Plein air watercolor

Here are the two little watercolors I managed to squeeze into my vacations.
PLUS an action picture.

Notice the hat. The hat totally makes me look like a legit painter.

Merrily watercoloring on my plein-air easel

Here's the first watercolor done on my new plein-air easel.

I wasn't exactly in plein-air, though. I had an excellent view from the window while enjoying protection from the sun... and... you know, I painted what was in front of me and the painting was done in one sitting.

I think it qualifies.

Lookit I built!

Inspired by the ever awesome James Gurney and with the help of people with higher intellectual capabilities than me (that's my girlfriend), I built this plein air easel!

I'm super excited!

Now all I need is some time and the courage to go and miserably fail at my first painting outings.

I'll keep you guys posted. (And I can provide detailed information on the building of my easel if you're curious.)

Front view...

...aaaand back view. Exciting isn't it?

Fantasy Vulture

Started working on my next piece. (I'm telling myself, if I do manage to have four images in my portfolio for IlluxCon, I'll be one happy guy!)

I once again pulled a random card from the WOTC database. This time I got a card for some kind of fantasy vulture (white mana). The point of the exercise is take the card description and use it as an assignment without looking at the art that was already done (so it doesn't influence my own design).

I also didn't look at any reference yet so I doodled away looking for a vulture with some kind of regal features. I tried to steer away from the scrawny-creepy look a vulture can have and tried to giving him an eagle bill (instead of the hooked bill vultures have) while retaining the bald head.

We'll see where that leads.

Also, I wanted to share words from Austin Kleon with you. This is taken from his wonderful book Steal Like An Artist.

The question every young writer at some point asks is: "What should I write?" And the standard answer is, "Write what you know." This advice leads to terrible stories in which nothing interesting happens.
[...]
The best advice is not write what you know, it's write what you like. Write the kind of story you like best—write the story you want to read.
[...]
Draw the art you want to see, start the business you want to run, play the music you want to hear, write the books you want to read, build the products you want to use—do the work you want to see done.

Key Demon - Done

Hey! This guy's done.
We had a good time together. Really.

Moving on to the next one. I'll keep you posted.