The Naked Illustrator

Step By Step Nook Book

2011-10-11T19:12:00.001-07:00

I turned my comic story into a nook book.

It's great for kids of all ages.

I'm not a salesman so I'll just straight up say I'd love to see it sell a few copies.

So check it out if you're interested and/or tell some one who has an e reader and either has kids who like funny stories or like funny stories themselves.

It's on Barnes and Noble here...

http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/step-by-step-robert-snyder/1106355593?ean=2940013218901&itm=1&usri=robert%2bsnyder

New digital art

2011-04-28T11:04:00.001-07:00

I have been working on new samples for my portfolio.

I am going to rework my portfolio site to be broken into specific sections.

Traditional art

Digital art

Hybrid art - combining traditional and digital methods

and

Product design

These are examples of the Hybrid style.

They were hand inked and digitally colored.

Sketchbook pages

2011-04-14T07:29:00.000-07:00

I've been subbing at a local high school lately and these are pages that I filled while the kids worked in class.

March of the sketchbooks day 31

2011-03-31T09:56:00.000-07:00

It's the last day of March of the sketchbooks.
I was able to post almost every day.
Here's the last one for March.

I have been thinking about a halloween project lately for myself, and a spring project for a potential client so My brain mashed them together and came up with Gnombies. Zombie Gnomes.
I'll be inking these as practice for the halloween project.

March of the sketchbooks day 29

2011-03-29T17:55:00.000-07:00

More skully stuff.

Business cards

2011-03-29T10:44:00.000-07:00

I am in need of new business cards as I make a concentrated effort to go out and meet more people and make them aware of my business.
Below are several examples I came up with today.
Let me know which one is your favorite.
Which ones don't work.
Or anything that could be done to improve one or more.
Click on the image to see it full size.

March of the sketchbooks day 28

2011-03-28T12:20:00.000-07:00

I inked this over the week end.

I believe I'll add color for fun.
Individually they might make for some fun/cool stickers or tattoos.

Zombunnies and critter pirates in full color. Modified

2011-03-28T12:18:00.000-07:00

I received some feedback on this image and made some changes.

Zombunnies and critter pirates in full color.

2011-03-22T21:26:00.000-07:00

I used Illustrator to color the Zombunnies.
And then put a noise layer over it in photoshop.

Now it's time to cultivate the next idea.

If - Stir

2011-03-17T15:12:00.000-07:00

This weeks word is Stir.
The pirates in the foreground are trying not to stir the water as they sneak past the guard.

I am currently using illustrator to color this image with a limited pallet to create a nice night scene.

sketchbook Month Day 15

2011-03-15T07:53:00.001-07:00

Beware the Tides of March.

Adventure Mouse has discovered that that nice soft landing spot has it's downside.

For some reason I decided to draw a zombie walking in nose deep water.

Vincent

2011-03-11T20:19:00.001-08:00

In doing my research for things going on in March besides the typical Holidays it came to my attention that March 30th is The birthday of my favorite artist Vincent van Gogh.

So I decided to make him the subject of this months promo mailer.

I'm open to comments on improving it.

If you see any typo's let me know.

I'm planning on doing a series of these on different artists.

I'd like to tweak it to be the kind of thing a middle school art teacher would hand out to students, or be in one of those magazines that they hand out in class.

That's the reason for the title.

I'm planning on sending this out around the 20th so there's time for comments and corrections.

Sketchbook Month Day 11

2011-03-11T08:43:00.000-08:00

I took my Micron pen and inked the aardvark.

I will be coloring this sketchbook page either with markers or watercolor and colored pencil.

Sketchbook Month Day 10

2011-03-10T14:15:00.000-08:00

Here's another blown up and inked sketch from the old sketchbook.

He and a few more are all a part of my next e-mail news letter.
They'll all be in color.

Sketchbook Month Day 9

2011-03-09T14:18:00.000-08:00

Aardvarks and Leprechauns!

Today is a Two Fer.
I drew these while subbing at a middle school.

Sketchbook Month Day 8

2011-03-08T11:35:00.000-08:00

Here's day 8's sketchbook page.

I bought a cheap pack of blending stumps at Michaels to play with the other day.

Sketchbook Month Day 7

2011-03-07T14:35:00.000-08:00

I took one of the van Gogh sketches from my sketchbook and inked him with a micron pen.

I'm going to take him into Illustrator and add some flat color.

Sketchbook Month Day 4

2011-03-04T07:55:00.000-08:00

Dr. Suess revisited.
I went back and inked the sketch that I did on the good doctors birthday.

It was inked with a brand new Pigma brush pen.
I can't say I recommend them.
The brush is already going bad.

I'll have to go back to learning to control a real brush with ink.

After inking I went in and added some flat color with Photoshop.

Sketchbook Month Day 3

2011-03-03T13:39:00.000-08:00

Day 3 of sketchbook month.
Space cats, Van Gogh, and assorted heads.

Sketchbook Month Day 2

2011-03-02T15:10:00.000-08:00

Today's sketches.

Today is Doctor Seuss' Birthday.
I was subbing at a high school so I didn't have any reference to draw from so I decided to draw a cat in a hat holding a fish in a bowl and thing 1 and thing 2.
Now that I am home I can look up some reference to influence the inking.

I also did some more sketches of Vincent van Gogh.

Sketchbook Month Day 1

2011-03-01T20:25:00.000-08:00

Some sketches of Vincent van Gogh for a personal project.

Vespa Santa

2011-01-13T13:07:00.001-08:00

He's done and on his way To Miami for a well deserved vacation.

Thanks to those who had suggestions for improvement.

As you can see I added the candy cane guard rail to the foreground to add a little bit of depth.

And I drew up my own penguin to go along for the ride.

The day after Christmas

2010-12-17T11:19:00.000-08:00

This is a work in progress.
It started out with this sketch from my sketchbook.

An old guy on a vespa because I was searching for a motorcycle image on the web for a client drawing and some vespa images came up.

This is where I am at so far...

Since it's winter and Xmas time I decided to portray the guy as Santa.
I didn't want to do Santa in his work clothes, he doesn't deliver toys on a vespa after all, so I put him in his street clothes.
Then I decided that he would be headed for a well deserved vacation, thus the Dec 26th calendar page and Miami sign.
I'm working on the background now.
You can see that I have some snow drifts back there.
I'm thinking that I'll have to add something in the far background to breakup the blue sky.
I might put his workshop back there.
I think I may add a trailer loaded with luggage being pulled behind the vespa to add to the going on vacation feel.
Let me know what you all think of the image so far.
I'm looking for comments on color, contrast, detail, does anything look "off," that kind of thing.

Head games

2010-11-20T08:37:00.000-08:00

Lately when I do art for myself it's with traditional media. Watercolor, gouache, pen and ink or pencil.

I like having a finished piece of art to look at and hold. It's a nice feeling of accomplishment.

Most of my client work ends up being digital, even if it starts out being drawn traditionally.

So I have been trying to figure out a "style" to call my own when doing digital art for myself that wil hopefully appeal to future clients.

With that in mind, I was flipping through my sketchbook yesterday and found a really rough sketch of a head.

When it comes to digital work I prefer Illustrator over Photoshop. I like creating flat/graphic areas of color over trying to make the figure/object look 3 dimensional.

So I drew up the head in Illustrator and played around with variations of it.

Here it is...

The 4 on the left are just changes in facial features and their positions.

The others are the Base 1 head with variations of facial hair and accessories.

After doing the pirate guy my daughter wanted to see him with a beard so I came u with this version...

I like the way he's looking so I'll be figuring out what kind of body to give him and put him in a simple setting.

Next she wants to see a girl pirate, so I'll post her in the future.

I just realized I need to change the color of his eyebrows to blue.

He's looking kind of like an elf with the big ears so I'll have to experiment with the idea of elfin pirates.

So if you ever find yourself stuck or bored when you are sketching, draw out several simple circles or ovals or whatever and just see what you can make out of them.

This is an experiment I recommend to everyone. It can stimulate your creativity and lead you to new ideas for your art.

IF-Racing

2010-10-28T14:47:00.000-07:00

Adobe Illustrator and Photoshop.

This guy was a work in progress that I grabbed and added a simple background to just for fun.

He was created in illustrator and then blurred in photoshop.

Can you see the Richard Scarey and "Go, Dog! Go! influence? I knew you could.

Bobcat color

2010-10-14T20:19:00.000-07:00

Here's the painted up Back Beat Betty.

This first version is straight watercolor and gouache.

This one was manipulated a bit with Photoshop.

I added two layers.

One filled with purple in the dark areas and set to multiply with a 70 percent opacity.

The other is a duplicate of the purple layer that I added noise to with the noise filter and then reduced the opacity to 50 percent.

It gives it a better feeling of her being in a spotlight up on stage.

I think I might have to go in and add her shadow that would be cast by the spotlight. Not sure about that though.

I also might go back in and add some more details to her to make her look more like a bobcat.

Notice she doesn't have any whiskers or any markings.

I have a good reference pick that I have been using for her so I'll go back to it and "plus" her up.

She's the first in a series that I want to do.

It's a series of Beatnic animals.

I have to get to the library and see if I can actually find any books on beatnics.

I'l also have to look up some musical phrases to be able to name the rest of the characters.

Some of the ideas for characters are a cat fish, yak, toucan, squirrel, mouse, sloth,...

Beatnic Bobat

2010-09-30T21:10:00.001-07:00

This is the line art for my next painting exercise.

The circle will be a yellow spot light.

The areas around the circle will have a purple under painting.

She's a bobcat beatnic beatin' on the bongos.

White Bird

2010-09-27T08:46:00.001-07:00

The White Bird likes to wear Wigs.

It's not easy to paint an all white picture.

I can't do it. I know because I really tried with this one.

I like color. Kids like color. You like color.

So, the white bird has hints of color in her, and she has a nice red/orange wig.

I'm not sure the background is finished.

I'm considering putting a pattern on the wall.

Like this...

That pattern was added via photoshop.

I am purposely avoiding digital methods for these paintings so that the painted art is the same as the printed art in the book. So is I do a pattern it would either be simpler or have bigger elements in it.

This is the 3rd go at doing the White Bird.

The first one was this...

White Bird watches TV.

To me it's funny. But because he's asleep like a lot of dads who watch too many sports shows on Sunday.

I got comments about the "wife beater" shirt and all that's missing is the beer. So I rethought it.

The second one was going to be "White Bird goes for a walk."

It didn't get finished because I felt it was too boring.

After thinking about it. I felt that there needed to be another girl bird in the book, and she should make eye contact with the reader. Open eyes make the character more likable.

Now all I have to do is figure out the cover art.

I also need to figure out the type treatment or find a graphic designer who wants to do the layout for fun or his/her portfolio. I'm not asking, I'm just saying.

Inspiration from the past

2010-09-24T08:40:00.000-07:00

I love my sketchbooks. I try to keep one handy at all times.

It took me a while to get used to it, but now I feel incomplete if I don't have one with me.

Did I say I love my sketchbooks? I do.

Because you never know what's really in them until you go back through an old one look at them with new eyes.

For example:

This is a page from one of my sketchbooks from last year.

As you can see I used the top part of the page to do a quick sketch of a Circus Train for the Illustration Friday website. The word of the week was "Wind." It was supposed to be read as the wind that blows through your hair, but I read it as you have to wind something up to make it go.

I liked it and had room so I used the bottom half to do a tighter version using pen and markers. Like I said, that was last year.

Yesterday I revisited this page and used it as inspiration to draw/paint this...

I had some scrap that was left over from another painting and I wanted to use it to do a small one day painting.

His basic proportions and the pose are the same, but I drew/painted him in the way that I am currently working.

He was painted using gouache on watercolor board.

He started out like this...

At least that's how far I got before realizing I needed to scan him if I wanted to show the process.

At this stage I have drawn him in pencil on the board, used a brown Pitt Pen to do a tight line drawing, then erased the pencil drawing leaving the pen line, I then did the underpainting in a sepia and brown mix of gouache and watercolor. After that I started to add color. As you can see at this stage the nose is pretty much done.

He turned out nice so I think I'll use him as inspiration to do a set of paintings. Maybe they'll end as prints or I can license them to someone. Maybe the little circle can be personalized.

I love my sketchbooks!

My sketchbooks are full of drawings. Some good, some bad. That's just the way it goes.

So I say, go out get a sketchbook and start drawing in it. If you don't like the kind you bought, buy a different kind next time and draw in it. Keep doing it until you find a kind you like and buy them when they are on sale, so you have a new one when the old one gets filled up.

I f you do this you'll soon be saying, "I love my sketchbooks!" too.

Purple!

2010-09-20T13:05:00.000-07:00

I just finished painting the purple bird for the book concept.
Here it is...

Purple Bird paints a picture of his pet platypus.

New bird art

2010-09-17T13:33:00.001-07:00

Actually it's One new bird and One revised bird.

The new bird is the pink bird.

"The pink bird is a Princess who has found her Prince."

The revised bird is the yellow bird.

I revised the background color from this...

To this...

As alway comments and crits are always welcome.

I am currently working on the purple bird and will be revising the white bird.

Illustrator Art

2010-08-17T09:19:00.001-07:00

One of the hazards of becoming a full-time Illustrator is that you find it hard to just sit down and draw for fun.

What I've noticed in the past couple of years is that whenever I sit down to draw the first thought that goes through my head is "How can I make money off of this?"

It can put a real damper on enjoying the act of sketching.

Especially when you're in a slow period.

When all you're thinking about is how to get more work so you can pay the bills.

I do my best to fight off the "Money making blues" the best I can when I open up my sketchbook so that I can let my brain wander and relieve some stress.

I draw whatever comes to mind and try to fill up the pages with as many images as I can.

Sometimes they lead to an idea for a project that I can use as an Illustrator.

Like the image below.

I had been sketching birds in my sketchbook.

I often draw birds and bugs when I let my brain run free.

I guess it's due to a love of nature and a library full of books I read in school.

The image you see above originally started out as an idea for a simple animation for my church to show before services start. I decided to do it on my own and bring it in to show.

I haven't done the animation yet. I have to fire up my old G4 and open up my Flash program and learn how to use it properly.

I made a couple of animations way back when, but I never got the timing right.

So I'll have to spend some time experimenting.

While I was working out the bird characters I started liking the image as a moment in time and thought it would be good for a example of my digital art.

If you've followed this blog at all, you'll know that it's mostly traditional art that I post here.

I prefer to do my art traditionally lately because I spent 8 years doing mostly digital art and started missing being able to hold the finished piece in my hands and be proud of what I accomplished.

I do however still like being able to digital art.

I just like it to be kind of flat and graphic, not realistic.

So I decided to work this image up as a promo piece to send in an e-mail to prospective clients. Above.

One of the other habits you'll develop as a freelancer is that you will try to get as many uses as you can out of one image.

In this case the image will be used as the promo piece, the animation, and a mock-up of a book sample piece. Below.

As you can see, I cropped the image so that it would work as a two page spread.

So I have managed to take one image and figure out 3 ways to use it.

1. As an e-mail promo piece.

2. As a digital portfolio piece.

3. and as a animation.

I might even take these characters and work up a couple of more mock up book pages, or a simple story.

Mermaid progression 8/05/10

2010-08-05T07:06:00.000-07:00

It is progressing.

Here's where I'm at so far.

I started by painting the turtle. He's was looking pretty good, so I started on the mermaid.

She's looking good so far.

Her hair going to be a challenge though.

I painted out the little sea horses in her hair. They might come back.

As you can see I haven't started the the single fish in the lower right or fish on the left yet.

I believe I'll start figuring out their "local colors" next.

They are going to be a bigger challenge than the hair.

I want to make sure I don't go color crazy.

I'm considering a rainbow effect.

Or maybe limiting them to 3 or 4 colors.

After I get everything mostly done, I'll go back and finish off the whole image.

Mermaid progression 7/22/10

2010-07-22T08:03:00.000-07:00

I just scanned this in so I can get started on the painting this girl.

This is the tight pencil on Crescent illustration board.

Right now I am planning on painting her as an Aboriginal Mermaid.

Dark skin and hair and white markings on her skin.

Her hair will be a dark reddish brown with some strong highlights.

I want her and the turtle to be the focal point so I believe everything else will get lighter as it gets farther away from them.

I had been planning on doing it the complete opposite way by painting the girl pale skinned with flowing red hair, but I like the aboriginal aspect for it's uniqueness.

If I was working smart I would print this out small on paper and do some color studies.

But, the original intention of this image was to experiment and have some fun, so I'm just going to "dive in"" and start painting.

I will search out some paintings by other artists of mermaids and give them a look for inspiration.

Water we do now?

2010-07-13T20:40:00.000-07:00

I was able to get back to my mermaid art the other day.
I looked up some reference on the net for the sea turtle and various fishes.
I did some sketching in my sketch book of the reference materials and then put them away and drew the fishes so that they will have individual personalities. I don't think I'll be trying to depict specific species of fish. I'd like to just make them up and see what I end up with.
I'll go back to my reference for the markings on the turtle.
The mermaid is starting to look like she's going to be a "girl of color." Not your typical pale skinned mermaid. What color I don't just yet.
Here's where I'm at so far...

The basic idea is that she is ripping the net that is keeping the turtle and fish from having free access to the other side of the ocean. That ropy thing she is holding is the edge of the net. It's weave will make the left half of the painting darker than the right half. Her hair will fill the upper right corner of the page.
The bottom right corner will have a brain coral who's patterning will mimic the patterning of the net.
I don't have any idea what the color pallet will be yet.
I know there will be an overall color wash that will be built up to establish the modeling.
If you see anything that is glaringly wrong let me know.
I still have to figure of what kind of "top" the mermaid will be wearing.
As I am typing this I am thinking that I need to look up some reference of the indigenous peoples of Australia. She's starting to look like one of them to me.
I have transfered this to illustration board and I'm doing the tight pencils that will go under the under painting.
I'll show the tight pencil stage before I move on.

2010-06-26T13:53:00.000-07:00

One of the clients I work for owns www.cartoonmaps.com

I do the art and layout for many of the maps.

One of those maps is for the Darke County Fair.

Each year they have a big musical act at the grandstands.

Each year I get to do cartoon versions of "The Band" for the map.

So far the acts have been REO Speedwagon & Styx.

Each year I put more effort into the characters because the map itself only needs some cosmetic changes to freshen it up.

This years band is Lady Antebellum.

Below is how they will look on the map.

I enjoyed drawing them. I hope the band will actually get to see themselves.

Here are some of the characters that are wandering around the map this year.

Why a guy in a fish costume?

Why not?

Ribbit!

2010-06-22T19:28:00.000-07:00

I haven't been able to post anything lately due to being busy with a day job and housework, but things have started hopping again around here in the form of freelance work so I'll just have to start burning the candle at both ends again.
In the mean time here's a page from my sketchbook.

Frogs were just on my mind that day.
One of them may end up in a future book dummy.

Board book art

2010-05-27T21:24:00.000-07:00

Okay, I'm ready for some constructive criticism on what I have so far.
Here's the set up.
This art is for a combination self promo piece and book dummy.
The book is a children's board book for kids from birth to 6 years old. You know, the thick cardboard pages that the young 'uns like to chew on.
Each image is a 2 page spread. Each spread features a bird of a certain color. Red Bird, blue bird, green bird,...
There will be 10 spreads in all and a wrap around cover.
I wanted to keep the art simple without being simple flat colors. Not even clean colors.
Here's the art...
RED BIRD

ORANGE BIRD

YELLOW BIRD

GREEN BIRD

BLUE BIRD

PURPLE BIRD

PINK BIRD

Pink bird admires her Prince.

BROWN BIRD

Brown Bird bakes bread

BLACK BIRD

WHITE BIRD

WHITE BIRD alternative

Could also be WHITE BIRD Walks on windy Wednesdays

I don't have the wrap around cover art figured out yet.

In case you forgot by the time you made it all of the way down here, I'm looking for your thoughts on what's posted here. Think children's board book and let me hear what you have to say.
Depending on how this turns out I have some pages for an alphabet book roughed out already.
If any of you out there are graphic designers let me know what I could do to make the type treatment better.

Blue Bird

2010-05-19T22:02:00.000-07:00

It's been a little while since I have posted anything.

I've been working a temp job that makes it hard to get anything done.

I have been working on my art though.

Like this.

It's one page of a board book concept. It's our basic color color book.

I'm in the process of painting the pages now. I have 7 done and 3 more to do, as well as some alternate pages to choose from.

This is the blue page.

The type is to make it clear what I'm doing. It will most likely change when I get feed back from the graphically inclined.

The finished size of the book is supposed to be 5" by 10" opened up. It will have rounded corners.

I'll be posting more of the art for feed back soon.

Something different

2010-04-19T19:37:00.000-07:00

I have had to put my personal projects on hold lately due to taking a temp job during the day to make some steady income for a bit.
I am still freelancing as an illustrator. I have a couple of projects that I am working on at night.
That doesn't really leave me any time for anything else if I want to be able to sleep at night.
here's a partial peak at one of the freelance projects.

I can't tell you what it's for yet, but I can tell you that it's being created using Adobe Illustrator.

I'll be doing another one featuring a "lost in space" type of robot.

New rough concepts

2010-03-29T20:44:00.000-07:00

I'm working on rough ideas for more portfolio pieces.

This one is pretty easy to read. It's a nice bright country scene of two boys fishing with their pet dog.

I the lower right corner will be a Kingfisher who has caught the first fish.

The background will be the lake and the shore with a simple fishing cabin.

I'm seeing a blue green lake, a dark brown-black tree and reflected light on the boys/dog.

As you can see I still need to take a good look at my dog reference to get his anatomy correct.

This one is my idea for the IF web site.

The word of the week is "rescue."

This is my mermaid rescuing a sea turtle from a fishing net.

I'm thinking a purple and yellow fantasy type of color scheme would be good here.

Her hair will fill up the top right corner of the image.

I wanted to do some simpler images as well, so I started drawing a character that filled most of one half of the page. I wanted to get a info page in science book feel.

This guy is holding up his peanut butter sandwich. The facts would be printed on the white part of the bread.

I'm not sure what she will be holding up yet.

Any suggestions?

I will be doing some paintings of characters standing on their own for practice/filler.

I believe I'll be doing a few more rough ides before I start painting any of them.

I would like to work up a night scene and probably a winter and rainy scene also.

Part of the reason for doing these illustrations is to solidify in my mind how I draw/paint people.

Another is to see if any of the people start to reoccur and become characters that I can show in multiple images.

Status Report 3/21/10

2010-03-21T13:57:00.000-07:00

It's Finished!
I worked into the wee hours of the night Friday night and got it most of the way done, and then did a little touch up here and there on Saturday morning and finished it up.
Here it is...

Here are some close up details..
The bird

The orange cat

and the dog

I'm happy with the way it turned out and am glad I tried out a new way of painting.
I now have a better understanding of why an underpainting is important.
I never understood why an artist would spend so much effort on an underpainting only to completely paint it over before. Now I do.
The extra step of a light coat of workable fixative over the underpainting was worth it also.
The fixative kept the water color from bleeding through the gouache.
You have to be careful not to put too much fixative on though. If you do the gouache will just puddle on the surface and not stick or cover well.

As a final step I sprayed a couple of coats of clear sealant over the image.
Gouache can pick up fingerprints and such very easily so I wanted to protect it.

I believe I will be revising my website so that this image will be the splash/home page.
The image that is up now was created digitally and I want to let visitors know that I am a traditional illustrator first and a digital illustrator second.
You can see my web site at ...
http://www.robertsnyderillustrates.com
to see what I mean.

I believe I'll be taking what I learned from this painting and revisiting my bird book ideas.
I have two ideas I want to work on. A Boardbook about colors and one about the alphabet.

Status Report 3/19/10

2010-03-19T17:18:00.000-07:00

This is just a quick pic from my laptop.

I was able to put some more time in on this.
I worked on the two cats the bird, the girl and the ground plane since the last post.
It's coming along fine.
I need to get it finished over the weekend because my agent wants to post it on their section of www.picture-book.com
I should be able to get it done.

I just have to do the dog and his bone, the bushes in the foreground, and some flowers on the bushes in the background and foreground, and then step back and see what needs more work before I call it done.

I'll do a good scan of it tomorrow and show some details.

IF - Expired

2010-03-19T07:04:00.000-07:00

I found a great new way to combine two weeks worth of IF topics this week!
I started to do a piece for last Fridays topic - Subterranean but didn't have time to finish it.
So it fits perfectly into this Fridays topic - Expired.
Here's what I was able to do before time expired.

It's The Moleman and his minions in their subterrannean lair playing charades.
It's The Moleman's turn and he's trying to get his team to guess his word.
He's doing the 4th syllable - jar
See him acting like he's trying to open a jar?
His word is Kilimanjaro.
The guys on the opposing team, on the right, are telling him his time has expired - it works twice.
As you can see, I was still working out how to draw the minions and what the background was going to look like. I couldn't remember what his subterranean lair looked like back in the 80's.
If you look a little longer you'll probably see the John Burne influence from my comic book collecting days. He was the big cheese when I was really into comics.

Status Report 3/11/10

2010-03-11T11:15:00.000-08:00

I was able to do some more work on this...

Mostly, I focussed on the dark green tree and the fence.
I believe I'll be changing the color of the hearts on the fence now this is not going to be finished in February. I don't want it overly hearty anymore.
Next up is everything on the ground plane.

Status Report

2010-03-05T14:07:00.000-08:00

I finally got some time to get back to work on the girl illustration.

I started in on the background - sky, bushes, fence, and tree - with the gouache.
I want to eliminate as much of the line work in the back as possible so that it has a nice effect in the foreground.
The bushes will need more work after I have established the foreground art.
As you can see I used a blue grey on the fence to set it back.
I will continue working on the fence to make it lighter. I need it to be dark enough not to blend in with the dog. He will be white with some large patches of color.
I added a dark base coat to the tree. I'll continue to work on it so that it looks like it's in the evergreen family. Lots of needles, not leaves.

I'm happy with the way the gouache is going over the spray fix so far. In some spots I have to work the brush a bit to get the color to soak in and take hold. I'm guessing those are areas where I overlapped the fixative when spraying it.

New work

2010-03-04T12:10:00.000-08:00

About this time last week an old client reconnected with me to do some work, a new client job got the go ahead, and some map work needed to be finished up.

Here's a bit of what the old client wanted.

There are more projects in the works with this client which is nice.

Here's a bit of what the new client wanted. It's waiting for final approval.

The client is in New Zealand so I can put a pin in that country and a mark it off my list.

The map stuff I can't show you. There aren't really any characters in it anyway.

For all 3 clients I do the work using a combination of hand drawing the rough and then pasting it into Adobe Illustrator and using it as a guide to draw the final art.

You'll notice that I have used two different approaches in the way the art is created for each client.

For the older client I used a soft blended approach without outlines.

There's a lot of gradient mesh use in that image.

The image of the girl is a flat approach using outlines. Kind of like a gouache painting.

I really have to push myself in both approaches to try to create volume in the art.

I'm not going for realism, but I don't want it to look flat like cut paper.

I like the way the girls hair is looking.

Under painting

2010-02-20T09:26:00.001-08:00

2/20/2010

Yesterday I worked on the under painting.

I decided to use watercolor for the underpainting because I already had the materials.

I would have had to go out to buy the right color(s) of pastel if I went with it.

As you can see I have an overall pink wash.

Then I went back in and added yellow to the sky, fencepost caps, and her scarf.

The next step will be to spray it with fixative and then start painting with more watercolor and then gouache for opaque detail.

I usually go back in at the end and do some color outlining.

Val girl revisions - 2/18/2010

2010-02-18T15:02:00.000-08:00

I have revised the line art for this image again after receiving some comments from the Picture Book Doodlers blog...

http://picturebookdoodlers.blogspot.com/

and from the scbwi web site.

You'll notice that I added letters to the two cats mouths and a wrapped dog bone at the feet of the dog.

I decided to keep the Bull Terrier. I like him because of the shape he makes.

I added the texture to the image, a gate - I kept it closed so that I didn't have to introduce any perspective into the image, and some additional greenery to create a bit of foreground.

The line art makes everything look like it's on the same plane right now.

I will be making sure that the background elements fall back in the painting process.

My next step will be to paint a wash of pink over the entire image.

I will probably use watercolor to do it.

I say probably because I saw a technique in a book today where the artist rubbed an even wash of color over her image using pastel and then went back in and removed the pastel in areas that needed to be lighter, then she sealed it with fixative and painted over the image with watercolor and acrylic to achieve the final art.

I might try the pastel.

I will be achieving the final art by painting with watercolor and gouache.

Val Girl

2010-02-10T08:28:00.000-08:00

This is the second pass on the girl art I'm working on.

Here's the first rough for comparison.

You'll notice that I changed it quite a bit.

For the girl I ditched her head band and added a knit hat and scarf that I found on the web. I think it makes her look cuter and more dressed up. It gives her a better head shape as well.

My intention is to make this a February/Valentines image.

The girl is holding a "love" letter that the Postal bird will be delivering for her.

Since I made the letter bigger in the second rough I also decided to make the bird bigger.

Instead of the little chickadee type of bird I'm going with a Blue Bird. He's already dressed in the right color for the job of Postman anyway.

I'll be repositioning the bird so he sits properly on her finger.

I searched the web for dog and cat pics so that I could make the animals more realistic. One of my goals for this year. Less cartoony.

I will be shrinking the cat so that she's smaller than the dog. The dog may get a little bigger.

I'll experiment with moving the cat more to the right to strengthen the pyramid composition.

If you see anything else to comment on let me know.

Fox with marshmallow

2010-02-08T09:21:00.000-08:00

For this image I took the rough sketch from my sketchbook...

and placed it into an Adobe Illustrator file on it's own layer.

I set the scan to multiply.

Then I made a new layer underneath so that I could draw the fox and still see the rough art over the top of what I was drawing.

This is the result.

My original intention was to take this Illustrator image into Photoshop and add texture to it.

I played with it a little bit but didn't like the way it was going so I stopped.

The image looks a bit unbalanced to me. I think it could use something down at the bottom left to strengthen the pyramid composition.

I am considering adding his bag of marshmallows on the ground or maybe a small critter who is sharing his disappointment. I'm not sure yet.

Opinions are welcome.

MeMonday2/08/10

2010-02-08T08:33:00.000-08:00

I missed last Monday's self portrait due to most everyone in my family being sick in some way or another.

I didn't have the energy to draw anything.

So here's today's self portrait.

I decided to play with it a little bit.

5 eyed Monster

2010-02-03T08:40:00.000-08:00

Here's the latest inked piece of art.

This was originally drawn in my sketchbook for Illustration Friday.

My goal was to draw 3 monsters that read as one monster until you started to really look at the drawing.

I think this one would be better with some color.

The monsters are very white. I didn't want to get too heavy with the fur. I was concerned it would become hard to read.

I used a combination of tech pen and brush and ink on bristol board.

I have started sketching some ideas for new art....

My wife has said that I am making too many complicated/detailed drawings lately.

I should do some simpler art. "People ooh and aah over it."

I can see what she means, so I am sketching up some simpler ideas to work on.

Here are a few that I sketched out yesterday.

This one is to add more people to my samples.

The girl is outside giving a letter to the mail bird to deliver.

I think I'll do this one in Black & White and also in Color.

This one was inspired by one of Aesop's Fables, The Fox and the Grapes.

I believe this one will also be in Black & White and also Color.

This one is the simplest of the 3.

He's just a dressed up fox holding something.

He was inspired by the art in the Fable book.

I believe I will "ink" this one in Adobe Illustrator. And then do a color version using Illustrator also and then take it into Photoshop to play around with texturing it.

Circus art

2010-01-25T08:41:00.002-08:00

These art the last two inked images from the circus story.

I don't believe I'll ink the whole story. These were meant to show a single character drawn in several different images. Portfolio pieces for children's book publishers.

The first one is the boy swallowed up by a snake.

The second is a visit with the circus monkeys.

Both were drawn with a mix of pen, brush , and ink.

MeMonday1/25/10

2010-01-25T08:41:00.001-08:00

This is todays self portrait.

I drew this one in my sketchbook using pencil and brush & ink.

Time: 20 - 30 min.

I realized the other day that drawing these on Monday morning, or any other morning, doesn't show me "at my best. But I like the results so far.

For todays drawing I decided in advance that it would be drawn with brush and ink.

I'm working on my control of the brush.

3 Birds inked

2010-01-22T11:59:00.000-08:00

I finished the inking on the 3 birds. This is the final art.

Let me know what you think.

New Inks

2010-01-20T09:07:00.001-08:00

These are a couple of pieces that I started yesterday.

This one is a circus train being pulled by a clown car.

I'm wondering if it needs a background. Nothing fancy. Just a pattern or something.

If you have an opinion, let me know what you think.

This second one is still a w.i.p.

It's also a piece that was done in color previously.

I am changing it for inking.

As you can see by the hat on the top bird I am planning on adding texture and pattern to the piece. I stopped here to scan it so that I can save this stage so I can print it out on paper and do some experimenting before committing to the final image.

I need to decide how to treat the sky and grass and I'm not sure what I want to do yet.

Again if you have any comments, let them fly.

Me Monday 1/11/10

2010-01-11T08:15:00.000-08:00

Here's the second self portrait for the year.

The plan is to do one every Monday Morning.

Pencil on paper. 16/20 min.

There's no measuring proportions or preplanning. It's just a quick observation.

Since It's winter here in the midwest and it's been snowing on and off for the past 4 or 5 days I am dressing in my winter gear.

Inking 102

2010-01-08T13:22:00.000-08:00

Here's another revisited piece of art for my Black on white portfolio.

It's a piece featuring Vincent Van Gogh and Toulouse Lautrec.

The main reason for revisiting this piece is that the original painted version was damaged by a colored liquid of some sort.

The secondary reason is to continue my inking development.

So this was the original line art for the painted version...

It was never intended to be final art.

In order to do an inked drawing from it I reduced the size to fit on an 8.5 by 11 piece of bristol paper. Then I reduced the opacity of the art to 10%...

and printed it out on the bristol paper.

The result is that I had a basic outline to start with that wouldn't get in my way if I wanted to alter anything. And I did change a couple of things here and there.

The first pass at inking came out looking like this...

I like to scan the art in stages so I can see it on my screen and save the art. That way if I do something to it later that I don't like, I can print out the saved version and start again without completely starting over.

I looked it over and decided that I needed to do something about the lady on right. She was much to white, which made her the center of attention.

I also decided that the dog on the bottom left ,the flower pot, the two guys faces, and the background needed more work.

This is the result...

I scanned it and looked it over.

I felt that the background , some of the painting of the lady, and Van Gogh's hat needed to get darker.

This is the result...

I also thickened the border to hold it all in.

Overall I'd say it's a successful drawing.

Here's a close up...

I'll do more like this for the portfolio.

Materials...

Cheap bristol paper.

Faber Castell Pitt artist pens - XS and S.

I liked the way the ink from the pen soaked into the paper quickly and didn't smear or bleed.

If I had to cover large areas in solid black it would be a problem like when I used it with the brush. I would most likely fill in the big areas in photoshop to get a solid black and save ink.

Inking 101

2010-01-06T13:50:00.000-08:00

I previously stated that one of my goals for this year is to do more inked art.

My first project will be to re-illustrate, in black on white, the art I recently painted for an emergent reader.

Here's the original line art....

It was never intended to be "finished art."

Here's the newly inked image...

If you compare the two you'll notice that I changed some things.

To start with I made the boy's nose much smaller.

I also sent him to the dentist to have that gap in his teeth fixed.

The result is a more normal/appealing appearance.

I decided to change the title to avoid any © infringement issues.

Materials:

I used Speedball Super Black India Ink and Windsor & Newton #1 and#4 brushes to ink on some cheap bristol paper.

The brushes aren't the best for inking. The #1 brush wouldn't keep a nice point. The #4 worked alright.

The paper sucked up the ink and made it hard to get solid black coverage.

I manipulated the art in Adobe Photoshop after the art was done to get a solid uniform black.

As far as inking with a brush goes I like it. I have a lot of practicing to do to be able to get a nice smooth stroke though.

I like the way this turned out so I will do the rest of the pages with these materials.

At the same time I will be experimenting with ink pens/markers and other papers.

If anyone has any recommendations of materials that have worked well for them please let me know what they are and I will look into trying them out.

It's 2010

2010-01-04T08:15:00.000-08:00

It's a new year!

It's fresh. It's clean. And ready to draw on.

So I've been considering what to do with 2010.

First off, I picked up this book...

I will be reading it from cover to cover this month and then applying what I learn from it to my book art throughout the year.

I will review the book either as I go along chapter by chapter or as a whole. This is my first book review so I'll figure that out as I read it.

Secondly, I have decided to take a lesson from the "Old Masters" and do some self portraits.

The plan is to do one a week. Probably on Mondays.

This is the first one. Pencil drawing done in about 20 min.

They will be done however I feel like doing them that day. Pencil sketch, watercolor, whatever.

The plan is to help develop my observation skills.

Thirdly, I will be doing a lot of black and white inked art this year.

I have noticed lately, that when I go to the book store, I am attracted to the line art of the chapter books for boys/girls.

Forthly, I will be searching for a "focus" for my children's art.

I will be playing with creating a small group of characters to star in my art.

I have a few ideas, but I will be experimenting in my sketchbook for the next couple of months to see what comes up.

I have also decided to focus on the "Old Masters" in my own way.

Particularly, Vincent Van Gogh. He has been a favorite of mine for many years and I find myself thinking of him a lot lately. I believe I will be writing a story featuring Vincent. I don't know if it will be fact or fiction or a mix of both.

I have this idea of doing some cartoony fact sheets. Each would focus on an "Old Master."

That's all I have figured out so far.

We'll see how it goes.....

Art from last SAIC illustration class

2009-12-30T09:19:00.000-08:00

Process Report -

Yesterday I finished the revision to the last assignment of my illustration class.

The revision was self imposed. I didn't like the digital collage version that I made so I decided to redo the art.

Here's the process I went through.

The original rough...

As I remember them the comments during the critique were as follows...

She looks very uncomfortable, both in body position and by having her straddle that very big branch.

There's too much going on with the multiple nests, squirell, the mouse, and the bug.

I agreed with the comments so I searched the "net" for some images of kids sitting in trees, as well as, robins, and fall clothes.

Then I reworked the rough and came up with this...

The girls clothes stayed the same.

Her posture was improved and I changed the tree to have a curving horizontal trunk that I found on the "net."

I added another horizontal trunk so she would have a place to rest her foot.

I added another robin and positioned him so that the beaks of both birds pointed to her hand offering up the piece of sandwich. This helped improve the focal point of the image.

I removed one nest from the bottom of the image, the squirell, mouse, and bugs.

The mouse will be appearing in another illustration along with several more.

I took this rough and decided that I would do an inked version.

One of my areas to focus on this year is black and white line art.

I believe I need more for my portfolio. And I like doing it.

So, this is the first inked image. It's more of a coloring book,open feel.

The type would be printed in black in the upper left leaves.

It could be used as is, or flat color could be added using Illustrator for a screen printed feel.

I liked this one, but I wanted to do a "fully inked version."

So I inked it again...

This time I used "heavy blacks" to make sure the focus stayed on the girls hand.

I focussed on texture and giving the robins some "personality."

I really like this version. It will go onto my web site and to my agent.

I still had the urge to paint the image in color to get that "fall feeling" with the color.

So I went back to the rough and transfered it to a piece of watercolor board and made a tight pencil drawing. Then I did an under painting using watercolors.

It came out like this...

I removed the upper right nest.

I have to say that this is the first time I purposely started with an underpainting, and I was worried about how the final art was going to turn out. So I put it away for a few days because I wanted to start the next step of painting it with gouache when I was able to sit down and focus on it properly. The holidays were here and there was no time for an involved painting session.

Around the 27th my wife got tired of looking at me a day and told me I needed to get back to work. So I spent all day out in the studio and painted the final version.

I was still worried about how it was going to turn out, so I started with the robin on the left to build up some confidence.

He came out like this...

I liked the way he turned out. So with my confidence restored I continued on with the rest of the painting.

It turned out like this...

I like it. It's not the usual bright "Yellow, Red, Orange" fall pallet. It's more of a muted version.

Now I can say I am done with this image. I don't feel the need to do any other versions of it.

I am considering using the multiple images in some sort of self promotional way.

There were a few revelations that came from doing several versions of this image.

The first was that I have always liked doing black and white art.

So I will do more.

The second is that I like to do animals realistically with some personality.

So I will do more.

The third is that my work improves when I search for reference materials and use them to influence the final art instead of making everything up from my imagination/memory all of the time.

So I will do more.

The fourth is I like to paint. And I need to develop my color sense and modeling of the form.

So I will do more.

Lastly I have talent that people want and I need to let them know it with self promotion.

So I will do more.

So my recommendation to you for 2010 is "to do more."

Good luck in the new year!

Fall Fancy Roughs

2009-12-02T07:20:00.000-08:00

For tomorrows Thursday Night Illustration class at the Art Institute we were given a magazine page template with a poem in place. Our assignment was to rough out or illustration for the page.

The poem is about fall, and mentions old robin's nests, and seed pods, so the setting is outside.

We were told that the art had to include a 8 year old girl.

That's all of the direction we were given. The rest is up to us.

Oh, we were also told that the art had to be made using collage.

Not a technique that I have used much, but I'm open to it.

The following are the roughs I worked up.

I wanted to create a piece that wasn't as "cartoony" as I normally do.

So I picked a girl and another character for he to interact with.

Girls like cats, so he became the second character.

This was my first idea.

I think it's the type of idea that would pop into most illustrators heads right away.

I think it could be quite and peaceful, and sweet.

This is the second idea.

It's the same basic idea a little closer to the characters , but I think changing the park bench to a swing makes it a bit more interesting.

This is the third idea.
This one is much tighter on the character. The girl is now interacting with one of the robins from the poem instead of the cat.

This is the fourth and final idea.

The cat is back and they are investigating the old robin's nest while the robin watches from his perch.
I'll be taking these roughs "as is" to class tomorrow to get feed back.

Since the final art will be done using collage I am favoring the 3rd and 4th images because of their larger shapes and less background detail.

I think I'm going to be using a multiple layer technique.

My plan right now is to do tight line art of the entire image, and then print it out onto different papers.

I'll then glue the chosen papers onto a 1/8 inch or 1/4 inch board and then cut away the areas of each board that aren't needed. I'll have 3 or 4 layers that stack on top of each other to create the image.

Tomorrow in class we are going to play with paint and create the papers for the collaging.

Go ahead and play Art Director and tell me what you like/don't like about each image, and tell me which one I can "go to final with changes."

Color revision time.

2009-11-20T16:40:00.000-08:00

At this weeks Illustration class we showed our work for the emergent reader.

The comments on my work were mixed.

The main one that I need to focus on to improve my art is that the backgrounds are interfering with the ability to see the characters.

It was recommended that I change the colors, remove some color and show "the white of the page", and or make the background colors flat/solid and not so washy.

With that in mind I have played around in Photoshop a bit to do some quick revisions...

This is the original painting...

This is with a solid lavender for the upper part and a solid brown for the bottom part without touching the middle red and white bit.

This one has a solid blue top part, solid red and white stripe, and a solid brown bottom part.
This one has a solid white upper part without touching anything else.

Let me know your opinion on the best way to proceed.

These are the "finished" pieces I showed in class...

Thursday Nov 12th

2009-11-14T21:17:00.000-08:00

For this weeks class we were to bring in our art in progress for the emergent reader that we have been working on. I couldn't go to the class due to family sickness. But I did get to start coloring the art on Wednesday and Thursday, as well as Friday.

This is what I have so far...

I'll be going over the outlines to add more interest/variety. Probably with a brush and black gouache.

I'll also add some highlights and shadowing.

The final art will be cropped and the type will be added digitally in word balloons.

Even tighter line art

2009-11-05T09:35:00.000-08:00

These are the the line drawings that I print out onto watercolor paper.
I will reduce the opacity to about 10 or 15% so that I can see the lines to do the watercolor painting .
After the painting is done I will go over it with either pen or a combination of pen and colored pencil.
After the paintings are finished I will scan them and add the type using Adobe Illustrator.

I should say that I don't usually revise my art this many times.
Usually the process is roughs, tight pencils, transfer to the painting surface, and then paint.

Pet - tight line art

2009-11-03T13:52:00.001-08:00

Here are the tightened up pencil drawings for "Can I Have Pet?"
I finished them up last night.

Now I just have to redraw them again to get the final line quality that I want.
I haven't decided if I'll be using pen or pencil for the final line art yet.
I beleive I'll go with pencil and scan that into my computer so that I can print it out onto watercolor paper for painting.

October 29th- 5th day of class

2009-11-02T09:00:00.001-08:00

For this class we were to have our roughs for the emergent reader manuscript ready to go over.
These are the roughs I had to show. I decided on a circus theme, so I made the boy look like a ring master.
Can I have a pet?

Can I have a pet?

Can I have a monkey?

Can I have a snake?

Can I have a zebra?

Can I have a bear?

Can I have a lion?

Can I have a fish? Yes!

I'm working on revising/tightening the roughs now so that I can do the tight line art and experiment with how the final art will be done.
I'm thinking of doing a simple inked line drawing and watercolor with some colored pencil for color.

October Mailer

2009-10-30T18:44:00.001-07:00

I just created and sent out this newsletter to my list of contacts.
If you see it or know of anyone who might like to see it, please feel free to send them a link to this site, or copy the file to your desktop and send it to them.
I would greatly appreciate it.

Cinderellastien art finished!

2009-10-26T14:58:00.000-07:00

Over the weekend I was able to finish inking the 3 samples from the Cinderellastein story.
Here they are...
The Evil Step Mummy and the Evil Step Monsters let Cinderellastein know who's boss by presenting her with the list of chores she has to do.

The Evil Step Mummy makes sure Cinderellastein knows she won't be going to the Monster Mash.

The Fairey God Monster transforms Cinderellastien's clothes and mop so she can go to the Monster Mash. It's not a pleasant experience.

I drew the final art on Graphics 360 100% rag Translucent Marker Paper using Prismacolor Premier markers. Sizes 01, 03, and the brush tip.

The art was then scanned into Photshop and the Brightness/Contrast was adjusted to make the blacks solid.

October 22nd - 4th day of class

2009-10-23T14:30:00.000-07:00

This weeks class was about showing 3 pieces of final art from our Cinderella story.
I spent the time I had this week reworking the scale of the characters and changing their interaction.
I started the final art for one image, but I didn't get any of them done in time for class.
So I pinned up the tight roughs for the three pieces and the partial final art piece.

We went around the room and did a critique on each persons art.
It was really interesting to see the different approaches taken to the work.

Here are the tight roughs I put up.

This one is where the Evil Step Mummy is telling Cinderellastein how much work she has to do.

This one is where she is told she can't go to the Monster Mash.

This one is where her Fairey God Monster changes herclothes and turns her broom into her mode of transportation to the Monster Mash.

This is the finished line art for the Second image.
I finished it today.

I wanted the Evil Step Mummy to be very overpowering. That's why she is forcing Cinderellastein into the bottom right corner and not centered in the image.
I chose to do this one first so that I could work out how I was going to treat the Evil Step Mummy. And how much contrast the image was going to have.

After the critiqueing of everyones art we were given our next assignment.
To do the art for the manuscript of an emergent reader.
I'll need to do the line art for the two remaining Cinderellastein images and the roughs for the new assignment by this coming Thursday.
I should be able to do it this week.

IF- Frozen

2009-10-22T09:08:00.000-07:00

Today's word is Frozen.
If you do as I do and break up the word into parts whenever you can you might have come up with
the words Fro and Zen.
Fro is slang for a hairstyle.
Zen is an ancient spiritual Lifestyle/religion.
Type Zen into google images and you get pictures of rock gardens, Buddas, and such.
I didn't have to go to google for a fro.

So after looking through the pics and thinking for a bit. I came up with this.....

October 15th 3rd day of class

2009-10-20T07:42:00.000-07:00

I had a hard time getting ready for this weeks class.
I had a client job that was taking up too much time, and I was having a hard time getting into the art again.
I think it's because I know that it's taking up time that I should be using to do client work or look for more work.
I really want to dedicate the necessary time to this class. I want to make sure I get something of value out of it.
In order to delay drawing, on Wednesday, I worked on a 3D layout of the interior that I am using for the setting of my Cinderellastein story.
I spent more time on it than I should have because I was stalling and mentally getting a grip on the art side of the story.
A working the story/art out in my head first is a necessary part of the way I work.
Here are a couple of images from the interior...

I used a easy to learn program called Google Sketch Up.
You can get it here.
http://sketchup.google.com/
The basic version is free. That's what I currently use.
I used this program to create the interior of Cinderellastein's house.
I use Sketch Up whenever I know the story art will be set in an interior/exterior of a building that will be the setting for most of the story. That way I don't have to spend time on working out the perspective of each drawing.
I also get to play around with viewing angles more creatively.
I create my basic layouts in the rough stage then I go into my Sketch Up model and match them up and play around a bit.
Once I have a viewing angle I like I export a image of it, and save it as a .psd or .jpeg.
Then I print the file out and put it under a sheet of paper and draw my characters out.
I can then scan my characters and save them.

I can them open the scene file and the character file and cut/paste the characters into the scene and scale/move them as needed.

Then I can print this file out redraw the tight line art on a sheet of marker paper over the top of it.
I use the marker paper because it's bright white, I can see the print out through it, and it takes black colored pencil or marker very well. All of these qualities make it scan well.
I don't like tracing paper. It's just a personal preference I guess.

At this stage I will either use markers and colored pencils to color the art, or I will scan the art into the computer again and flop it so it is a reverse image.
If I do this it means that I will be printing it out again so that I can trace over the back side/blank side of the printout with a number 2 pencil.
Then I will transfer the image to the board or paper that I will use for the final piece of art.
That way I don't have to draw and erase on the final art.
Then I paint the image.

If I plan on using paper to do the final art and it's size will fit through my printer, I will just reduce the opacity of the digital file to 15 to 20% and print it right onto the paper. Then I don't have to draw on the paper at all unless it's needed for the final art.

I spent part of Wednesdaynight and Thursday morning trying to get the 12 drawings that I needed to have for class done.
It didn't happen because I was working out the final "look" of the characters at the same time, which slowed me down.
I did get 8 of them done and presentable.

This weeks work is to pick 3 of the images and create final black and white art.
Today I will be choosing the 3 images and reworking them into final art so I can start inking them tonight/tomorrow.
Hope fully I will be able to get them done.

Wed Oct 7 second day of class

2009-10-09T19:49:00.000-07:00

Thursday was the second day of the children's book illustration class at the AIC.
I had a hard time focussing on the homework due to some freelance work and not being comfortable with the times and places I chose for my roughs.
Remember, We were to retell the story of Cinderella in a different time and place.
I had chosen to do Transylvania in the 1400's so I could do monsters, and Pangea at the time of the Dinosaurs/cave men.

I ended up dropping the Caveman idea, and changed it to birds in suburbia in a modern day setting.
I got those roughs worked up on Thursday morning.
Then I moved on to the Transylvania roughs. I struggled with them. Mostly trying to get an idea for the characters.
I did manage to get 1/2 of them done before leaving for class.
I finished them off in class.
We then broke up into groups of three and looked over each others roughs and made comments on them. Mostly trying to help point out any spots that might be confusing or ways to make a transition clearer.
After that we made an accordion book out of a single sheet of paper.
We now have to start working in it.
I decided to add end papers and two pieces of 1/2 inch plywood to serve a covers. There's no spine so that it can still accordian out. I'll show pics after I start to work in it.

The instructor ended the class by reading two different books and discussing them briefly.

Our homework for next class is to work up or roughs to a better state and then pick 3 to 5 of them to take to final art.

These are my roughs for Cinderellastein as I showed them on Thursday...
The cast - Cinderellastein, The evil Step Mummies or Step Monsters, I haven't decided for sure yet, Frankenstein as the Prince, and Dracula as his man servant.
1.Cinderellastein being bossed around by her Step Mummies.

2. More bossing around.

3. The invite to the party arrives.

4. No Cinderellastein you can't go!

5. The Fairy God Monster zaps Cinderellastein and fixes broom that was broken in 2.

6. Cinderellastein flys off to the party on her new broom.

7. She makes her entrance.

8. She dances with the prince while the Step Monsters fume in the background.

9. She has to go. Losing her foot in her hurry.

10. Find the girl who fits this foot.

11. It fits!

12.They live happily undead for ever after.

Now I have to start figuring out the look of each character before reworking the roughs and tightening them up.
I'll probably work out a couple of simple sets in Google Sketchup so I can play with the angles and add variety to the art so the pages don't always look the same.

Hopefully I'll be able to give this work the attention I want to.

Sad day

2009-10-05T11:11:00.000-07:00

Today is a sad day.
I collected comic books from high school into my late 20's.
In the years since then I have been selling off my collection.
On Saturday I decided to take my two boys and my last half box of comics to the local comic shop to start a comic fund for my boys to be introduced to comics. They're 9 and 11.
The owner of the store wasn't there to look at my comics, so I left them for him to look over in the next day or two.
Well, the store called today and said they weren't interested in any of them.

I will have to figure out something else to do with them I guess.
Sad.

First Thursday class at the Art Institute

2009-10-05T09:11:00.000-07:00

The first class started off rough.
First of all it decided to start raining before I left for Chicago.
So I drove in the rain.
Then I parked downtown and walked in the rain to the Art Institute, only to be told the class was in their building across the street. So I went there and waited for the instructor to open up the room and start the class. 3 of us waited until 6:30 for the 6:00 class to start, only to find out the class had been moved to another building a short walk in the rain away.
After that everything went well.
The instructor was organized, prepared, and a very good presenter.
We started off with introductions around the room.
It turns out I'm the only guy in the group.
Lisa, the instructor, then talked about picture books, and read and discussed a couple.
We were then given a box of toy animals to pass around and pick one out of it.
I chose a pig.
We were then required to write-
5 adjectives about the animal of our choice off the top of our heads.
5 verbs to describe the animal.
where the animal lives.
What does he want for his birthday.
and
His name.

The next exercise was to smell a bar of Dove soap and write down our 5 first impressions.

That was all to warm us up to do the next exercise which was to do a quick 5 frame telling of the story "Cinderella."
Here's mine....

The part on the upper left is it.
As you can see, I cheated a bit and cut one of the panels in 2 to do mine.
The rest of the page is my note taking, and a guy who walked by when I was waiting for the class to start.

That was pretty much the first class.
It looks to be a good class.

Our assignment for this weeks class is to take the cinderella story and pick 2 different times and locations for the story and then redo the story with 8 to 10 roughs for each of the two times/places.
I've settled on Transylvania in the 1400's for one of them, so that I can draw halloween characters.
The working title for my retelling is "Cinderellastein"
The other goes even farther back.
It will be Pangea at the time of the invention of fire and the wheel. I will of course be combining cavemen and dinosaurs. Yes, I know it's wrong, but it's fun.
The working title for this one is "Uh!" The last sound you make when you say Cinderella.
There won't be any words, just grunting.
So now I have to look up some reference to use and bring in for class.

Joe Logo Fun

2009-09-30T12:06:00.000-07:00

This is Joe.
Joe plays Bass in our church band.

Joe doesn't know that I did this.

Joe will Know after I tell him to look at it.
What do you think?
Did I "get" the essence of Joe?

This is David.
David plays the keyboards for the band.

He asked for this.

What do you think?

This is Scott, he's next.

This is Eddy.
It will be hard to not make him and Scott look the same.

This is Kristin. A challenge.

I finally did the Kristin art.
Looks just like her don't you think?

Don't worry Kristin, this is just the rough draft. The next one will look more like you.

Tomorrow, tomorrow,...

2009-09-30T12:00:00.000-07:00

Tomorrow is the first day of my children's book illustration class at the Art Institute of Chicago.
I don't know what will come of it, but I will do my best to get something out of it, and help others get something out of it also.

I will be trying to get downtown early every Thursday to try and make contacts to improve my freelance Illustration/Product Design career. If you know of anyone who might want to meet with me so I can show them my portfolio, please contact them and give them my info, or ask if you can give me their info.
I'd love to be able to acquire a full time position in Chicago.

Step 2

2009-08-31T07:34:00.000-07:00

This morning I took my second step towards improving my freelance career.
I signed up for a class at the Art Institute of Chicago.
Children's Book Illustration-Fall 2009.
It's supposed to focus on the story telling aspect of illustration.
I intend to take this class and give it everything I've got.
I'll post about it as it goes along.

What am I waiting for?

2009-08-28T11:45:00.000-07:00

"I am an Artist."
Even before I ever got paid to create art I have always been able to say, "I am an Artist."
That's all I have ever wanted to be.
I have worked in fast food, Fancy restaurants, bars, casinos, landscaping, a giftware company, and even spent time in the military.
At everyone of those jobs I always told people that I was an artist. It was a lot easier at the giftware company since that's why they hired me.
Today I am an artist. A freelance artist. I am my own boss.
Unfortunately, I am not getting enough work to keep me busy or "pay the bills."
It's just the reality of how the economy is right now.
So I have been trying to figure out what to do about it. Should I go to school and get a degree in graphic design so I can work for a company as their "go to guy" for everything digital?
Should I go to school and get a teaching degree and teach art to Middle and/or High Schoolers? Help them prepare for the real world of being an artist.
Should I try to find any job that will pay the bills and go back to being an artist on the side when I have time?

I'm not sure if I like any of the options.
I do have to face the fact that it will be awhile before being a freelancer will be able to pay the bills again.

So what do I do?

Well, I took my first step a couple of days ago. I decided to start working on becoming an author/illustrator.
I used to enjoy writing. I never focused on it. Never wrote anything seriously after High School, but I believe I can write stories to go with my art.
Why should I spend my "down time" waiting for an art director/editor to call and offer me an illustration job.
No, I don't just sit back and wait for the phone to ring. I send out news letters, search the net, and apply for jobs on art sites looking for work.
The other day I checked a book out from the library. "A Caldecott Celebration" It told the story of how several different artists created the art and story that won them the Caldecott award. The one thing that I noticed was that the book was written and illustrated by the artist. I say by the artist, because each person seemed to have been illustrating other peoples stories/projects before writing their own book. They weren't trying to make a living as writers, but as artists.
So the thought finally clicked into my head, "What am I waiting for?"
"Why am I resisting writing my own books?"
It might take me 7 years to achieve the goal, like Maurice Sendak and "where the wild things are," but I won't know until I start doing it.
So I have started. I'm starting small with a board book about colors. I would like to achieve some success in less than 7 years, so I'll start small and see what happens.
Just today working on one of the characters for that book I came up with an concept to flesh her out into her own books. I said books plural. I can't tell you any more because I made myself sign a nondisclosure agreement. An believe me I'll sue myself if I have too.
A bigger project that I have in mind has to do with the Dragon art that I posted in a previous post. Scroll down, you'll see it.
That one is a series of picture books or maybe a chapter book. I don't know. That might be biting off more than I can chew right now. It may even be something I would like to co-write with an experienced writer.
Needless to say, now now that I have opened that door in my mind that was holding me back the ideas are starting to flow.
Now it may/will take time for any of this to "start paying the bills" also. I understand that, but it gives me a new goal to shoot for, and gives me the satisfaction of knowing that I have taken a step towards being proactive in my career.
I can no longer ask myself, "What am I waiting for?"
Instead I am asking myself, "How do I make this happen?"
Coming up with ideas is my first step. We'll see where it goes from here.

CD COVER ART

2009-08-26T19:39:00.000-07:00

This is a job I'm finishing up for a a CD cover and disc art.

It's all Adobe Illustrator.
It's meant to look like a screen printed image that is off register.
Their concept for the art went like this...
"but the concept of the title would be that God pursues everyone - based on the Scripture that "He desires no one to perish, but for all to come to the knowledge of the truth". It's also a lyric from my song, "Your Praise Goes On" - 'after every heart turns to You'."

From that I took the words heart and turns.
That lead me to think about the popular image of people using their hands to make a heart and since it's a religious group - Jesus.

The Dragons treat

2009-07-22T10:31:00.000-07:00

August 3 2009 - I finished the color for "the Dragon's Treat."

It's painted with gouache and watercolor on illustration board.
I've decided that I like watercolor board better.
The illustration board surface gets rough when a lot of water is used.

July 24 2009- I received some more comments from the SCBWI forum and made changes to the image and went to tight line art.

Next is to start to figure out the color.
I plan on doing a color wash over the whole image with watercolor and then going in with gouache to do the rest of the color.
After that I'll probably go back over the line work and give it more variation.

July 23 2009- Ok, I have reworked the rough after receiving comments from the SCBWI forum boards.
Here it is.

I made the image space larger to give the dragon some breathing space and show more of the balloon.
I also added in the tail.

July 22 2009- This is my rough for another possible portfolio piece.
It's a boy and his grandma feeding a dragon his favorite treat...Oreo cookies.
Grandma's got a purse full of them. I think I'll have some sugar packets and stuff falling out of the purse as well.
I'm still trying to decide if the dragon will be a boy or girl.

I know it's really rough, but if you see anything that stands out as "wrong" or have an idea that will enhance the work, let me know.

Depending on how this turns out, I just might use the grandma and boy as the focus of the next batch of drawings.
I think I'll add a little dog as well.

PatriRATic

2009-07-21T11:11:00.000-07:00

This is the final art for the previously posted line art.
It's painted with water color and guoache.
I added the story element using Illustrator and Photoshop.

If I were a story writer I'd be able to flesh this idea out into a story.

IF - Tango

2009-07-21T11:00:00.000-07:00

This is one of the results of working on new images for my portfolio.
It's painted with a combination of water color and gouache.
It's posted here for "IF" because the bat creature's name is Tango.

My intention here was to show a simple/common scene of a bus stop with some fantasy elements.

Balloon Ride

2009-07-13T08:51:00.000-07:00

Previously, I posted a sketchbook page of a boy and his dog in a balloon dragging the clouds out of the sky.
I liked the image, so I reworked it. Mainly because the balloon was in the shape of a butt ( old school joke with my friends).
I changed the format to horizontal and made the balloon a normal shape and zoomed in so that the viewer is closer to the boy and his dog.
I added a couple of birds for interest and depth. I also opened up the clouds and added the earth below. It will be farmland. Simple rectangular shapes of color. I added a barn and the horizon line for scale/depth.
I wanted to add more "story" to the image so that it works as a children's book image.

Here's the tight line art.

I'll be painting it with watercolors and possibly colored pencil and gouache.

I have also worked up two other images for possible inclusion to my portfolio.
The first is a bit of a fantasy piece.

As you can see, it's not over the top Fantasy. Ogres and Knights and stuff.
I wanted a normal scene with fantastic elements.
I usually make everything up from my head/memory, but this time I went to google and found images of what I wanted to draw and used them to help me be a bit more realistic/accurate.
Here are some of the images I used for reference.

This will be painted in watercolors also.

The second image was drawn because I went through a short jag of drawing rats in my sketchbook.

In this page of my sketchbook you can see that the rats started out as simple shapes where I was exploring how to draw them in as many poses as possible.

In this page you see that I started to make them more complicated.

If you take a look at the top right corner you'll see where the rat for the following image came from.

I was drawing this page of rats while watching a show about the bombing of Pearl Harbor, which explains the wings on his back.
This one will also be painted with watercolors and possibly colored pencil.
I'm thinking the background stripes will be red and white and the rat will be done in blue/grey.

Line up for Lincoln

2009-07-13T08:13:00.001-07:00

For the last several days I have been working on new art for my portfolio.
I'm gearing up for a new push to make a presence in the children's illustration market and to put a foot into the editorial and advertising markets.

As a part of that I have been working on images of famous people. Starting with Historical personalities.
The previous post showed the finished art for Washington.
This post is to show the line art for the Lincoln rough.

After doing the line art for Lincoln, I decided that he needed a background element. I decided to do an outline of the state of Illinois. The Land of Lincoln.

Today I will be starting to paint him up with watercolor and pencil. I haven't decided yet how I will paint him since all of my reference is black and white. I'm leaning towards a sepia tone approach, so we'll see what happens.

Edit:

I painted Lincoln today.

Watercolor and brown and black colored pencil.

George Washington slept here.

2009-07-08T11:10:00.000-07:00

((I posted this to IF because it has a "shaky" connection to history.))

Yesterday I started the color work on the George Washington drawing posted a couple of days ago.
This afternoon I finished him up.

The reason the background is washy and incomplete is that I intended for it to be cropped out to have a white background.
Like this.

The overall coloring is in green because he's standing behind the frame of the dollar bill.

Busy Work

2009-07-08T08:58:00.000-07:00

This morning I am going through my stash of saved art. The actual hand drawn art from the '80's to today.
It's time to purge the old art so I can have the space and move on.
I am scanning anything that I might want for future use - reference, website,client samples- and throwing almost everything out.
It's going to take awhile.

Famous and Famouser

2009-07-06T08:45:00.000-07:00

I'm in the process of working up ideas for new portfolio samples and I drew these up as a deviation from my usual children's book art.

I've mentally pigeon-holed myself into doing only "children's book" style art in the past few years and I would really like to expand into some editorial/magazine/newspaper type work. So I'll be developing these and others for a separate portfolio.
I figure I'll do famous people. Historic and modern day. Politicians,musicians, actors,...

Flat Stanley colored

2009-06-30T14:12:00.000-07:00

Well, after a trip to Virginia, and finishing up some client work, I was able to add color to the flat stanley drawing.

It was painted with watercolors on illustration board, and then colored pencil was added for shading.
Below is a close up to show the use of the colored pencil better.

Flat Stanley

2009-06-17T08:34:00.000-07:00

This weeks IF word is unfold.
I submitted the art from the previous post, the map guy, because he was unfolding his map to see where he was going.
I was able to post it early in the week so I still had time to think about the word of the week.
I was in the book store a few days back and I saw that the character "Flat Stanley" was in some new books.
He had a new look, so I started thinking that I could do my take on the character for the word unfold.
I figured he could fold up and mail himself to different places and unfold when the letter was opened.

I'm going to work this up in color soon.

Camping Fishing Guy

2009-06-15T11:28:00.000-07:00

I spent part of the weekend painting and finishing off this guy.
He's painted on watercolor board using a mix of watercolor, gouache, and colored pencil.

I intend to mock up a booklet cover using him.
Once that's figured out I'll scan a real map to fill in the blank area of his map and the map of the hampster on his back pack.
I have to say that this is the way I want to work for book/magazine jobs.
I'm going to have to work up more samples for a new portfolio.

Memories

2009-06-11T13:27:00.000-07:00

Back in High School some friends and I were in Mrs. Bluhm's Art Appreciation/History together.
At times the class consisted of looking at one slide after another after another. That got pretty boring.
So we would draw little pictures and pass them around to amuse each other.
On one of those days the slides were of one Cathedral after another and we got bored fast.
So we started doodling.
Mrs. Bluhm was pointing out some details on one of the buildings and a particular one caught our interest and became the subject of our doodles.
I was reminiscing the other day and drew this in my sketchbook.
May I present to you.....the Flying Buttress.

Back in the High School days it was just a butt with wings.
Today it's a balloon full of hot gas.

It's painted in my sketchbook using watercolor for the blue background, and acrylic and colored pencil for the rest.

Self Employed?

2009-06-09T12:59:00.000-07:00

Well, it's time to admit to myself that freelancing isn't going to be the best way for me to earn a living in the near future.
The economy has either made my clients disappear, cut back, or go overseas for cheaper art.
I still have a handful of clients that want me to work for them, but the income from these client just won't keep me afloat.
So I am looking for a full time Creative position somewhere in the U.S.
Relocation is not a problem.
Below is my resume.
Please feel free to click on it, and drag and drop the file to your desktop to pass it on to anyone who may be interested.

I'm not giving up on freelancing. I've just come to realize lately that I'm really missing the interaction of the team experience.
I've been sitting in my studio alone for too long, and I've kind of lost my way as an artist.
I need to get re-energized by working with others to achieve a goal.

Speaking of goals, I do have 1 self motivated project that is is the concept stages.
See, I like to fish and camp, casually, not professionally. So I'm thinking of doing a pamphlet or small magazine/booklet on fishing and camping in Northern Indiana.
Here's the rough art for the cover, minus type.

I'm thinking of calling it...The Casual Campers guide to NW Indiana.

IF - Hierarchy

2009-05-06T15:03:00.000-07:00

This weeks word is Hierarchy.
If you do an image search on Google all you get are a bunch of pyramid graphs show how one thing is more important than another. So that didn't help me come up with any ideas.
So I went with the basic idea of who is more important and where they stand in the rankings.
I had started out with a group of birds in a tree, but decided that I wanted to do other animals and bugs, so I move the setting to a swampy area full of long grass and cattails. The basic idea was that each critter was looking at the others trying to figure out who was "higher."
Looking at the image you see that the little bug is the highest so he must be at the top of the Hierachy.

Ink, water color and colored pencil in my sketchbook

But if you continue to look at the image you'll see that one of the other creatures is actually more important. Let me know if out figure out who it is.

Just for fun you'll also see a movie reference in the image. let me know if you find it.

I colored this image while substituting for an 6th grade art teacher, not as fun as you might think, using her colored pencils.
They were made by Reeves. I didn't really like the way they went onto the paper. I prefer my Berol Prisma colors.
I wouldn't recommend the Reeves to anyone.
When I have the time I will rework this image a bit and paint it properly on water color paper with watercolors & ink, and possibly some colored pencil.

After drawing this one up I did come up with an idea for an image that mangled the word Hierarchy. Which is what I usually do to the word of the week.
I haven't drawn it, and I probably won't. Even if I did I couldn't post it here as I intend to keep this blog kid friendly.
I will tell you what the idea was.

Jughead, Betty, and Moose are all walking through the hall way at Riverdale High. They are walking past the girls locker room when they hear Veronica's voice saying,"Higher Archie...Higher Archie."

IF- Impossible

2009-04-23T12:02:00.000-07:00

This weeks word is Impossible.
My word play method wasn't getting me anywhere this week so I just started thinking of impossible things.
I didn't like anything I came up with so I took a break and went to the Library to get some books/magazines to flip through at home.
We're making a frog pond in our back yard so I picked up a copy of "Birds and Blooms" because we need to put some plants around the pond to make the future residents feel safe at the pond.
In the magazine was a series of photographs showing a caterpillar making a chrysallis and turning into a butterfly.
I have always wondered what went on inside that thing, so I started thinking of impossible things that could happen,
and so I drew the image below in my sketchbook and painted it up in watercolor and colored pencil as a color study.

The truly impossible part of the image is that he actually made that shot. That's a curve ball if I ever saw one.

Below are a couple of details from the image.

I like the way the fly came out. I went through several sketches to get the right feelling of a hard impact.

Who would have thought an innocent little chrysallis could be so violent. Must have a bit of venus fly trap in him.
I'm afraid to imagine the butterfly that will come out of it.

I have several ideas for little animated movies based on what could happen with a chrysallis now. I guess I'll have to dust off my old copy of Flash and see if I can make them.

Good news

2009-04-17T12:42:00.000-07:00

I just agreed to do some art for an interactive company.
They looked at my website and liked my digita art.
This is a new "area" for me. Art for the internet.
So I'm happy to get the chance to work on projects with the company and then have my kids be able to interact with my art.
I can't say anymore because I haven't signed any contracts yet, but I had to tell someone.

A tree fell in the woods

2009-04-13T21:29:00.000-07:00

My thoughts are on spring and all of the things that go with it.
Warmth, green growing things, and fantastic creatures.
These creatures are feeling the pull of nature.

Watercolor, ink, and colored pencil on watercolor paper.

IF- Fleeting

2009-04-10T10:45:00.001-07:00

Two weeks ago the word for IF was - Poise.
By definition it's a unit of measurement of viscuous liquids.
You try to illustrate that.
I was tempted to do a drawing of Bob from "Monsters v Aliens" sitting on a scale.
But I decided not to, too simple.
So I went with my usual method of sounding out the word in as many different ways as I could to come up with an idea.
I came up with more than one mispronunciation that I liked so I picked the one's I liked most and worked them into one idea.

Last weeks word for IF was - Talisman.

Again I have always liked to play with words and throw the wrong word, or a word that sounds similar, into a sentence and see what happens.
So when I rolled Talisman around in my head the song "Day O" got kicked out of one of the wrinkles in my cerebellum and I started singing, in my head, " Come Mr. Tali-sman, tali me banana."
I liked it. It was funny to me.
The image itself is not really funny. It's more of a dry humor approach.

This weeks work is - Fleeting.
Which is perfect since I couldn't get the last two weeks drawings done in time.
So for me time is "Fleeting" for me, but I still get a chance to post the drawings I have made.
Let's sing...
"Time keeps on fleeting, fleeting, fleeting into the future.
Time keeps on fleeting, fleeting, fleeting into the future...."

I can't wait to see next weeks word. Can you?

Mamma Mia's Pizzeria

2009-04-08T12:44:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I have posted anything.
That's mostly because freelancing has been slow and also because I can't really show the projects that I have been working on.
I can say that since my last post I have illustrated a 7 page story, finished 2 maps and started another, designed and created the art for some Halloween and Christmas window clings, finished the painting below, and started one of some gnomes in the woods.

Mamma Mia's Pizzeria by Robert Snyder watercolor, ink, and colored pencil on watercolor paper

This was supposed to be part of mailer campaign in February but I couldn't get it done in time.
I will probably use it this month. I need to sit on it for a few days and relook at it.