Happy Thanksgiving!

I did come up with this gag on my own, but I doubt I'm the only one to have run with it. You do hear women say "Those aren't real" when they see their men eying a rack, and we're only doing a turkey breast for thanksgiving this year, so the two sort of gelled. The tones were done digitally (as well as the drawing, though first sketched out on paper at work). I overlayed a sepia tone to give it a more fall feeling. It was fun to do and send to folks for Turkey Day :)

fishy

another experiment with oil pastels... I should mention that for years, I would take them out and make a horrible abomination and then throw the pastels in the deepest art bin I had and try to live on and forget what had happened.

This time I watched some tutorials and took a different approach. I know some techniques have inherent strengths and weaknesses, so I tried to let the oil pastels do what they were good at: blending colors. Not the best medium for control freaks, I'd wager, but this was a nice exercise that will not haunt me. I'll have to include these in my rotation now. :)

Celtic Snakes

Ok, so last reptile expo I did I just had art, and it was all pretty realistic, drawn from nature kind of art, and I broke even (and had a lot of fun). This year I'll have my Camp Lizard book, so I hope to do much better, but I'm also doing some different art... like this Celtic knot of common pet snakes (milksnake, kingsnake, and cornsnake). I have some other ideas, too, even some "manga" illustrations. Lots of people last time thought of things as they would relate to a cool tattoo, so I'm taking that into consideration, too. It's fun! :)

First Online Art Sale!

CLICK ON IMAGE TO ENLARGE!

These watercolors were done to celebrate Summertime, and were part of a group art show. The show's over and I really would hate to put these in deep storage, so I'm using Facebook to offer them to all my friends and family at a special price!

All the pieces are 5x7" images (already matted and ready for a 8x10 frame) and are each only $25.00 (shipping included) for my facebook friends :)

Shown here are...

• "Summer is for Sprinklers"
• "High Dive Anxiety"
• "Floating Along"
• "Cannon Ball!"

If you'd like one of these fun watercolors to commemorate this summer, just email me at regan@reganjohnson.com to arrange for payment and delivery.

If you like one of these, but, say, you'd like your own kid in it, I can also do a special commission.

Hope everyone's having a happy summer and staying cool! Feel free to comment, too, I always like hearing from the public!

Regan

Reptile Expo!

Looks like I'll be a vendor in next month's Austin Reptile Expo (yeah!). I'll be selling artwork like the one above and also selling and signing my books, mainly Camp Lizard to all the kids that come see the reptiles. Hopefully I'll earn some green and even more hopefully I won't immediately blow it all at the expo!

I've still got a lot of "realistic" reptile studies, so I'm having some fun with art deco motifs and designs. I think they may do well, we'll see.

another signature image

Woot Shirt Design

Mother(ship)hood preview

I'm still working on this but wanted to get some feedback from the Woot forum, so I'm posting it here... the theme is Motherhood and I'm showing a little UFO bringing "Mom" a gift (poor guy, his dog, and a camper)

sketch for Unsinkable Quartet

Spring Chicken

A tshirt design for the Woot.shirt website... it's a fun weekly contest, I'm learning a lot about design and use of limited colors (6 is the most you can use). Really fun!

more woot avatar stuff (sorry, need to post it)

woot avatar

sketches for Woot Derby

need to post this for my woot site!

Mural Mock Up

I think the murals I have planned for the new house will restart my creative painting engines. This will have four layers: a base color layer that will open up on the ceiling to the blue that is already on the walls (adding clouds to soften the blue a bit), then a sponged on mist layer of a slightly lighter tone, then a darker than base color silhouette layer which will add depth and realism without me having to lose my mind painting every little thing, then a final full color layer that will be spaced out into "spots" of realism.

The thing about the Savannah mural I did was that was also 360 degrees was that I had to paint every blade of tall grass and it also was kind of claustrophobic because I didn't paint in atmospheric effects to lead the eye beyond the elements right up close. The effect was you were in a sea of grass, which was fine, but for a jungle if I tried that I would go bonkers fast. But, flipping through my many, many... MANY wildlife books, I saw that nature created a nifty shortcut: mist that creates shapes and shadows. I predict this will be much easier both to work on and to live with. I won't have to leave whole sections totally blank while I work on other parts of it. It will be like the jungle is emerging piece by piece.

The fun part, too, is auditioning animal/plant sources. I already decided it will be a South/Central American jungle, since I did Africa with my Savannah mural before. Almost chose Australia, but I really want toucans! I have my jaguar source, and a list of favorite plants from my terrarium building. Definitely a plus of home ownership: a JUNGLE Room! :)

updated Brady Bunch parody!

Redesign of Website take 2 or is it 3?

the white empty squares on either side will be horizontal scrolling portfolios that when clicked on will enlarge on a different page. The idea came from a book on new website design/ideas and I like the idea that a lot of my art could be quickly viewed all at once with the option of looking closer available. Clicking one at a time and even seeing a tiny preview thumbnail might slow things down in the fast paced art world. The light gray box in the middle at the bottom will be a news box with updates and hopefully release dates of future books. And I like the different backgrounds I got going on behind the design portfolios (argyle) and the illustration ones (floral/organic pattern). That's meant to show a left brain/right brain difference at work.

Now just have to sweet talk the hubby to build it :)

Art Deco Wedding Portrait

Holy god, that was a lot of frilly textures! Hahaha, it makes me laugh, cause I don't consider myself a frilly girl, and I think my wedding was restrained, but I had to go all out for the sake of the illustration :) Those who were there can keep a secret!

Salome Dancer

I'm taking some interest in Art Deco and Mucha in particular, so this is a belly dancer figure drawn in that heavily outlined way used back then... I like the flat use of color that was popular, too, back then, it's very graphic. I named it Salome because her expression looked like she was wanting a man's head on a platter... sometimes I don't get to choose!

zilker bridge

just a pen and ink drawing of the bridge at Zilker park for my 3x3" show