Sleeping Beauty Watercolor

Final Sleeping Beauty watercolor. #SDCCexclusive Original only for sale. Not for reproduction.

May the 4th be with you!

Re-worked this piece from 2 years ago!
Hope you all enjoy! May the 4th be with you!

MerMay 2019! Freddie Moore Tribute Sketch

A little mermaid #sketch today inspired by the great Freddie Moore. One of those artists I looked to at least every week because he has inspired me so much along the years.

Mary Poppins

Rewatching Mary Poppins and just had to try and capture the beauty that is Julie Andrews.

MerMay Mermaids by Diana Leto

Some more mermaids for MerMay I created :)
Created in Illustrator and some effects in Photoshop.

 #MeduSirenaMarina #mermaid illustration for MerMay! This time she is a #fireeating#mermaid. Hope you all enjoy! 

This is an #AliceInWonderland piece inspired by my friend Bridget, who is a perfect model for drawing mermaids. :)
I had a lot of fun drawing the #SeaRockingHorsetoo. 

 Another #mermay #illustration 🐠❤️💚🐳 I used photos of my friend Kimberly as reference. Thanks for being a beautiful model Kim! I made sure to include your tiki flower!

Happy Mothers Day-MerMay Style!

MerMay illustration featuring Scarlet Danger! (Aka Diana Hart)

Another drawing for MerMay. Here I worked from a photograph from the beautiful Pin-Up model Scarlet Danger. Hope you all enjoy!

Medusirena Marina: the Sea Witch we all know and love

I love all things Medusirena Marina! So I created this illustration of her for MerMay! Enjoy!

Ronald McDonald House Poster Design

It's that time of year again when I get to draw the poster for the Ronald McDonald House "SuperHero For A Day" event. The SuperHero For A Day event is always a wonderful time where artists, creators and other companies contribute to help kids in need.

This year I decided to draw the poster with a retro-inspired postcard feel. I worked with creative teams and partners from the Ronald McDonald House. I was in charge of concept art including mood boards and sketches to final deliverables. I drew all the illustrations, character artwork, and typography design in Adobe Illustrator. For more on my process see below.

The first thing I do is create a mood board of all the posters and typography that inspire me. I will also alter the typography to make it specific and custom for the look I am going for. For this piece I was looking for Fonts with a soft rounded edge that felt retro but could also be legible if artwork was place within them. 

I also looked at Mary Blair illustrations because I thought her artwork of children would be the perfect combination of simplified vintage art and welcoming imagery.  

 I then compose a rough sketch and sent it to the creative staff involved to hear feedback and make sure they liked where the artwork was heading. I create several sketches but this is the sketch that was approved.

Once I have approval, I begin drawing the character illustrations.

I always start in Adobe Illustrator because of the versatility of vector artwork and typography. I can arrange and rescale all the art and it never affects the resolution. Vector artwork in Adobe Illustrator also allows for easier changes in compositions. 

I just had a little fun with this one :D

Those where all graphics I came up with, I did not use all of them but that's ok. I think it is good to have more options and then take away pieces until you have a kinetic fluid image. I looked to my original sketch until I felt I had the same energy that I did from my reference art and mood boards.

For more on what the Ronald McDonald House does please go here: https://www.rmh-newyork.org/who-we-are 

Mondays be like... more coffee!

Just for fun, some warm up art for this sleepy Monday morning...