I didn’t really think
as I offered him a drink
and then started to draw
he would end up as a rhino sipping soda from a straw

…and that’s the story of the rhino sipping soda from a straw. If you’d like to learn how to draw your very own rhinoceros sipping soda from a straw just

Click Here !

First you hear the footsteps, then he leans back and roars that terrible roar. The whole town goes crazy. Little army dudes run in every direction. Wait, little army dudes don’t fire those tiny rockets at him you’ll just make him mad. If you make him mad he’ll use his atomic fire breath on you…..ahhhhhhhhh!!!! too late!!!

I always had a blast drawing those scenes. I thought you guys might too. So here’s a little 10 step drawing lesson I put together.  Have fun.

I’ve been messing around with Google Docs a bit lately and decided to try it for a tutorial I built a while back. The original was built in HTML and took forever. It was a ton of work and after I posted it I found a bunch of errors, which of course was heartbreaking.  I’d put off fixing it for the longest time because it was such a monumental time task.

Last week I was playing around with Google Docs and decided to check out the presentation option.  Rebuilding this tutorial seemed like the perfect guinea pig. It ended up taking me just over an hour and was very simple to figure out (if you’ve ever built a Power Point presentation then you’re all set. If not, don’t worry…  you’ll get the hang of it in no time flat). Google saved me a ton of time, was a piece of cake to use and best of all, I did it all for free. If you haven’t checked out Google Docs yet you can check it out here. If you build something cool and would like to share it please post a link in the comments section. Look forward to seeing what you come up with.

• Click Here to view the tutorial.
• Click Here to download the Super Official Bob Ostrom Studio Adobe Illustrator brushes I used in this tutorial.

Anyhow, I had been muddling along with Safari for a while now and kept meaning to switch back but you know how things go. You get super busy and dealing with the wrong browser is not enough of a speed bump to slow down the work flow. This morning I was up a little early and decided I would take 2 seconds to switch back to Firefox..only when I got there I completely forgot how. What!? Yeah, I know…. that’s what I thought.

Switching browsers is like riding a bike once you know how you never forget …only I did. So that’s why I’m writing this article. If you’re like me and need to put the training wheels back on for a minute here’s a quick 3 step how to switch you default browser tutorial for you.

Step 1: Click on the Safari menu

Step 2: Find the default browser.

Step 3: Pick your new favorite browser. That's it.

Speaking of my brother, I’ll be featuring a video soon where my brother, the amazingly talented Gregg Ostrom, composed and played all the music. You guys are going to love it. He plays a mean guitar. You can check him out here playing with Emily Hurd.

The Bob O Show is teaming up with The Artcast Network for a live Ustream show February 24th at 9PM Eastern. If you haven’t seen the Bob O Show before take cover, fasten your seat belts and hang on tight it’s always an adventure.
I’ll be doing a live screen capture (and trying my best not to crash the entire Ustream network….again).

See you there!

As you know from reading this blog I am a huge fan of Photoshop and use it for most of the projects I work on. Photoshop is the number one software program for professional artists of all kinds and is second to none. It is a big, big program with lots to offer and is a must for all serious digital artists. I’ve been using Photoshop for over ten years now and highly recommend it to anyone interested in producing top quality digital art.

For more info on this course, prerequisites or other continuing education courses please contact http://conted.waketech.edu/ Hope to see you there.

I’ve been having a lot of fun with these mini canvases lately. Here’s one I did with my class at Jerry’s Artarama. These things are great.

Our theme for the last class was Under the Sea (I thought it would be fun to do a snail). We used acrylic paint, sharpie markers, acrylic gel medium, sand and glitter.

It’s a great little project. Super fun and super affordable…and I’m hooked. Here how it works. First we sketch our drawing onto the mini-canvas (the one shown here is 4″X5″ and goes for about 3 bucks). The next step is to paint in the image using acrylic paint. Once you’ve finished that it’s time to add some texture.

I added clear gel medium to the bottom of this little canvas. Everywhere where I wanted the to be sand I covered with gel. The trick is to really lay it on thick. Once I had it coated I took some beach sand and sprinkled it over the top of the canvas. Then I shook it over a garbage can. Anywhere there was gel the sand stuck everywhere else it shook off.

My students did the same thing. Some of them used sand, some used glitter, some used both. The gel starts out a translucent white but dries clear so its easy to see what you’re doing. Once everything is dried we outlined our characters using a sharpie permanent marker. They all looked fantastic.

You can really get creative with a project like this. I highly recommend it for kids 5 and up. Just one word of caution. Acrylic paint and sharpie marker does not wash out of clothing so make sure you wear something old or cover up with a smock. Good luck can’t wait to see what you come up with.

In the meantime I have listed The Bob O Show over on the Artcast Network . If you haven’t seen the show yet the first thing you’ll probably notice is that I like to have a lot of fun when I’m on air. I keep it loose and don’t worry too much about technical difficulties. I’m always happy to pause and answer technical questions… and as far as projects go each one gets the Super Official Bob Ostrom Studio stamp of approval before going on air.

Please check Twitter or on the Artcast Network for future broadcast announcements. See you on the next Bob O Show.