Covered

About a month or so ago, while I had some down time, I decided to try my hand at doing an interpretation of an old comic book cover, inspired by a blog that I'd been reading for the past six months or so called "Covered" run by an illustrator/cartoonist named Robert Goodin (his website here). I picked out a rather obscure canadian title from the sixties called 'Ghost Rider' from the multitudes of samples available at the comics.org site, and the original version can be viewed here. This was my first attempt at something like this, and I probably could have pushed the envelope a little further, but it was a fun break from the routine, and I may try my hand at this again sometime in the future should the opportunity arise. You can click on the image above to see a larger more detailed version of the illustration.

Oils Continued

Continuing to do a lot of painting this month, finishing up some more xmas presents, and building up a catalog of paintings to choose from for a possible show later in 2011. The painting above is one of the latter ones.
Below is a portrait of a friend of ours that I'll be handing her in a few days for a christmas present. She's a bit of a gardening aficionado, and gave me a blank canvas (either last year or the year before, at which point I sketched her sitting in her living room, and promptly forgot about it for a long spell, that is, until I started up with this painting bug again)

I also finished up another xmas present, this one for my father who lives out in Phoenix.

The following two paintings were ones that I gave to my wife and son, and didn't get a chance to take a photo of before they got put under the tree.


Again, thanks to Terri for the photos.

Oils

For the holidays this year, I decided to break the oil paints out of mothballs (I haven't actually touched a brush to canvas since doing a gift for my sister-in-law's sibling in January of '09, almost two years ago), and do a series of paintings as xmas presents for my siblings, parents, nieces, nephews, wife and son.

I started out doing more 'traditional' images for my sibs and parents. Painting to 'please the audience' for the most part, and they ended up feeling more like a chore than anything else, and had a certain stiffness (most of these are pictured at the bottom of the posting). Then I started loosening up, and I had the most fun doing a series of small paintings for my young nieces and nephews (and my son), where I let myself go a little bit, subject wise, and these ended up inspiring me to continue painting in this fashion, and I may end up doing an extended series for a possible showing sometime later in the year. Most of these were quite small (5x7 for the most part)



The following pieces were the more 'traditional' paintings that ended up going to the more 'traditional minded' recipients. They tended to be a little larger in scale (anywhere from 10x16 to 16x20 in size). The sunset picture for a sister who lives in South Haven on the shores of Lake Michigan, the two fawns for my Mother who had a couple baby deer like this visiting the previous year at their Grand Haven home, and the 'wine and cheese' picture for my brother's restaurant.



I have a few more to post sometime over the next week or so, the pictures I did for my son and wife, father and a close family friend, and I may post more in the coming year as I dabble in this a bit more.
Thanks to my wife, Terri, for the photos, which, for the most part, came pretty close to capturing the true colors and details of these pieces, which was challenging to say the least, and much better than previous efforts.

I'll be adding some of these images to items at my Zazzle store over the next couple of weeks, in case anyone is interested in a print, postcard, etc.

Happy Holidays or More Economic Indicators

After a slow couple of months, it was nice to have a fairly busy Christmas rush. It is also a little encouraging to see the illustrations taking a guardedly optimistic tone with regards to the economy. Hopefully this bodes well for the coming new year. The illustration above (and the 'arrow' spots below) were a quick turnaround project for the Wall Street Journal this week.



I also had a quick turnaround assignment for Barrons this week (which ended up getting held until the following week, after all), pictured below, and below that was an illustration for the Miami Herald.


A fairly busy week, and in addition to the projects crossing my desk, I still found time to perform some music on Monday and Tuesday, and I've been finishing up a series of oil paintings which I'll be posting next week. It's been about 5 years since the last time I got out the paints. Happy Holidays everyone and best wishes for the coming new year.

Christmas Week

Christmas week started out nicely, with a couple of quick turnaround jobs, and by the end of the evening, I had 5 new jobs, most of which will be coming due by the end of the week. A little late to save the month, but it's a nice trend that I hope continues for the next year.

The one above was a fast one for the Wall Street Journal this afternoon, part of the 'aches & claims' column that I've been illustrating for them since the early part of the decade (at one time a weekly column, then bi-monthly), but which have slowed down to a trickle of assignments during the latter half of 2010. The other assignment will be coming due in the middle of the week, at which point I'll probably have a few new pieces to post.

Best Laid Plans

The illustration market continues to be unusually slow, and, against my better judgement, I accepted an assignment from a new contact this week that in normal circumstances I would have avoided due to the low budget (despite the quick turnaround), and a strange proviso that I would be paid "only if published" (should have been a tip-off right there). I followed their suggestion of illustration subject matter to the letter (with a rather tight sketch, pictured above), ahead of schedule, and they proceeded to drag their feet on the sketch approval for three days, at which point I was informed that they wanted to take the image in a completely different, and rather vague direction, and did I want to continue with the project (still with the same deadline, now even tighter). As much as I hated to do it, I decided to cut my losses and wait out this slow patch for better clients (and I know they are out there).

Marlo's Book

It was about a year ago that I was approached with the opportunity to contribute a caricature for this book of comedy reminiscences by Marlo Thomas. This afternoon the FedX truck dropped my complimentary copy on my doorstep, with a personalized note inside by Marlo herself. A nice little holiday surprise.

The book is of course available at Amazon as well as most Target stores, and looks like it might be pretty interesting reading.

About a month or so prior, my contact had sent me a promotional poster featuring the collection of celebrity caricatures, which was another nice bonus. (Mainly, it's a large scale reprint of the collection featured on the back cover) (FYI; mine was the portrait of Steven Wright) Back cover is pictured below:



At the top of the post is the caricature I did for the book, plus here are some rejected sketches of Joan Rivers that didn't get past the sketch phase: (sketch 1, sketch 2)

Xmas Animation

Been working on an animated version of the Freaks of Nurture masthead art for the holiday season (click on it to get the full size and effect):



Below is one of several 'blog illustrations' I've been providing for said site (this is for this week's entry, and below that, another of this week's guest column illustrations):



Other things in the works right now, some sketches for this year's 'witches' companion' interior illustrations, several oil paintings (which I'll unveil after Christmas), and I had an illustration accepted into the 'Covered' blog, which is scheduled for December 30th (at which point I'll also post it here).

Economic Indicators

A quick one for the Wall Street Journal this afternoon, probably for the weekend edition.

Odds n Ends

A couple of quick blog cartoons this week for the Freaks of Nurture site that I contribute to (above and right). I'll probably be re-using the illustration above as christmas cards at my Zazzle Storefront (the 'Krampus' cards I did a few weeks back seem to be popular sellers this year). Plus I also had an illustration this week on the 'WikiLeaks' story for the Chronicle of Higher Education (pictured below).

Caricatures

This past week, I've been finishing up a project for one of my publishing clients. This is a series of eight caricature portraits in scratchboard for a 'baseball quote' book. This was a mixture of celebrities, baseball players, and fictional movie characters (this has been a year for 'baseball projects', as I also had a large Babe Ruth comic book project earlier in the summer), and the project will, I assume, also feature several photo portraits as well. I had shared the 'sketch phase' of this project last week.

Sketch Gallery

Another blog illustration for the Freaks of Nurture website this week (pictured above).
I've also been working on a series of caricatures for an upcoming project for one of my book publishing clients. Since I rarely post the 'sketch phase' of my assignments, I thought I'd take the opportunity to post the roughs this week, and then I'll post the finished illustrations when I get them completed next week. (You can click on the smaller versions below to see a larger size)