River Otter with Buffalo Fish

This was a painting that came from a plein air painting. We were supposed to do something with this landscape we had just painted. We painted out in Utah Valley near the Utah Lake, it was pretty marshy out there. Swatting mosquitos while your trying to paint. I took the studies home and decided to do the big catch pose. I did a drawing earlier of this mythological creature that I made up called a buffalo fish. It was based off a painting of Native Americans on a hunt, one of the buffalo looked weird and reminded me of a fish so I drew one. And I added the river otter to be the fisherman. It was fun to paint fur.

Spirit of God Like a Fire is Burning

This was another project that started with a plein air study. The Provo Tabernacle was burned down. It was a building with a lot of history and much sacrifice in building. We spent several days doing on site studies of the building. The LDS Church decided to rebuild it and turn it into Provo's second temple. I painted this building as the finished temple and wanted it to have ghost flames representing the fire that took place here but also the spiritual flames that will be emanating from this building once it is dedicated as a House of the Lord.

Cowboys and Indians

This painting was for my Plein Air class, we went out to a site, in this case the Provo Center Street. Then we had to come up with some kind of illustration that used that background. The building I was painting dated back to the late 1800's, so it made me think of the skirmishes of the early Mormon pioneers with the Indians. In Provo I believe there was a battle between the two groups, so I wanted to portray them having a good time together, hanging out.

With this piece my paint was a little more watery, so it looked washed out. My teacher Greg Newbold commented that it looked like some of the old 80's illustration, that he liked it. I want to experiment more with it.