Peace

Happy Holidays to everyone!

airbrushed acrylics and Photoshop

This was cobbled together from these two book cover pieces:

Help

If this were me, HELP!!! isn't the only thing I'd be screaming, and a few involuntary bodily functions would likely be streaming. Dangling by one's fingertips hundreds of feet above a rocky, instant death. What fun!

Mask

Chalk pastels on sanded pastel paper.

Thanksgiving

These are two of the four Macy's Thanksgiving Day Parade posters I've done; 1990, 1996, 1997, and 2002. It's always an honor to be involved in a project that is so univeraslly recognized as an American Tradition.

This is the one from 1990. It's traditional media; airbrushed acrylics on Strathmore board.


This is the most recent, for the 2002 parade. This one is digital, mostly Photoshop with a smidgin of Illustrator for type and such. The file was huge, and when I added up all the layers for all the individual components, it was well over 1000. The scratch file was about 2 gigs...yikes!



These are a few snippets from the 2002 poster at actual printed size:

Kermit


Monopoly Man


Clifford and other balloons and floats


And here's Old St. Nick. Happy Holidays!

Clear

This is an image I made for a book cover titled "The Heart of the Dove". It is a composite of a photograph of a piece of damask fabric and a dove I modeled in Strata 3D. Plus a LOT of Photoshop to make it look at least a little convincing. I was never that happy with the result, but it makes a logical entry for this week's theme.

Smoke

Long time no IF entries. I HATE when that happens. Just too dang busy to breathe these days. And way too busy to create something new for this topic, which has a ton of fun possibilities. But, I chose an image that isn't fun, but is appropriate for the Halloween time of year. It was done as a book cover called "Happy Birthday Murders". Hope you find the smoke to be deliciously deadly.

Clean

A spread from my one and only foray into children's book illustration; a sing-along version of Mary Had a Little Lamb. The original idea was for Mary to be a border collie and all the other characters to be animals as well, and since I love doing animals, I took the commission. After I was well into the sketches for the book, the publisher called and said that a focus group felt that a dog as the lead character might frighten the children who are the target audience for these books. Mary and all the other characters had to be human children (of specific ages and ethnicities). I was more than a little disappointed and lobbied for the border collie version, but in the end the brilliant focus group prevailed over the idiot artist. That's why I now stick to doing books for mature audiences; no focus group has ever overruled my artwork (yet!).

Click here for a larger version.
Airbrushed acrylics on illustration board.

Sacrifice

This was for a book cover that is part of a series; the author is an ex-priest and the novels are mysteries that involve a "sleuth" priest who uncovers all manner of foul play within the Catholic church. For these covers I try to use religious icons as appropriate imagery and render them as stained glass. I grew up in the Catholic church and always loved the stained glass work in the cathedrals and churches I have been in. The original cover art lacked the spilling blood, but I think it looks better and feels more "sacrificial" with it.

Photoshop

Rain

I like to ask my students to identify the product that's being advertised in this piece I did several years ago.


Give up? Windshield wiper blades! Duh! Everybody knows that Noah and the gang never would have made it if they hadn't tricked out the Ark with the very best wiper blades.

Here's the happy ending...

Acrylics on Illustration board

Jungle

Lately I find myself with no time to create new work for IF, so I offer these jungle animal sketches from the zoo.

Zoo Atlanta is famous for it's Lowland Gorillas. They've had a spate of recent births, and it's great fun to watch the mothers play with and tenderly care for their tiny babies. To me, though, the huge silverback named Ivan is the big draw. He is so incredibly powerful it's awe inspiring just to see him casually strolling around his compound. He makes Ah-nold look like a wuss.
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A few more random sketches of jungle critters.

Sumatran Tiger and Hornbill


Cory Bustard (bird) and Bongos (antelope)


Orangutan (male)

Cake

No time for an original for IF, so here's my cake, marking a not-so-joyful occasion. It was done as a book cover for "Happy Birthday Murder" by Lee Harris, for Random House/Ballantine publishers.
Photoshop

Fat

I feel uncomfortable with this post and this topic. I wish I had time to do a witty, funny take on this theme, but here's what I've got... a 20 minute sketch from a life drawing session of a very nice woman who could afford to lose a few pounds. Not funny, not witty. Just real.

Under the Sea

Cover art for "The Woman Who Walked Into the Sea"
by Philip R. Craig
acrylics on illustration board

Robot

I scanned a page from my sketchbook and used that as the foundation for this robot figure. I am a big fan of Hajime Sorayama, who made an international name for himself doing a huge body of work with the female as robot theme, some of which are quite pornographic in nature, but all are meticulously rendered and sparkle with machinelike precision. His robots have highly polished metallic bodies, and many have flesh-and-blood faces, which gives them a softer, humanlike quality. I am attempting (clumsily, by comparison) to paint a female robot without the human face, but with a sense of humanity and warmth. I am using darker, less chrome-like metals, and textures that mimic weathered bronze, which to me feels oddly organic.
Anyway, tune in for further iterations in what may turn out to be an epic (several days) Illustration Friday entry.

This is the sketch I started with.

Spotted

Spotted: Megamoviestaurs
These were done for the Fernbank Science Museum in Atlanta; they were playing on the popularity of Jurassic Park and wanted to portray their dinosaur displays as stars in their own right. I tried to give the T-Rex a Jack Nicholson vibe; the others were just generic glamosaurs.
Acrylics on Illustration board and Photoshop
To see a larger version, go here.

Speed

Slow and steady may win the race, but a jetpack is WAY more fun!
Photoshop

Monster

Photoshop

Feet

Meet Gwyneth. Meet Gwyneth's feet. She thinks they are amazing. So do I.
Prismacolor on Canson charcoal paper.

Insect

I've done lots of insect illustrations, but this is one of my favorites because of the statement it makes. It was the cover art for a book titled "Denial"; it's one of those rare instances when the title and the image work perfectly together to bring forth the essence of the story.


Another, slightly more menacing, insect.

Song

I offer the Amphibious Suite in C (croak) minor, by the Franklin Pond Chamber Music Quartet, performing nightly (in the warmer months), to the delight of many in north Atlanta, USA.
(The frogs and environment were done from scratch in Photoshop. The instruments are digital photos. To see a larger version of this art, go here.)

Simple

A simple drawing of a simpleton (all too common these days) simply baffled by the simple act of making change.

Chair

Once again, deadlines won't allow me to create something new this week, so I offer this "chair" that I did some time ago. It was for a story about how insane it is to sacrifice old-growth, exotic species of trees for the sake of high-end lawn furniture.

Cat

I've done lots of cat illustrations, but this is one of my favorites. It was for a poster for a jazz festival that has a running theme "We're the Cats that Make it Happen". I did a different poster for the same event a couple of years later and posted it here for the theme "Small" a few weeks ago. I hope to do a new cat piece specifically for IF if I have time this week.

E is for...

Eccentric Escher Effort

I'm a big M.C. Escher fan, so when I got the opportunity to do something that involves the idea of multiple points of view, I jumped at the chance to play with strange spacial relationships and impossible forms. It was great fun, and incorporates many different traditional media as well as some tweeks in Photoshop.

Sea

The sea: water. It's the nectar of all life. There will never be any more nor any less than there is at this moment. The water that we are drinking today was in the sea just a short time ago, and it will be again. Let's take care of it, and everything that lives in it. It's a matter of life and death.

Done from scratch in Photoshop for Illustration Friday.