

This is a quick digital study, 1.5 hours. It's part of my ongoing effort to get better at painting children. I'd like to shoot for 2-3 of these per week.

Note: the aim is more to capture a bit of the essence, expression, and character, rather than an exact likeness.




Study based on Another Smile! by adwriter.

Dragon Blossom

It's been a while and I have a new personal piece to share! This one's entitled "Dragon Blossom." It was inspired the beautiful flowering spring trees around my neighborhood a few weeks back and also by the Northern California Cherry Blossom festival, which I attended while on vacation in the San Francisco recently. (Note: the writing on the scroll is completely made-up -I thought it a better solution than trying to blindly cobble together Japanese characters.)

Dragon Blossom

 

Details:
 

Pinterest, Facebook, and Prints

I wanted to let everyone know that my children's illustration portfolio is up on Pinterest. Please feel free to pin away!

I also added my art portfolios to the Laura Diehl Illustration facebook page. Again, feel free to share the images with your friends.

Lastly, I finally found an awesome printer to replace my retired printer of over a decade (Kessler Color, Inc)... This means my print shop is back up and open for business!