Pancake and Booze art show

I entered an art show recently.  It was called The Pancake and Booze art show.  Holy cow was it NEAT.  There were so many fantastic art and great flapjacks too! Unfortunately I didn't eat any flapjacks due to there being a HUGE line.  Next time I will eat those flapjacks...

Wallpaper

 I have discovered a new hobby! Making wallpaper. 

Sprout in Photoshop

It's been awhile since I've posted any work.  Been busy working on illustrations for clients and updating my portfolio.  I have been working on Sprout's story a bit and some of the characters that he meets along the way.  One of them is an Aviator Alligator named Albert.  Al for short.  

Any who,  here is a illustration I did of Sprout.



© Mackenzie Bowles 2012 

medium: pencil, Photoshop CS5

The Big Bad Wolf and The Crow Bros.

I designed the Big Bad Wolf for the Children Book Illustration class I took last fall and now I'm getting the chance to make a whole story out of him! He ain't with the piggies no more. He's with the crows now. Don't mess with the crows or else...

©Mackenzie Bowles 2013

medium: watercolor, ink, pencil and Adobe Photoshop CS6

The Adventures of Sprout and Otto

Here's another piece that I concepted for Sprout.  This is what he looks like as of right now.  I'm still trying to get the feel of how he's going to look like.  I wanted to start illustrating his story and so far it's turning out pretty good.  I also want to concept the other adventurers Sprout meets; the octopus that is with Sprout, his name is Otto and he's a sailor.  These 3 panels is just a warm up of Sprout's adventure. Later on in the month, I hope to illustrate some more complex landscapes.  


©Mackenzie Bowles 2013
medium: watercolors, ink, pencil and Adobe Photoshop CS6 

"Swim Club" by Arden Johnson

One of the assignments for my Children's Book Illustration class was to  storyboard, create a character packet and make a dummy book for this story called "Swim Club".  I received a script about a little boy learning how to swim.  The characters name was Alex.  I decided to draw the Creature from the Black Lagoon as the main character of the story.  I also had to draw the bullies of the story too.  Overall, it was a pretty cool assignment.   Hopefully when I have some free time,  I will do a character packet for Alex Creature. 

© Mackenzie Bowles 2012-2013
© "Swim Club" by Arden Johnson 
medium: pencil, ink, watercolor, photoshop

Postcards

For Christmas I got a new set of watercolors and some paper.  The watercolors are called Dr. Ph. Martin's. I started experimenting with the new watercolors and boy was it fun! The colors are so vivide and beautiful! These are a bunch of little 4x6 postcards I created and gave them to my friends and mom.  

© Mackenzie Bowles 2012-2013

medium: pencil, ink, Dr. Ph. Martin's watercolors

Faux by Josh Bryant

This little dude is drawn by a good friend of mine, Josh Bryant.  He asked me to paint his little Faux character.  It was a honor to paint his little character.  HE'S SO CUTE.

© Mackenzie Bowles and Josh Bryant

medium: Pencil, ink. watercolor

Big Bad Wolf concept

After I graduated college in October 2012, I decided to go back to school for 3 months.  In that 3 months I took a Children's Book Illustration class.  One of the best decisions I have ever made.  The class taught me how to story board, character designing, and finally putting a book together.  I already learned character designing and storyboarding back at Ex'pression but, we didn't get as detailed as I had hoped.

  

One of the assignments was to to draw your own Big Bad Wolf from the Three Little Piggies story.  I usually start out with drawing a bunch of heads and from there I choose my top 2-3 heads.   After the heads comes the drawing of the bodies.  I had a hard time with choosing between the hillbilly Wolf and the nerdy Wolf.  My classmates and teacher Arden chose for me.  They liked how the hillbilly Wolf looked and asked me to continue on with him.  The next step for the assignment was COLOR! :D I absolutely love color! I have about 4 different types of watercolors.  I used angora water colors for the Wolf and it turned out really cool.  I've never used angora.  I've always used Newton.  Any who, everyone got a kick out the final version of the Big Bad Wolf.

The last image is a sneak peek.  I'm putting together a 3 panel story for the Big Bad Wolf.  Color will be next once I finish the last panel for this story.  I'll post the pencil and final version up later :D. 

Night Creatures

Lately, I’ve been getting burnt out on drawing make believe characters.  I want to get out of my comfort zone and try to draw more realistic characters but still keep them in my style.  So far, it’s working out great! These guys are called “Night Creatures”.  To your left, is the great vulture, middle is a fruit bat and to your top right, is a crow.  The crow isn't a real night time creature but he should be haha.  The crow is part of a short story that I’m working on right now.  

© Mackenzie Bowles 2013

medium: pencil, Photoshop CS5

What would a child dream of

 

In June of 2012, I started working on my reel/portfolio.  I started my portfolio with Sprout and his character packet (which I’ll show later on).  If I could go back with what I know now, I would have concentrated in Character Development instead of Concept Artist.  But that’s in the past and I just gotta keep skipping onward.  

These 3 images are what would a child (5-10 years old) dream of.  The child in these dreams is the Fox.  The first dream is a teapot pirate ship in space; the second dream is the child and his pal the beetle, which is caring the little home the Fox lives in when he’s traveling on land; the final dream is the Fox that is steering the mouse submarine.  The Fox is on the search for the mystical giant Squad (Cat and Squid in one word).  This last one gave me trouble.  I wanted to have the focus on the Squad’s eyes but the lighting and overall outcome is a bit meh-ish.  

I’m decent at photoshop but I’m gonna to get better at it as time goes by.  For now, I’m trying a new program;  it’s called Corel Painter.  It’s a program for those who love traditional painting.  I just got it a couple of days ago and so far, it’s fantastic. 

© Mackenzie Bowles 2012-2013

medium: pencil, Photoshop CS5

First round of Sprout

Back in August of 2011, I was in a class called Creative Pre Pro.  The class was broken down like this: create a main character and one other, pitch a story for that character, illustrate a 5 point turn around of that main character, make a animatic for your character’s story and finally make a maquette of your character.  I had to complete all of this in 5 weeks (Ask me in person about my school).

This little dude, is Sprout.  He’s a gourd.  His story is that he has to find his lantern.  In the little village he lives in, everyone has to find their unique lantern.  It’s kind of like finding out who you really are sort of story.

I have more sketches of Sprout because he was such a HUGE success  I didn’t start drawing him again until June of 2012 for my reel class. I’ll post his current illustrations later.  I just wanted to show ya’ll what he looked like in his beginning stages. 

© Mackenzie Bowles 2011-2013

medium: ink, super sculpey,  photoshop

The story of a wonderful friendship with water colors and the story of “Anatomy”

I started watercoloring when I was just 8 years old.  My teacher Eve taught me to just go with the flow when working with watercolors.  Don’t worry about messing up because if you do, you can spice it up with more vivid colors.  That was 13 years ago and from then on, I kept those sacred words in my mind whenever I painted.  Any who, that’s just a bit of history with how I became best friends with water colors.

Back in December of 2010, I got the opportunity to present a painting at a show called Chillin’ Productions.  The show was at the Mezzanie in San Francisco.  How I got into the show, was due to a simple reply to a post on Facebook.  My friend Rene Castro asked her fellow artist friends if they wanted to be part of a show.  I can’t remember if she had mentioned the Mezzanie but I had to reply.  I’ve always wanted to be apart of a show! She hooked me up with Irene Hernandez-Feiks.  Irene is just so sweet.  She was excited for me and I was excited that I was presenting myself in my 1st art show!  I had about a few weeks to complete and matte a painting.  At that time, I was in school studying Animation and Visual Effects so, it was a bit hard for me to balance 2 different things at once.  At the end, everything turned out great.  The night of my 1st show had arrived.  I invited my folks and friends to come see what I had created.  I arrived to the show early and when I got there,  I couldn’t believe how COLORFUL it was.  There were so many different styles and people! It was packed.  It felt liked I was partying in a sarden box or something haha.  Any who, the event was awesome.  This piece didn’t sell but I didn’t mind.  I just wanted to be able to present my art.

© Mackenzie Bowles 2010-2013 “Anatomy” medium: ink, watercolor,photoshop