Friday, 17 September 2010 at 11:51

Web Art

Anyhow...I was thankfully brought into a project, a web project, to create illustrations for each sub panel of the site. You see the main navigation panel and overall direction of the site were already approved before I got the call. The proposed direction was established from stock art. My job was to connect to the popular silhouette figure approach and create images illustrating each sub panel subject of this credit consulting site.
With some many website looking the same and using the same stock imagery, its a wonder more companies don’t commission original art for their sites. With more type rendered in html based searchable fonts what else separates the look and feel of sites today?
After developing the vector art based on the direction, I thought I could give each piece a bit or warmth and humanity bit scanning in articles of clothing that each had its own pattern and color. I also used the scanned background of a painting I did as the background of the digital art. Hopefully I took it all somewhere and gave it a bit of its own personality.

Friday, 17 September 2010 at 00:18

Competition

I just had to post this painting. Its that time of year. I painted this from 2 very disparate pieces of scrap (that's Illustrator talk for photo reference). The mental state is pretty obvious through facial expression. I thought the juxtaposition of the two portraits really illustrate the idea of getting into ones head.

Saturday, 11 September 2010 at 12:46

Always Remeber/Never forget

A few days after 911 I created the beginnings of this poster series that tried to capture the multitude of emotions felt that day and after. I tried to keep the formula simple — an eye showing emotion with its reflection providing an symbol of that emotional focus. These two pieces are the beginnings of that series that I have yet to revisit. Let me know if anyone out there has an emotion and a symbol to include.

Thursday, 02 September 2010 at 01:46

Olympics Poster Series

I got a great opportunity to create a series of posters for the Xerox Corporation. Every year they would spend allot of money sponsoring the Olympic games. I worked with a great team on this project. Leslie Van Auken was the art director and Roz Richards (formerly Bernhardt) ran print production on the pieces.

I got an opportunity to create a figure in an environment. In this case the concept of “Olympic Firsts” was the theme. The appropriate figure was place over the location of where the games where held that particular year. For instance the first winter Olympics were held in Chamonix France in 1924. The paintings were done in a sort of Renaissance sepia under painting approach. Though they look like they could be a loose wash of an oil painting, they are done with watercolor and gouache over an Arches 100lb watercolor paper/board coated with gum Arabic. I penciled tissues first to get the design balanced. I then transferred onto the watercolor surface.

I was taught this approach by a great professor at Kent State by the name of Doug Unger. Actually Doug now makes musical instruments; www.youtube.com/watch?v=gSbhYImgCGQ mostly banjos and his work can be purchased at Burnunzio’s Uptown music http://bernunzio.com/ here in Rochester. Doug could draw with a pencil more amazingly than anyone I have ever seen. He also taught me silverpoint drawing and how to prepare a ground for painting. He was demanding and amazing. Anyhow, this watercolor method was a bridge to oil painting for me.

The paintings and subsequent posters have a formal English watercolor feel to them. The limited color palette and sepia tone give them that renaissance feel.

Needless to say the posters will be available this Sunday and Monday at The Taste of Hudson Show in Hudson, Ohio this week. Stop by and say hello if you are around.