Happy Valentine's Day!

Hope everyone takes time today to show those around you how much you love them. Reach out with a kind word, a hug, flowers, a card, a phone call or whatever seems appropriate. It's the people around us that make life worth living. I did this piece a few years back for an advertising firm I have done a fair amount of work with called Love Communications.  They still use it on their website (hit refresh once or twice if it doesn't right up on the masthead). There is also a six foot tall version of it smack in their lobby right behind the receptionist desk.

Forget The Sweater

On the Monkey Bars- 11" x 17" digital

Weather here has been downright balmy this week with temps in the high 40's (Fahrenheit). A welcome change from the single digits of a week ago. I actually wandered around outside today in just a t-shirt. I just finished this illustration for The Friend magazine done in Photoshop. It is a wraparound cover with a twist. The issue is a special double sided edition. the front half of the magazine will be the regular set of stories and articles but flip it over (like a double sided comic book) and the back half will be full of puzzles and games. It was fun to make the back half echo the front but with slightly different characters. The white bar along the far side is to allow for the bar code and address (non-negotiable unfortunately). I asked Brad Teare the designer to email me back a mock up of my picture with all the masthead and bubbles pasted in. I then inserted it into the illustration to get the "endless magazine" effect, which was sort of fun to do.

Overlapping Forms to Create Depth

Poster for New Mexico Museum of Natural History

by Greg Newbold - acrylic on board

From Creative Illustration by Andrew Loomis

Continuing  a bit further with my Look at Andrew Loomis' Creative Illustration. I pulled a page that discussed the importance of overlapping form and contour in the arrangement of objects in the picture plane. Loomis insists and I agree that almost any subject can make a compelling picture if the forms are arranged in a visually pleasing way. I was looking back though my work to find a piece that strongly illustrates this principle and I found this piece I did for the Natural history museum in Albuquerque, New Mexico. They held an exhibit of artifacts discovered by William Flinders Petrie, considered by many to be one of the fathers of modern archaeology. The character of Indiana Jones was based partially on his persona, including the fedora. I used a lot of overlapping objects in the composition both to add depth as well as compress the picture space enough to allow numerous objects to be shown within the frame.

Loomis PDF

Picture Book Marathon Update

Cuttlefish For Rent- picture book concept

Last week I mentioned that I was going to join in on the Picture Book Marathon and write 26 picture book manuscripts by the end of the month.. We are now a week in and I am still pretty much on pace with six stories under the belt and several ideas to work on next.. I took it to heart that we artists were to WRITE the stories, so I have been concentrating on that and have not come up with any visuals for my stories before today (I do have other work to get done you know). I took a little time today to do a cover mock up for one of my favorites from the week called Cuttlefish For Rent. I have always thought cuttlefish were fascinating creatures and sort of cute as well. The hero of my story -Chuck- loses his job as the "open" sign at a local restaurant and decides to rent out his services until he finds a job he likes. In the end, he saves the day with his camouflage and other skills. Some of the other artists in the race are posting their covers as well. Check out the great work being done by Jed Henry, Nathan Hale, and Julie Olson.

Eye Path Reverse Analysis

Autumn Rhapsody- Acrylic; 12" x 19"

Discussion in my class recently have revolved around composition and one of the things that came up was the importance of creating an eye path in your work. A composition should take the viewer on a visual journey through the piece. There should be logical points of emphasis and uncomfortable pauses, starts, stops and "eye traps" should be avoided. I frequently seem to fall back on my old favorite Creative Illustration by Andrew Loomis to explain these concepts.

From Creative illustration by Andrew Loomis- click to enlarge

This page in the book discusses the importance of a comfortable eye path, which if done correctly will effortlessly guide your viewer through the piece, prompting them to linger where you want and then continue on and enjoy secondary points of interest along the way.

I thought it would be interesting to do this same sort of analysis on one of my own pieces. Sort of a "reverse engineering" of my composition. In hind sight it was interesting to discover that in this piece from The Touch of the Master's Hand picture book I indeed followed the important guidelines laid out by Loomis. One such essential tool is to have elements that stop the eye from going out of the picture plane, or if something does lead you off, make sure there is another place where logical re-entry occurs. Of course there are other elements to creating a successful visual journey such as hierarchy of values among others, but understanding that as an artist you have complete control of the visual journey your viewer takes is a great first step toward powerful composition.

Creative Illustration PDF at Alex Hays' website

Wyeth Demo

Today I took about an hour of class and did a really quick and dirty demo of Andrew Wyeth. I always get a little nervous doing this. Sort of like a magician on stage worrying that his trick won't work and he will be uncovered as a fraud. It did not go exactly like I wanted and is far from finished, but I thought I'd bring it into Photoshop and put in a few tweaks. I intend to finish it a bit more with paint, but here it is for now. Ron Spears , a great artist and friend of mine has been painting some really great historical costume models lately. In today's post, he bravely shows what happens when you bonk and have to start over in front of a group of fellow professionals. I love that he was able to pick it back up and come up with something nice in about the same time I did my little demo (and his is 16" x 20" not 5" x 9" like mine!).Go take a look at his inspiring work.

Persistence

Dandelion- Detail; acrylic on board

I am often asked what it takes to make it in this competitive world of art. Though there are many things, including luck, that factor into the potential for success, I would argue that the single most important contributor to an artist's success, is persistence. A plain old dogged stick-to-it attitude will take you places that God given talent will not. I have seen many naturally gifted artists wither and disappear because they did not possess the passion or the drive to plow their way to profitability in the art world. For whatever reason, the hard road seemed too rocky, or their psyche too fragile to make a go of it. I have also seen other less talented artists succeed through sheer force of will and make a career for themselves (or like some of us, through utter lack of any other viable skill). The common denominator for success has always been and will always be how hard you are willing to work to achieve your dreams.Like the dandelion that forces its way through seemingly the smallest of cracks to bloom improbably amid an expanse of concrete, the successful artist sticks to it and does it anyway.