Thanks for visiting! Here you'll find works in progress, new stuff, and even some purely bloggish posts. Comments are much appreciated -- feel free to leave them. For finished works, head to my gallery page, The Fine Art and Illustrations of Craig Houghton.
12/2/07 - Updated the main gallery site.
5/29/07 - I've been switching large pics for thumbnails. Be sure to click for the high-res/sharp pics.
Craig Houghton 3:12 am September 13th, 2007
I think I’m going to start a series consisting of isolated areas of the body. At the very least, it’ll be good practice.
I couldn’t sleep, so I did some test runs. pastel and charcoal on ink-stained hot press watercolor paper. small, around 5×4 or so each
Craig Houghton 9:01 pm September 12th, 2007
These views of East Rock and the Mill River were taken in Hamden from the Eli Whitney Museum trails using a Sony DSC-H1 and an Opteka near IR filter. Click here to learn more about near-infrared photography using a digital camera and a filter.
Click here for larger size, or here for an even BIGGER version.
Craig Houghton 1:05 pm September 9th, 2007
Here’s my latest belly button. I did this a few months back, but I never photographed the piece. I know, it’s an odd subject, but the body is a curious thing.
navel in oil pastel 4×4
Craig Houghton 11:53 pm September 7th, 2007
I’ll probably use this as a cover for a collection of short stories if I ever put it together.
painted entirely in photoshop. here’s the original sketch When doing digital stuff with a tablet, I’m used to corel Painter IX, so the adobe switch is a first for me.
and, a closer view
It’s sorta funny, but while the girl’s profile was entirely from imagination, I realized afterwards that the lip shape, nose, and chin all match up very closely to my girlfriend’s profile.
Oh, and the font is debatable… 
Craig Houghton 9:53 pm September 7th, 2007
I’ve been meaning to post about this, but I’ve been ill. I find the nearly visible endlessly fascinating, so I’m sure I’ll return to this topic soon.
Near-infrared light is just beyond visible red light. With wavelengths of 780nm and up, it’s a spectrum we’re just not built to see. Well, there is a bit of an overlap, but the visible light around us overpowers the narrow band we can see without technological assistance. Near-infrared is the channel-changing bright light your remote control shines at your tv box. Take a look. If you can’t see the light when button-mashing (and, you shouldn’t be able to), look at it through your digital camera viewfinder. Note that this isn’t heat-based thermal vision and it isn’t infrared boosting night-vision, but it’s very cool.
See the links below for more on this, but the short story is that most digital cameras have a filter to block infrared light. They’re not out to spoil your fun — it helps to improve your pictures. However, it’s often a weak filter that still lets through some infrared light. However, whatever filter is there still acts like a pair of infrared-blocking sun-glasses, so you’ll have to use a looong manual shutter speed or set your camera to nightshot.
Learn more:
Infrared goggles ($10)- milk that narrow band of near-infrared that we can actually see (yes. they work.)
same idea with less talk, more pictures
use old film/exposed negatives to make an IR filter - that works, but the $30 dollar filter I bought for my digital camera 
remove the internal IR filter to increase sensitivity - most digital cameras (and probably webcams too) will do just fine with their internal filter intact, so I wouldn’t reach for that screwdriver yet
As for me, I’m very happy with my purchase of an Opteka 58mm 720nm Infrared Filter
(all photos here taken with my sony dsc-h1 and opteka ir filter
the photos often look best when tweaked to grayscale. before adjusting, you can get some funky colors
chlorophyll, like in these normally dark leaves, shows up as a strong white in near-infrared
it’s hard to read this photo, but the tree in the center here is a purple plum. the leaves are very, very dark, but they’re white when using a near-infrared filter. the sky also turns dark unless it’s overcast. barely visible clouds and rainbows are easier to see as well.
in near-infrared, a clear sky can be dark like this without after-tweaking
infrared in grayscale (at top) versus visible light in grayscale (below)
the dark plum looks almost like a negative, but it’s not. here’s the visible (bottom) full color along with what an actual negative would look like (at top) just as a reminder. notice that it’s quite different from the infrared atop the first pair.
Also, I really do recommend the $10 goggles (cost a bit more with mail-order parts). When the light is strong (noon till 3 or so on a bright day), it’s a world of pink and white leaves, dark networks of branches, and black skies. We only see a narrow band, but I know it’s the real thing as the plum tree turns a white I could never get with normally-visible light interfering.
Craig Houghton 10:51 pm August 21st, 2007
Here’s my submission for Clay Sisk’s Motel Project, a clever way to promote his new film, Motel. Click here for the trailer.
MOTEL is starting to hit the festival circuit…So to celebrate I came up with a interesting little project. It all starts with a blank piece of Palms Motel stationery
(Based on the fictional motel in my film).
Artists have the freedom to draw on it..write on it…(Pretend that you stayed there…anything goes)…
So, here’s my little motel stationary submission (I recycled an older sketch, but I think it found a proper home). He may have had the coffee, but I don’t think he’ll be back.
Craig Houghton 12:02 pm August 18th, 2007
The Cheshire Town Council…
I started with a pencil sketch
added a scanned ink-stained paper
and threw in a few highlights using Painter IX
Craig Houghton 5:45 am July 27th, 2007
I keep returning to the trailer for Wes Anderson’s new movie, The Darjeeling Limited. I’m not sure if it’s the sunny smooth palette, the music, or the memory of the Life Aquatic that keeps drawing me to the 2 minute 20 second clip — it’s certainly not Owen Wilson’s bandaged face. I’ve never really pinned-down why, but I have a lot of love for Wes Anderson movies (The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou, Rushmore).
Images from the trailer for The Djareeling Limited:
and, a film poster
Craig Houghton 8:08 pm July 25th, 2007
I don’t think I’ve ever done a political cartoon before, but I’ve drawn (with varying success) just about everything else. This is regarding a local town issue where our town government bent over and changed the laws to allow some big developers to pave-over (along with some token shrubbery) 400 acres. We even just found out that there’s a 65′ tall hotel in there as well. To my dismay and surprise, it’s the dems that sold us out here. The cartoon makes a lot more sense when you know the details, but nonetheless, here it is:
Craig Houghton 4:41 am July 22nd, 2007
Over at the Cheshire Town Post I uploaded some photos of flowers and bees and such from the Riverbound Farm bird sanctuary in Cheshire.
Click for Full-Size
Click for Full-Size
Click for Full-Size
Here’s one from home that didn’t fit in that post.
Photos by Craig Houghton.
Craig Houghton 10:52 pm July 5th, 2007
Women of all ages across mediums and styles.
Craig Houghton is a self-taught artist available for fine-art commissions and illustration work. Contact via email using leversandpulleys at yahoo.com.
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