My first class at MICA met last night. So far so good. The students were great at the very least for patiently awaiting my very long monologue to end. Oddly enough Labor Day wipes out next week’s class and so we won’t meet again for two weeks. Over those two weeks I’ve got them illustrating Aesop’s fable, The Fox and The Grapes. In the meantime I’ve got more sketches to do myself. I think I’ll go work on that now.
Here’s a preview of what I’m sure is another awesome DVD by Massive Black. Greg Manchess has been illustrating for nearly 30 years, I think. He’s primarily been a fantasy and sci-fi illustrator. Anyway, I wish the preview was longer.
It may be quite some time before I am able to post any new illustrations here on my site. For the next four months I will be busy teaching at MICA, working on contract at ADG Creative and creating illustrations for Tanglewood Press. I suppose I might create a thing or two as I teach Intro to Illustration, but the work I do for Tanglewood won’t be seen by the outside world until it is published in 2012. Of course if the movie is correct nothing will be published in 2012. And the work I create for ADG won’t be posted here, but instead I will be posting that on Cloverfish.com as it will all be web oriented – at least I think so.
Anyway, in the meantime I plan to post videos that encourage creativity and instruct in the art of illustration. So pretty soon I should have a good resource for myself if not for any visitors to the site.
Apart from the fact that Gary Kelley is an amazing illustrator, he also loves to use pastel – so do I. This video is a preview for the full-length video which I purchased and downloaded yesterday from Massive Black. It’s a two-part video and each part is over 45 minutes long. The two parts together cost $30. To say the least it was well worth the money.
When I was in college you could only hope and pray for such an opportunity. Even then you might only get a glimpse of the guy over the shoulders of people much taller than you. Watching this video was like hanging out with Mr. Kelley as he offers his personal commentary on each step of his process. Massive Black is a great resource for all sorts of demos like this.
This next one is a full-length interview. The intro is pretty cheesy as it was created for a local news show in Iowa, but the rest is great.
ADG | Creative commissioned this poster as a part of a fund raiser for the Zachary Hebda Foundation which was established to increase awareness and research to cure childhood cancer. Zachary Hebda died of leukemia in 1999 - I believe he was six years old. The poster features the characters from the Wizard of Oz, because Zach was very fond of the movie. You may notice that the yellow brick road forms a Z – for Zach.
Last week I agreed to illustrate a children’s book for Tanglewood Press and yesterday morning I signed and mailed the contract, so now it’s official!
Perhaps the most well known book in Tanglewood’s catalog is The Kissing Hand, by Audrey Penn. It’s always nice to know I’ll be in good company. Of course I can’t say much about the book I will be illustrating except that it will likely be published in fall 2012. However, I can say that upon my first reading of it I liked the story very much. I didn’t have to convince myself of that. Visually speaking, it is just the sort of story that I would like to illustrate. It will be a 32-page picture book – so there’s a lot of work to do between now and then. And while I’ve lately been experimenting digitally, I think it best if I use traditional pastel.
In other news, this past weekend I completed a Wizard of Oz poster for a charity. This morning I dropped it off and they were very pleased indeed. I will try to post it here on the site by the end of this week.
I happy to announce that Mieradome, written by my friend Kate O’Hegarty, has finally been published! You may recall that Kate commissioned me to create character portraits for the official Mieradome website. I do not believe the book is illustrated, apart from the cover of course.
You may order the book through AuthorHouse.com. Kate is keeping me posted on other sellers as she works out those deals. Please don’t overlook the Free Preview featured on AuthorHouse!
Ever since my first Rhino Riders illustration I have been meaning to do more. Of course now I’m rendering my storybook illustrations digitally. This one… well, I have mixed feelings. I was really excited about the line drawing, but the coloring, not so much. Maybe it’s too vibrant. I have leanings toward muted and monchromatic palettes sometimes. Well anyway, it’s done for now. Time to move on.
Today I have begun to the refining of a sketch for a new children’s book illustration. Mind you, Rhino Riders is not a book series. It’s simply what I’ve named what will eventually become a series of storybook illustrations revolving around children and rhinos. I do sort of have a story in mind that I will one day begin to illustrate. Right now my focus is on transforming the portfolio. There’s a lot of good stuff in my portfolio, I think, but I need to create a body of work that is more established in genre and style.
Anyway, this new illustration should be complete by the end of next week at the latest. The only thing holding my back is, well, my back. It’s been aching which makes sitting for long periods difficult.
Recently I’ve been making an effort to create a post for each illustration I’ve created. For some crazy reason I want my work to not only be archived in my galleries but also as posts. Don’t ask. Anyway, it came to mind that as I continue to post these older works they are gradually burying my newer work about which I’ve already posted. Most people probably wouldn’t care so much, but an art director who might consider hiring me would more likely want to know what I’ve created more recently.
So I what I’ve decided to do is back-date all my older work to my best guess as to the date of their creation. This way my home page will only display the latest work and hopefully avoid a lot of confusion. And so what you may have seen posted here yesterday may now be found under a different date. I realize this kinda of gives the false impression of having been blogging for years… but who really cares.
Today I completed the very tedious process of creating a new gallery for my editorial illustration. Not fun. It’s not so much the creation of the gallery but it’s the addition of all the images. Each image must be resized – and sometimes cropped, and each image must have a corresponding thumbnail image. Then each image must be represented on the gallery page and properly linked to its individual page displaying the full-sized image. And finally, all the images need to be imported into the WordPress media gallery for good measure. sigh.
So glad it’s over. Anyway, you can view all these illustrations in the Editorial Gallery.
On Monday I dropped off my portrait of Jenn at the Howard County Center for the Arts. It is a non-juried exhibit and the entries are taken first-come, first-accepted basis. The show opens tomorrow at 10AM. Here are the directions:
I drew this little guy months and months ago. Who knows what distracted me from finishing. This afternoon I finally took some time to put a nice shine on his shoes and brush out his coat. And as with everything I hope to find the time to draw more of these mice. As far as children’s books go, I should probably draw these fellows in action.
I’ve recently come to the realization that I the overwhelming majority of my children’s book illustrations are simple portraits. As an aspiring storybook illustrator this realization was a bit disturbing as illustration is all about storytelling which requires a setting and, most importantly, character interaction. So I have resolved to rework some of my recent work to this end. Here is the first fruit of my labor. So far, so good. I liked my original illustration of the Fox Thief, but I like my revision so much better. The rabbit pictured here is a part of the expanded scene which if printed would is 18 inches wide and about 7 inches tall.
It fascinates me to review my web stats and see how visitors are finding my illustrations. In particular I am fascinated by the number of people who find my site searching for images relating to the trial by ordeal. For those not up on their medieval history the trial by ordeal was a test put to the accused to determine their innocence. In some cases the accused was required to reach into boiling water. If their hand burned they were believed to be guilty. If not, then they were believed to be innocent. However, this may sound more barbaric than it truly was.
I recently read an article that suggested that some of these ordeals were contrived to unmask guilt through trickery. For instance, the guilty might flat out refuse the trial knowing that they would be burned while they innocent would suffer the ordeal in the hopes they could prove their innocence and would discover the water to not be quite as hot as it looked. No doubt similar trickery is used regularly in police interrogations, minus the ordeals of course.
As always, you can view this illustration in my Fantasy Gallery. Most illustrations are in that gallery these days.
An unexpected break in my current web design project allowed me to put in some time on my portrait of Jenn and so was able to complete it yesterday. This photo is far better, more accurate than photos I had previously posted.
I am especially glad I bit the bullet and revised the face and hand this last month. Previously I was very satisfied with my portrayal of Jenn, but after three years of marriage I found that the girl in my portrait was not the same girl to whom I am married. What I mean to say is that when I took the original photos of Jenn we were not yet dating. The girl in those photos was far more reserved than the Jenn I photograph today. That reservation could be seen both in her expression and posture. And so my original rendering was accurate to the photos but not to Jenn who is now my wife and mother of our children.
Not doubt someone is wondering why I needed three years to complete a portrait. Well, I didn’t. Things got off to a very good start, but then I got married, our son was born, and then our daughter was born. All the while many other things were going on and so the portrait got put in a corner for a time-out. Only recently did I have the time to return to it and complete it.
Here is the first in what I hope to be a long series of illustrations inspired by The Hobbit. Dwalin was the first of thirteen dwarves to appear on Bilbo’s doorstep. Their arrival at his quiet home would change his life forever, and of course set in motion the events that lead into The Lord of the Rings. Anyway, I’m not quite sure if he fits with children’s books or with a more adult collectors genre. Certainly he is for the true LOTR fans out there.
No doubt many people would not have know or would not have cared, but my original version of this mouse archer was drawing the arrow in a most impossible way. Only days after I posted this did it dawn on me.
You can find the revised version of this mouse in my Fantasy Illustration gallery.
Mind you, I like to shoot arrows whenever I can, but I just didn’t think it through when I positioned his hands. Now I can rest easy knowing that the little guy his a better chance of hitting his mark. And hopefully I’m not the only one who can picture him in a children’s storybook.
I took advantage of the beautiful weather and got my portrait of Jenn outside for some photos. Though the lighting was great I think my camera settings were not. I color adjusted as best I could and think this image is as close as I’ll get with a JPG.
My hope is to have the portrait completed and framed by mid-June. There’s a show at the Howard County Arts Center I hope to get it in. If it does get in I’ll blog about it of course and post the address so that you locals can swing by for a look.
Gotta go. There’s an everything bagel calling my name.
Anyway… about this illustration… lately I’ve been having fun working digitally and this fox is my latest creation. Well, actually the dragon sketch which is the background image of this website is my latest… but anyway?
So when I sat down to draw all I really knew was that I wanted to draw a fox. What he would look like or be doing was, at best, vague in my mind. In the end I was quite pleased. Not only did I like the scene, but also the style. I tried to work a little more loosely than when I use pastel. I’m not very loose with the pastels, to say the least. These digital experiments have been great in that respect because I always know that I can completely rework something without the loss of much time. Not so with pastels.
Don’t get me wrong. I love pastels. Staring over my shoulder even as a type is a pastel portrait that I’m very anxious to get back to. There’s a show in June for which I need to complete it.
Naturally I want to add to each gallery, but the Fantasy gallery is likely to get the most attention. After that maybe Fables as I’ve always liked Aesop’s fables if not simply because the so often feature animals. Anyway, the separate galleries seemed like a good step toward clarity. I like clarity.
Truly, you can’t go wrong with dragons. This red dragon is called Naidrau. He is one of 18 digital character portraits I created for Kate O’Hegarty’s e-novel, Mieradome. You may view more of these character portraits in my Fantasy Gallery.
This chilly lady is my vision for the Snow Queen in Kate O’Hegarty’s novel, Mieradome. She is one of 18 character portraits I created for Kate this past spring. You may view more of these character portraits in my Fantasy Gallery.
Hodgepodge is what you would call a Fussig faery (ain’t got no wings) in the realm of Mieradome. He is something of a clan leader if I recall correctly. And he is just one of eighteen character portraits for which Kate O’Hegarty commissioned me. They do not appear in the recently published book. They were for the official Mieradome website.
This gentleman’s name is Tia Ming Kiels. He is a character in a novel written by Kate O’Hegarty. This past spring Kate commissioned me to create 18 character illustrations for her novel. This project was a great opportunity for me to do some experiments with digital illustration.
His name is Feig [feeg] and he’s a character in a novel called Mieradome [meera-doe-may]. The author, Kate O’Hegarty, commissioned 18 character portraits as a part of her promotion of her new book. You can view all the characters portraits I created at the official Mieradome website. Her website was created by Creative Republic which is the same designer who created Tony DiTerlizzi’s website. Toni is the illustrator of the Spiderwick Chronicles, but now I’m getting a bit off topic.
Kate’s characters provided a great opportunity to explore digital illustration. I had messed around a bit before, but not to this extent. Hopefully Kate’s book will do well and maybe my work will get a little exposure. We shall see.
Her name is Ami Dar’Ya and she is a mysterious character in Kate O’Hegarty’s e-novel, Mieradome. She is just one of 18 digital character portraits Kate commissioned this past spring. You may view more of these character portraits in my Fantasy Gallery.
Also, you might want to check out the official Mierdome website.
I recently completed 18 character illustrations for Kate O’Hegarty’s young adult e-novel, Mieradome. I’ve posted my favorites here on my site – see my Fantasy Illustration gallery – and the others may be found on the official Mieradome website.
I’ve just begun working digitally and I’m pretty pleased with how they turned out. There’s no denying the speed and flexibility of the digital world. Still, there is the sadness of having no physical work of art to hold in my hands or to frame and hang. In the future I think the digital will not just be a new medium for me, but also be a help to my pastels. It will be quite handy for working out color schemes and contrast. I’ll never give up my pastels.
The Maryland Institute College of Art has invited me to teach Intro to Illustration next Fall 2010. Originally I was to teach two classes, but some departmental reorganization has taken place since I was first contacted and so I will now teach only one class – Intro to Illustration. I believe it will work out great. To say the least I am honored and excited. These last few weeks I’ve been popping in to observe classes with José Villarrubia and Warren Linn. They’re both great teachers and wonderful mentors.
The Children of Kinsley House. A Tale of Redemption
This beautiful tale of redemption captures the essence of the redemption through Jesus life, death and resurrection. Told in allegory form the story is a fresh new way to impart the grand story of redemption to your children this Easter.
Written by David Sutherland. Illustrated by Jeffrey Brian Fisher. Published by Imagine Kids Company Ltd, 2009. 48 pages hardcover with 24 pastel illustrations.
Here’s an old fellow that I’ve reworked a bit. Originally I had created him for a Sony Playstation contest. The contest was to create a character for the new game Folklore. Well, it was new at that time. Anyway, if your creation was selected it was to be added to the game. Unfortunately I did not win and so he was never brought to life.
This colored in Photoshop, as was the original, but I’d like to think it is a bit better than the original. I know a little bit more about using Photoshop brushes than I did then.
This illustration of Alice is one of six children’s book illustrations for a series of pop-up books called Step Inside. My illustrations were for Step Inside: Alice in Wonderland. The books were published by Fernleigh Books in England. I believe Fernleigh now goes by the name Cat’s Pyjamas. It was hoped that the series would be picked up in the U.S., but it looks like that fell through. Not long after I completed the illustrations Barnes & Noble stopped carrying the series. Of course I was a bit disappointed.
Anyway, this image is a composite as each layer of the pop-up had to be illustrated separately. So the grass and the cat are on one piece of paper and Alice was on another. Each scene has four layers. I attempted to photograph the page, but it didn’t work so well. In the end I decided it was best to composite the layers in Photoshop and give each layer a subtle drop shadow to indicate the intended depth of the page’s layers.
This illustration is the second of six children’s book illustrations for Step Inside: Alice in Wonderland, which was published by Fernleigh Books in England. Fernleigh now goes by the name Cat’s Pyjamas. Sadly, this book was never picked up in the U.S. and not long after I completed the illustrations Barnes & Noble cleared their shelves of the series.
This image is a Photoshop composite as each layer of the pop-up had to be illustrated separately. So the grass and the cat are on one piece of paper and Alice was on another. Each scene has four layers. I attempted to photograph the page, but it didn’t work so well. In the end I decided it was best to composite the layers in Photoshop and give each layer a subtle drop shadow to indicate the intended depth of the page’s layers.
This illustration is the third of six children’s book illustrations for Step Inside: Alice in Wonderland, published by Fernleigh Books (Cat’s Pyjamas). Sadly, this book was never picked up in the U.S. and not long after I completed the illustrations Barnes & Noble cleared their shelves of the series. If anyone knows where I could buy a few extra copies I would love to hear from you!
This image is a Photoshop composite as each layer of the pop-up had to be illustrated separately. So the grass and the cat are on one piece of paper and Alice was on another. Each scene has four layers. I attempted to photograph the page, but it didn’t work so well. In the end I decided it was best to composite the layers in Photoshop and give each layer a subtle drop shadow to indicate the intended depth of the page’s layers.
Last week I agreed to illustrate a children’s book for 
