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.

Flavor

or Flav-ugh

Blech!...talk about leaving a bad taste in your mouth! I'm not a fan of those "reality" shows, but I accidently happened upon this most distasteful spectacle one day and almost lost my lunch. Of course that's FlavaFlav and Bridgette Neilsen swapping spit.

Holiday

Happy Holidays to everyone at Illustration Friday!

This was done a few weeks ago for a friend. She is a symphony violinist who also runs a summer strings program for serious middle and high school kids. The frog by himself is the standard logo I did for her a few years ago, so when she asked me to do a HOLIDAY card for her, putting the frog in a snowglobe was the perfect solution. The whole thing was done entirely in Photoshop.

Surprise

This image was done as a demo for one of my illustration classes. It's just a silly piece that really has no agenda, but it lends itself to any interpretation one might want to put on it. I call it "Bush be Nimble", and it's the expression on some of the onlookers faces that makes it fit the theme.

Blue

Chalk pastels on sandpaper pastel paper.


Blue, too...

A page from my sketchbook which was (unusually) done in blue and white on gray paper.

Small

I'm short on time this week, so here's a small jazz fan that I did a few years ago.

Free...variations on a theme

The good

"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"

The bad

Free, but why?

The ugly

Free (for the moment)

Strength

They say that gram-for-gram, ants are among the strongest creatures around. This is for those of us who are small in stature but with the inner strength that it takes to accomplish mighty things. I like that idea... the rhino doesn't.
For a step-by-step of this piece, go here.

Strength step-by-step

Step 1:

The ant was done several years ago for a company that makes pesticides. It was done in acrylics with airbrush and traditional brushes. I played with the scale and position of the ant until I found a relationship that looked like it would work...I know the ant is much too big in relationship to the rhino, but the ant is the hero, and it needs to be large enough to see, so I took some artistic license with scale. The rhino was drawn using photo reference found online. Of course, there were no photos that were from the correct angle, so this guy is a conglomeration of many. I did this drawing in Photoshop using a Wacom Intuos II 9X12 tablet. The sketch layer was moved to the top of the stack and the blending mode was set to "Multiply" so that it's visible from every layer under it (Multiply makes the dark marks visible, but the white areas [the background] become transparent).

For reference I also used these sketches from a trip to the zoo; they came closer to the angle I was after than any of the photos I could find.

Step 2:

The sandy ground was done on a new layer at the bottom of the stack. I filled the area with a sandy beige color, then I used the linear gradient tool and did a gradient of dark khaki to transparent from bottom left to upper right; the gradient blending mode was set to multiply.
I wanted the texture to be obvious in the foreground but fade as it recedes into the distance, so I pressed "Q" to enter Quick Mask mode, dragged a gradient from upper right to lower left to mask off the upper right area, pressed "Q" again to create a selection of the un-masked area, and ran the texturizer filter using sandstone as the texture.
The sky was done by drawing the shape with the pen tool, changing the path to a selection, filling the selection with a sky blue, then using the radial gradient with a very light blue to give the impression of a sunny day.

Step 3:

The rhino was done in several stages: the head was one layer; I made a tracing of the sketch with the pen tool, changed the resulting path to a selection, filled the selection with a neutral gray, and then used the brush tool and a variety of brush configurations to paint in the textures and details. The foreleg and foot were on another layer, and the surface textures were on yet another layer; I'm a big believer in layers because they offer so much flexibility.

Step 4:

Next come the horns, which were done exactly like the head, but on a new layer.

Step 5:

The ear is next; rhino ears are very strange, and kind of cute; they remind me of a waffle cone that's been rolled up, before the ice cream goes in. I then added a shadow for the ear on a layer below.

Step 6:

The rope comes next. I thought about drawing the chain going all the way around the horns, but the grays and blues of the chain were too close in color to the rhino's horn and might have gotten lost, so I chose to attach the chain to a rope, instead. The rope was traced with the pen tool, converted to a selection, then filled with a yellowish, "ropey" color. The braids were done with the brush tool and the same yellowish color set to multiply mode.
I also wanted to give the appearance that the feet were being dragged through the sand, so I created a new layer and added "dust" coming up from his feet, and in front of his chin and leg.

Step 7:

The chain comes next. I created a new file and drew two links that were the largest size I would need. After I was happy with the color and the metallic nature of the links, I dragged them to the rhino art. There, I went to Edit>Transform>Distort, and shaped the links to fit the angle and the perspective correctly. Then I hit Command-J to copy the transformed links to a new layer. I then hit Command-T to go into transform mode on the new links and adjusted them to the proper size and position so that they lined up in the correct position, scale and perspective relative to the previous links, and repeating this process until the chain was complete. The ant was copied onto a new layer and was transformed (squished) to a shape that would serve as a shadow for the ant; the shape was moved to it's proper position, then I command-clicked the layer icon to make a selection of the shape, and filled it with a cool gray. I used the blur tool to soften the shadow in appropriate areas.
The ant needed some "footprints" at this point, so I added those as well.

Step 8:

The final step was to copy the completed chain onto a new layer and turn it into a proper shadow for the chain to cast onto the ground; I used the same procedure as I used for the ant shadow above. The ant shadow and the chain shadow were placed on the same layer, and the blending mode was changed to multiply and the opacity was reduced a bit to allow the texture of the ground to show through. And that's that.

Night

Some of you may have seen this before. It was done recently for a book cover that is yet to be published. It's all Photoshop, save for the initial sketch which was good 'ol pencil and paper. The big blank spot on the moon is for the title.

Broken

bro·ken
Pronunciation: 'brO-k&n
Function: adjective
Etymology: Middle English, from Old English brocen, from past participle of brecan: to break.

There are dozens of definitions of the word broken, each offering a different opportunity for illustration. Most have a negative connotation, but I chose to look at broken from a more hopeful angle, as in having broken free from some restraint, or perhaps from a bad situation. I will leave it up to you to interpret this image as you wish.

Remote

While on what was to have been a routine reconnaisance mission, Major Blunder found himself hopelessly lost when the guidance system failed on his F-3487and3/4 Intergalactic Fighter. Nearly out of fuel, and needing to go to the bathroom REALLY badly, he made his way to the only solid ground within range. When he finally emerged from the cramped cockpit of his broken ship, he found himself on a strange, remote planet. The first thing on his mind was "I gotta take a leak". The second thing was "I wish I could paint happy trees like Bob".

Below is v3.0; same as above but without the RGB video projectors beaming across space. Don't know why I didn't think of that earlier on...oh well, better late than never, I suppose.



Below is v 2.0 (same as above but without the bazillion inch TV)


Below is the first version...

These were done digitally with a combination of photos (the remote controls), Bryce4 for the basic planets, mountains, sky, etc., and Photoshop (CS2) and a Wacom tablet for the details, type, etc. The intergalactic fighter plane, the Major Blunder figure, and the other drawn elements were invented.

Cold

A recent book cover piece that fits the theme nicely. The original art just showed a crack in the ice, but I wanted it to feel even colder, so I added a little something to give you a chill. This was painted from scratch in Photoshop.


This is another idea I had, and since I saw no others that addressed this angle on the "cold" theme, I decided to do a quick graphite drawing. Growing up in the South, where freezing weather is a bit of a novelty, it was easy to get kids to do the "lick the flagpole" trick, and then revel in their stupidity as they stood there with their tongues hopelessly frozen to the metal. Of course, it was the bullies who perpetrated such evil...I would NEVER do such a thing.

Lost

I've been battling a nasty bug all week, so I regret posting another non-original piece.
This was a book jacket done in acrylics on illustration board, but it needed a little more drama so I digitally added the reflection of the couple on the bridge looking down into the water.