A somber Friday

Hello eveyone,

Well another Friday has arrived here in Maine. A much colder Friday than the previous few but I guess we were due for a break in the warm weather. Wait, it is March. We aren't suppose to have warm weather just yet!!! What the hell!!!

I am not going to post any new or old pieces today. Just not in the mood. Went to a show last evening with some friends in Unity to see a couple of Cape Breton fiddle players. Great show by the way. On the way home, I hit a dog. Needless to say it did not survive. We tried to find the owners (do you really own another living thing?) but no one in the area had a dog that matched him or her. It really just breaks your heart when an innocent life is taken. Hell, any life really. But there could not be "life" without "death". Things like this makes you stop the merry go-round that one is on for a brief moment to be thankful.

Anyway, I will be in a much happier state next week.

Keep drawing!

Russ

Collages

Sorry for the delay in updating my blog. The weather was really nice so I needed to get out of the house. My wife and I took Tessa with us to see "Alice In Wonderland" and dinner afterwards. It was a lovely evening and the movie was GREAT! Visually stunning with a solid story line.
I did several editorial collages for a magazine many years ago. Not my usual style but it is nice to do something completely different and out of your comfort zone. The topics were mostly for the central Pennsylvania area except for the national election between Kerry and Bush. The client provided a manuscript and some general thoughts but I was given free reigns to do what I wanted which is a rarity. A sketch was sent for approval or revisions. If my memory serves me well, there were no changes from the sketches, another rarity. I collected the components from magazines, books, etc with the celebrity head shots sent to me for use. They were scanned in and assembled in Photoshop. Getting every thing collected and scanned in was the most time consuming part of the process.
The final pieces have a Janet Woolley look to them. She is a master of editorial collages.

Until next week, keep on drawing!

What is old is new again

I thought that I would go back through my samples and dig up some old pieces to post. I guess you could call it a "Greatest Hits" posting while I work on new pieces. Hell, if musicians can do it, why can't I?

This first one is a piece I did many years ago for a possible t-shirt design. The shirt was never printed but I always liked the icon. I have a version with a graphic behind him but I thought it was distracting.
The elephant was another t-shirt design that was actually produced for a kid's conference. The client handed out the shirts to the kids and said it was a big hit. I really like the graphic style of the image. Maybe I should go back to my heavy outlines for a few newer pieces.

The dragon was a project for an ice cream company in Pennsylvania. They were looking for something different so I thought why not have a dragon eating ice cream to cool his/her parched throat. Needless to say they thought it was a bit too different. I still got a decent illustration from it.

This image of the standup bassist was something I did for myself. My wonderful wife bought me a standup bass for my birthday so I was inspired to do this piece. I was listening to a lot of Mingus at the time which may have been an influence as well.

I like robots, especially old ones from the 40's and 50's. This robot was a demo piece I did for my Adobe Illustrator students. I projected the illustration on a screen while I worked on so they could see how I worked in the software. People always seem to like this piece a lot.

Well that is it for this week. We are to have some warm weather this weekend here in Maine so I guess it is time to start working on the outside of the house. Have a great week and until next time, keep drawing!

Fighting the Flu

I am often ask if I only work digitally. For the past 10 years, the answer is yes. But before I went all digital, I liked working in gouache and Dr. Martins Dyes with color pencil over top of the paint. This piece I did was for Central PA Magazine used that technique. It was for an article on steps to fighting the flu. The art director gave me all kinds of artistic freedoms with it (an extremely rare occurrence). The magazine liked it so much that it was used as a full page illustration which equals a larger pay check. I had this piece hanging in my studio in Lancaster for the longest time but gave it to a close friend who really liked it. Hopefully it is hanging somewhere in his house instead of lining a bird cage. LOL!

I would like to do a couple of traditional pieces just to see if I can still do them. Using not one thing that is digital. Just paper, pencil, watercolor paper, dyes and gouache. I love the creaminess of the gouache. When you add some Dr. Martins to the paint, the color just jumps at you. I think I was one of the few in art school who enjoyed gouache. Most of my illustrator and designer friends think I am nuts. Hard to argue with that.

My jaunt into learning Painter has been on the back burner due to projects. I really want to get a handle on that program and try to develop a second style. Hell, maybe I should just go back to using the traditional tools. I do miss it. I still draw with pencil and paper even though I tried sketching digitally. It was cool and fun but I like the feeling of a pencil in my hand and the graphite on my fingers.

Anyway, enough rambling this week. Have a good weekend and keep drawing!

Russ