Circles, circles, circles

I'm going to try something new. The first picture is of the regular outline that I do for every painting. The second is a "brilliantly" designed diagram of my why I chose the composition for this piece.

When I was in school (undergrad), one of my teachers told me that one of the rules that you should always try to follow is to never put a circle in the upper right hand corner. It attracts the viewers eye directly to it. The only time you should is if you want the viewers eye to go there. For this piece that's exactly what I wanted (the pie), but I'm always nervous that the rest of the composition will get lost. So to combat this I tried to make the entire middle of the page one giant circle. You can see this in my awesome diagram (yes, these are the same skills I used to get into Pratt's graduate design program).
I also liked that the pie (circle) was resting on the tentacle which was acting as a giant arrow. The color choices that I make will also play a part in making this a whole painting. But that's for another day.

Drop That Pie Henry!

Here's the sketch for my new painting. It's a page from the book dummy that I'm currently making. In this part of the story Emily is trying to keep Henry from eating all the pies. The sketch is the original thumbnail so there really isn't any detail.I thought about fleshing out the sketch more, but I'm incredibly impatient and wanted to start right away. Normally I would never do this because I hate not knowing exactly what I'm doing before I start. I added a background to give it some context.

I'm Back

It's been a while since the last post. Sorry about that. I was busy with work and finishing my portfolio and application to grad school. I was accepted a couple weeks ago, and now I can focus on my painting again. Here's a sketch I did last night. I'm not sure what I'm going to do with the character. It just makes me laugh. I think it's because he looks like some grizzled veteran.
I'll have photos of the painting I just started up soon.