Giving Thanks

Over the years I've had some holiday themed assignments so here are a couple of them in time for the upcoming season.

Rockwellian

In the early days of my illustration career I was contracted to create a number of paintings for magazine articles with a "Norman Rockwell" feeling.  Rockwell was not the only artist working in this realistic style at the time and The Saturday Evening Post featured many illustrations by these artists, all of which had this feeling to them.  Of course, a young illustrator doesn't turn down work and I'm a big Rockwell fan anyway so this came naturally to me.  Here was my "Rockwellian" take on these commissions...

I returned from my vacation and thought I'd share some of the watercolor sketches I did while I was away from the drawing board in my studio.  Here are some interesting sites from the Bahamas...a church  on the beach, a conch salesman and a carving on the ship among others.  So I never really stop drawing or painting.

Studio Art

For a few years I worked as a freelance studio artist creating paintings for corporate, residential and hospitality accounts.  I worked alongside talented artists, learned alot and got to flex my painting muscles again on a large scale.  These are some examples of the work I created for a variety of clients including DisneyWorld, McDonald's and HIP Insurance as well as interior decorating firms, cruise ships and a casino.

Beacon Paint-Out

This is the first time our art center held a plein air paint out and auction in Beacon, NY.  I created a painting of an interesting house I'd been noticing for some time.  While I was taking some photos for lighting reference, the owner of the house came out and we talked.  He told me of the structure's history, it's the third oldest house in Beacon, and of his family's connection to the house.  All of the information only made me want to paint it more and the result was just what I wanted.  He attended the auction and was the winning bidder for the work.  I'm glad that he and his wife will enjoy the painting as much as I enjoyed painting it.

iPad Sketching

So, here are a couple of quick sketches I created on the iPad using "Adobe Ideas" from the app store and a "Pogo" sketch stylus.  As you can see it's very similar to using markers to sketch with.  I've played around with the transparency and layers to suit my needs  I'm posting these because so many people have questions about what the art looks like on the iPad and these examples are at a very simple level.  I'll continue to explore and post new digital sketches as time permits.  meanwhile I'm back to working on illustration deadlines and preparing for some plein air painting.

Empire State Book Festival

The First Empire State Book Festival seemed to be a success.  The panel I was on, "Childrens' Books In The Digital Age" was well attended and we gave the audience alot of insight into our processes and technology.  There were a variety of programs to attend and probably not enough time for attendees to do it all.  We did a book signing at the end of the day but that should have been immediately following our panel.  All in all I'd say it was a good experience being part of the first time event.  I got to see someone I'd worked with many years ago and my fellow panelists were great.  It was my honor to be included with them.

I've been busy working on a number of  illustration assignments and visiting schools as well.  My own book dummies have been put on the back burner once again in order to meet deadlines for other jobs.  I'm creating black and white line drawings for two coloring books for Dover Publications.  These are not "cute" drawings to color but rather well researched illustrations for the subject matter.  History of the Civil Rights Movement in America and American Tall Tales and Legends are the books for which I've also written the text.  I recently completed The History of The White House for Dover as well and will be starting on The Bill of Rights soon. These books are really interesting in their own right and will be a great lead-in for young people to learn about important and interesting topics.  Okay..how many people knew that the White House was completely gutted during the Truman presidency in order to make structural support repairs so the current interior is fairly new. Interesting stuff!