Jenny Phillips CD's

I have worked with Jenny Phillips the singer songwriter on several projects, this is one of the latest ones. As always she is great to work with and her music is very inspiring, check it out here. The painting was from a recent book, she liked it and wanted to use it for this cover, It's always nice to reuse images and keep the proverbial ball rolling.

The Christmas Train is here

The Christmas Train is available at Amazon, soon to be in stores as well. I consider it a real honor to have been chosen to illustrate this book. The paintings turned out well and I really love the story. The publisher (Deseret Book) Sent tons of photos of Thomas Monson and his family to use as reference for the paintings, It was sort of an inside glimpse of his childhood and family life. For the most part the book looks great, there are some color shifts that always happen in the printing process so I have learned as an illustrator not to get too attached to the color in your paintings. Anyway, its out and I hope you all go out and buy copies for all your family members, I know you will love it, after all the author is really good and the illustrations aren't bad either.

thanks.
Dan

Cover for Upland Tales

This is a painting I did a while ago, traditionally I might add. The editor of a magazine I work for on occasion called the other day and asked it I had an image that could be used for their youth magazine, after thinking about for a while and looking through my files I came across this painting I originally painted for a Farm Bureau christmas poster, I changes the farmer and added the child pulling the sleigh, the pheasant tracks, moved things around a bit to accommodate the magazine header and this is how it turned out. They like it, I'm going to get paid for it again and the world keeps turning...
I hope you like it too.

Updated painting

It seems I am never satisfied with my work and  if I have the time, cannot resist making changes, in this case I think the changes were warranted and make for a better image. I changed the temperature and value in a few places trying to control the composition a bit, added the wood in the foreground, put a shadows on the wall,  cleaned up a few details here and there to fill up the narrative. All in all I am more satisfied with the results. I'm sure there will be more changes in the future. The wonderful thing about working digitally is that the changes are effortless, well, maybe not completely but at least easier than starting over or painting out things in oils. I am looking  forward to the next painting in this sequence and hope you stay tuned.

Dan

New Project without a name or publisher

I'm a firm believer in working on personal projects between paying jobs and this is my latest, I am fascinated with the subject matter, and the story behind the painting. The book or story, I call it my Cave Man book, is about the domestication of wolves to dogs, My character (Kuak) finds himself befriending a wolf that eventually becomes a valuable part of his life and survival in an incredibly harsh land and time. This painting is the last one in the book that portrays man and dog together not as enemies but as companions that need and depend on each other. The text on the page reads: "As the sun set on another day, together, Kuak and his dog Eira, both with full bellies, sat quietly by the crackling fire, warming themselves from the chill fall air and resting from another successful hunt.  They had come along way together, and this night, as another season approached, they wondered what the dawn of a new day would bring".
This is the first book I have written (way harder than I thought it would be)  and am still working on the story, I am in the process of showing it around a bit and hope to find a home for it.
Hope you like it as much as I do.

Dan

Pirate...

Surprise, surprise... I needed to paint this guy, every once in a while I just need to paint a pirate, call it a fix or whatever you want. They call to me from some dark place in my head and I have to submit to the itch. Anyway, I like how this painting turned out, I am  trying some new brush and mark making techniques, you probably can't tell but it's new to me and I like how it looks. The painting is based on a photo of Alan Moore ( the author) he is  scary looking dude and would have made a scary pirate so I turned him into one, the rings are his, the braids and other pirate garb are not. It seems that I see pirates all around me, I think it is time for another Pirate book or something to get this out of my system.

Latest FTR Poster

The Friends of the Teton River let me create a poster for their annual river party, I've been doing this for many years and alway enjoy it, the challenge is to come up with something new and a bit different. This is the poster for this summer, I enjoyed painting it, I would as always make a few changes in the painting  and probably at some point will but all in all I like it and think it makes a nice poster. I hope you like it as well.