Thursday, April 30, 2009

The Little Mermaid ***revisited*** (final)

Thank you to those of you who took the time to write me with your opinions on my last set of sketches for The Little Mermaid. I took all of your opinions into account and I went with a classical sculpture and stayed truer to the original pose. I changed direction a little bit and developed a totally new color palate. I based the new mermaid on a silver fish.

Here is the sketch:



and here is the final:


please click to enlarge!



I hope you love her!

JDM

Monday, April 27, 2009

The Little Mermaid **revisited** (sketch phase)

hello!
I guess I'm going through a phase where I like to redo old drawings of mine because I'm attempting to do it again. I have always loved The Little Mermaid and after a trip to a Florida underwater mermaid show about two weeks ago I've been wanting to put some samples from the story back into my portfolio.
It's a not so secret dream of mine to someday do a version of the story, illustrated by myself, and I find the part with the mermaid in her garden particularly heartbreaking so I'm going there again.

"She was a strange child, quiet and thoughtful; and while her sisters would be delighted with the wonderful things which they obtained from the wrecks of vessels, she cared for nothing but her pretty red flowers, like the sun, excepting a beautiful marble statue. It was the representation of a handsome boy, carved out of pure white stone, which had fallen to the bottom of the sea from a wreck." taken from
- The Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Anderson

ANYWAY.....
Here is the drawing I did bout 3-4 years ago:



I like it a lot but I think it could be updated and made a little bit more dramatic.
Here are some of my thought process sketches.







Any thoughts or feelings about these sketches would be much appreciated! I always like to know what other people think before I "dive"(har har har...I suck) into a final piece

Thursday, April 23, 2009

Wednesday, April 22, 2009

J. David McKenney SHOP

I opened a store on Etsy today with 6 prints for sale. I'm still testing the waters to see what people are interested in so any feedback would be AWESOME and much appreciated.
Thanks,
J.



CHECK IT OUT!!!

http://www.etsy.com/shop.php?user_id=5236057

Friday, April 17, 2009

Impossiblity-IF



This week I went to Florida with my sister and visited my childhood personal heaven Weeki Wachee.
http://weekiwachee.com
I also saw the original "Madison" tail from Splash at Planet Hollywood in Orlando.



I have mermaids on the brain!

Nymph

Wednesday, April 8, 2009

"Poppies" reborn!

Here she is! The new 2.0 version of my old drawing



and here is is with a border



this was the previous version


MAC body painting job

So we went with a "Modern Art" theme with the body art.
Here is an example:

Tuesday, April 7, 2009

I'm Redoing "Poppies"

I've started to revisit some of the older pieces in my portfolio. Poppies used to be my favorite and now I would do it differently so I am.
J.

the original:


the new sketch:


the final:
Coming soon

Friday, April 3, 2009

origami man


I did this job as a concept piece for MAC cosmetics (body painting) but we have changed direction. They use my drawings as a guide to create art on live models during promotions. This is the one drawing that got completed before we shifted to another idea...those drawings will be up soon and hopefully we'll see them on the live models soon too!
stay tuned!