Cassie and Licorice remembrance Portrait, October 2025

 I digitally painted this as a remembrance for two dogs our family grew to love and adore. The dog in the foreground, Licorice, has passed to the great beyond. The background dog, Cassie, is still kicking.

Compositing reference images

I used two separate photos of the dogs, both taken in a similar setting. I then used AI image generation (XeroGen Forge) to create the green blanket Licorice is lying on.

Mount Pleasant Horses

Purchase a print of this at my art store

Title: Mount Pleasant Horses Touching the Sky

Dimensions: 18x22.2 inches at 300 DPI

Tools: Krita, Custom-made RGBa brushes that mimic the feel of oil paint.

Previsualizing the concept

During the Mount Pleasant Independence Day parade I snapped this photo of these horses mounted by local beauties:

After deliberating on whether to use this as is, for my reference image, I decided I didn't want to include the women as part of this piece. I liked the horse, but I also wanted to include clouds. In order to do this, I engaged in some photo compositing. Using another photo which included some puffy clouds and another photo that included a horizon and some far-off clouds with some mid-ground landscape. 

Hard lesson learned about using AI as a reference tool

At one point I utilized Photoshops AI image generation tools to produce the lower portion of the horses. I fully rendered that generation into the painting. After reviewing other reference photos, I came to the full realization that the AI generation was completely flawed. I felt like a fool for taking as long as I did to come to this realization. Lesson learned, and I plan to never again us AI as a tool, except in the most minor cases. So, I finally did what I should have done in the beginning, and I used other references from horses in the same parade to produce the final rendering. I feel I ended up with a much more realistic and pleasing result. You can see the contrast in the progression video or animated GIF I produced, along with the painting. (See at the end of this post).

Haitian Woman and newborn

Early illustration from my newspaper days

I had been working at the Deseret News for about one year when I decided to try my hand at creating an artistic illustration using a pressure sensitive device. This wasn't entirely new to me, I had already owned a Logitech pen tablet for several years already and had produced several personal works with it. For this I decided to take an image which had already been published, draw a sketch on paper, scan the sketch into the computer, then render out a digital painting from the original reference.

Ultimately this was an attempt to show the management at Deseret News (In late 2010, right after a major layoff of a huge portion of the staff) that I had the chops to do illustration work. After creating this and showing it around, no one seemed too interested in the more traditional look. Which is fine. In the years that followed the Deseret News, like every other surviving Newspaper publication, would water down everything with their physical content. Currently you can subscribe to the, vastly reduced newspaper, and have it delivered in your mailbox. But about 99% of us just hit the internet on our mobile devices.

Stephanie Memorial Illustration

Medium: Digital

Tools: krita, using custom digital brushes

Duration: Approximately 10 hrs, over 5 sessions

On February 12, 2025 my cousin Stephanie Fryer passed due to a combination of diabetes and illness. Shortly after her passing my wife suggested I create a digital portrait to memorialize her and her life.

As has been the case with most of my illustrative work from the past 2 years I sought to use digital techniques in the most traditional way possible.

From this I advanced my skills as an artist and illustrator. I also learned how much of her mother Ellen she had within her. Studying every detail of her face, as I worked, helped me to see that clearer than ever. As is the case with all of the daughters of God, she was beautiful inside and out. I look forward to getting to know her better in the next life 

An Epic Play Mat

At the beginning of October my youngest son approached me with a task of creating an illustration for a playmat. Essentially this is like a mouse pad, only larger. It will be rolled up, then unrolled, when he is ready to do some serious card gaming.

I accepted the challenge. Before I even began, he came up with a mood board and instructions for the playmat. I love how he used a little typographic hierarchy to tell me what is most important about the illustration. 

Together we figured out I needed to produce an illustration 24 inches wide by 14 inches deep. 

With that, I dove into creating this. To expedite the speed in which this would be produced, I chose to use a combination of AI image generation, compositing techniques, using Affinity Photo, and digital illustration where needed.

Bison Study Aug 2024

Final Digital painting by Aaron Thorup. Purchase a Print.

 

I started this particular study sometime last year. A good friend gave me an art book called Painting Wildlife TEXTURES Step by Step, by Rod Lawrence. This book highlighted using a technique of gradually layering the paint to build up the details. The idea of applying the same techniques to a digital painting intrigued me.

Maddy

Stats: 

Canvas size: 4200x3300 pixels

Brush: Custom-made paint brush (Krita RGBa)

Program: Krita 

Reference: Multiple

Earlier in the summer one of my cousin's daughters (Maddy) tragically sought to take her own life. Doctors fought to keep her with us. Many prayers were raised to the God of the universe. After all of this, God took her home and she passed out of this life. I would describe what led up to this, but her mother gives a far better description of Maddy's life and some of the struggles she endured that led to the series of events that resulted in her passing. You can read about that on her blog here.

I will only say this much about the passing of Maddy: As is the case with all of Heavenly Father's children, she was subject to all the vicissitudes of this life. That included her DNA, her circumstances and the choices she made. She was an incredibly complex beautiful soul. I am in no way qualified to judge her. Nor do I judge God as to why she was taken from us so young. His will be done in all things, and I have no doubt Maddy is safe and loved beyond anything we can comprehend in this life. When it comes down to it that is core reason for my attempt to illustrate Maddy in the arms of Jesus Christ, our Savior and Redeemer. His love and power are infinite. God the Father, His Son and the Holy Spirit have never let me down; they will take care of her and be there with her on her eternal journey.

The following is a glimpse into the process and struggles I experienced in digitally painting this illustration. Read on if you would like to know more

Vanilla Sky, a Digital Painting

Finished digital painting.

Stats: 

Canvas size: 4200x3300 pixels

Brush: Custom-made paint brush (Krita RGBa)

Program: Krita 

Reference: Photo taken by me

I snapped the reference photo for one of my wife's pet geckos in March of this year. I loved the look, lighting and pose so much, I decided to paint this as an exercise. As I progressed I decided to execute a fully rendered digital painting

Reference Photo of Vanilla Sky

As always using Krita and the custom brushes within the program are amazing. The interactive feel, that balances smudging and applying paint all within the same stroke, feels so natural and intuitive.

Below are a few detail images at 100% zoom.

Detail at 100% zoom

Detail at 100% zoom

Digital Painting - Crane

Well, what can I say. I took an overly long break from posting on my blog. Well, time to dust off the good ole keyboard and make a new beginning. Over that past six years I have engaged in a ton of graphics for the Public Engagement department for Horrocks. While I find the work useful to the communities in which we serve, the creativity factor is lacking greatly. I do a ton of maps, signs, flyers and other collateral for various civil and transportation projects.

I will only post on such things if there is some kind of interest beyond the norm. No, here in this blog I wish to share an ongoing chronicle of creative dabbling's, and ongoing projects. I like to share what I learn. I will also share, from time to time, my inner mind, thoughts and feelings.

The following digital painting exercise was completed in about four to six hours, over a couple month period. Keep in mind I do this as a hobby on the side. Being a working father and husband my time to indulge in this is limited. Have to spread things out.

Overall, I'm happy with the final result of this painting. While Affinity photo isn't the absolute best tool for digital painting, it can produce excellent results.

Detail of the head and Neck of the Crane

Detail of the Wing area

Detail of the Feet.

View of the workspace with photo reference on the left.

Final digital painting of the Crane

Christmas Card 2017

3D rendering of the card

Hello everyone! Merry Christmas. I decided to create a Christmas Card that I ended up printing and also used as a digital card.

The sketch

Out of the recesses of my mind I sketched then scanned the below drawing into the computer.

Colorizing in Gimp

In Gimp 2.8 I created a gradated texture surrounding the figures. I did this by creating a circular gradient, Cubism filter, emboss, and changing the layer mode to Grain Extract. Then on another layer I painted the figures, achieving what you see below

Laid out in InDesign

I finished laying this out in InDesign. On the cover I placed my image with some text at the top. Inside I found some text in the Holy Bible and used a version of the figures without the textured background.

Front of card

Inside of card

'51 Ford illustration

This is not a photo

What you see here is the result of many many sessions, over a 3 month period, of creating shape after shape in Adobe Illustrator. The image source for this is a photo I took at a small car show years ago.

Also decided to take some of the slogans, used in an original Ford ad (See below), to create an original ad. I used illustrator to outline the '51 Ford logo, so I could have a vectorized version to resize to whatever I choose.

You can find the original illustration (Not this ad) for sale at my fine art store on Imagekind.

Final illustration, with vintage Ford slogans and logo added. Copy right 2017

Vintage Ford ad. NOT CREATED BY ME

Why did I do this?

I did this because of U-haul. For years I had seen some really nice illustrations on the side of U-haul trucks. Then I saw this one:

Uhaul ad, NOT created by me. Very cool

These impressed me for their quality and unique style. I find these incredibly eye catching. Whoever is over marketing at U-haul – two huge thumbs up! Having an artist to utilize Illustrator (Assuming) to create illustrations with a unique style and look, is smart in my opinion.

After seeing this, and others, I decided I wanted to create my own high quality illustration using vectors. After much deliberation I decided I wanted my first professional illustration to be based on a photo I've personally taken, and I wanted chrome, lots of shiny chrome. (Not the browser)

Several years ago I went to a small car show behind the Litza's Pizza restaurant in West Valley City. Took a ton of photos. Years later I came across this photo and knew this was the one.

Details

Below are some detail shots of the illustration.

Illustration: Free data from the masses

Created this illustration for an online story. Not totally sure if this ran or not.

At any rate, here is an image of my thumbs and the final illustration. Final illustration was created in Illustrator and Photoshop. The idea was to show how researchers gain easy data from social networks.

Grandma and child illustration

I've picked up a little more illustration work with my job at Deseret News. This one ended up being for online only. If you would like to read the story, written by Daphne Chen, associated with this illustration, here is a link. The story revolves around our nation and state's ever-growing population problem stemming from low birth rates. Here comes the demographic winter.

About this illustration

The writer provided me with a stock image. I took this into Illustrator and created many many vector shapes. It is a paint-by-numbers approach, but I like the simplified results derived from it. Obviously there is some creativity in making decisions about placement and color of shapes. For example, there is always additional creative judgement that needs to be made with human faces. Shapes and shadows on faces are almost never cut and dry. In the case of the grandma, especially, I had to alter some shapes and colors to make her look less creepy.

Below you can see the result before taking it into Photoshop.

The emotional payoff

Below is a detail showing in greater detail the shapes of the figures. All in all the work in illustrator represents between 2 and 3 hours.

My feelings as I go through this meticulous work could be comparable to coloring in an adult coloring page, with all its hundreds if not thousands of cells. For some reason it is relaxing, calming and rewarding on some fundamental emotional level.

Finishing in Photoshop

It should be noted that I don't just do a straight copy and paste to Photoshop of the entire illustration. I organize in Illustrator using layers, based on background, midground, foreground and the central figures of this rendering. Then I copy and paste one by one into photoshop so as to create layers which can be edited separately.

Below is the final result after applying some creative texturing and blurring, in photoshop. I deliberately left the central figures alone, in the hope that their increased simplicity will draw attention to them. I think it does just that in a very pleasant way.

What do you think? Let me know. Have a good day, and God bless.

Psychology of the Scare Illustration

This illustration turned out to be quite satisfying to create. I found a stock image of a couple in a movie theater. Took this into Illustrator and created a lot of shapes using a Wacom tablet and my normal mouse. Don't use a tablet very often in Illustrator, so I thought I would give it a go and see if it could speed up my work or accuracy. I don't know, maybe I need to use it more, but I found the tablet to be no faster than my mouse in this regard. What I have found them to be very good for is more traditional techniques that involve pen pressure.

After creating all the shapes, I then proceeded to add color. This tends to be the most difficult part for me. Finding the right colors seems to be a challenge for me. After this I pulled different sections (Back ground, mid ground and fore ground) into Photoshop for toning and additional texturing. The next week I laid it out for the Friday feature. Over all I think this turned out OK.

What do you think? Did I capture the expressions well? Do the colors work for the content of the story?

Here is a link to the story by Adam Droge, if you're interested in reading

Illustration, Digital Isolation

Pulled this illustration together in about a 5 hour period. All things considered, this turned out alright.

Below is the first version without the girl, then the final, and lastly, the illustration as seen in the layout for the National Edition of the Deseret News. (Layout by Heiddi Perry)

Here is a link to the story, by Chandra Johnson, if you are interested.

A Noticeable reduction in saturation can be seen due to toning. 

News print has a much narrower color gamut than other papers.

Fun sketching at Draw Night

Spent a couple hours with my Illustrator brother and some friends talking about sketching landscapes and the importance of doing thumbnails before engaging in a larger image.

I have always known the importance of thumbnails in the design process. But honestly I never really understood how they can be a launching pad for doing a landscape. Special thanks goes out to Michael Buhler for showing us how thumbnails can quickly get your creative juices flowing in a quick easy way.

I quickly drew 3 thumbnails in row, shown below.

I liked the idea of the first one, a giant tortoise staring down a small character at the top of a cliff. I probably drew this from my first viewing of the Neverending story movie, in which the hero has a conversation with an ancient massive turtle.

I took this and expanded on the thumbnail below to create a larger more detailed sketch. I had great fun doing this. I may take this sketch to another level and create a digital painting. We'll see.

Inktober Illustrations

Progress using Krita as an illustration tool

Following are a few illustrations I did for Inktober. I was supposed to do an illustration every day during the month. Failed miserably. But I succeeded in using krita as a tool for producing quick illustrations with a newspaper comic look to them.

Love dinosaurs

I thought it would be fun to make most of these illustrations dinosaur themed. The question I asked myself: "What if dinosaurs existed during Halloween?" This is a question I wouldn't mind exploring further through art and illustrations. Hope you enjoy seeing these as much as I enjoyed creating them.

Illustration of my Grandpa Thorup

Desire for traditional art project begins

In Early summer this year I felt it was time to get my art studio back up and running. my drawing table had been languishing in the garage for at least 4 years. Every time I pulled the van into the garage I would see it sitting their, gathering dust and cob webs.

For a while it didn't bother me.

Then, Grandpa died, I finished school and that began to change. Sifting through the hundreds of digital images I have taken over the years, I came across a photo I took of my Grandfather at my brother Jacob's wedding in 2005.

I thought to myself, "Ya, know that is a great image of grandpa. If I ever get the chance I would like to take  crack at making an illustration out of this."

Having completed a digital illustration for my wife in spring, my desire to do something traditional had grown. My desire to do something to truly honor my Grandfather's memory had also grown.

I finally set myself to the task

As I cleaned and organized the studio (It was in complete disarray) I became more and more excited. After much shifting, sweeping and chucking, the studio was ready for some good ole fashioned traditional art.

The video below documents over a 3 month period the study sketches and the final Illustration. I hope in some small way I have honored his memory. I hope by the way I live my life over many years, I will honor him for all he tried to teach me.

Here also is a link to the Hi resolution image for any relatives who would like to get a nice print done of the illustration depicted above. Just click on the download icon at the top of the page.
It is of sufficient detail that it can be printed at full size of the original (18x24) 

August Graphics in review

And the top 10 for August are ....

1. Stress in America graphic

Graphic done for a Story Written by Lois Collins.

2. Your body and media

Graphic done for a story written by Chandra Johnson. Good read for any teen or parent concerned about how the media is affecting your teen's body image

3. Teens, Tech and friendship

Graphic done for a story written by Chandra Johnson.

4. Religion in the Bay area

Graphic done for a story written by Mark A. Kelner. Story About Religion and stress at work in the Bay area.

5. Body image illustration

Did this for a feature about a series of stories on Media and Body image among teens written by Chandra Johnson and Kelsey Dallas.

And here it is in context of the page

6. Original A2 graphic

Only reason this is here is because I researched and created most of the imagery. I just pull most of these from from a news service. But this one is all me.

7. Photoshop job for Church News

I composited these elements together in Photoshop. I made some alterations to the labels of the box and calligraphic text on the book.