Summerbelle Crate Sketch

I'm working on a new project with John Ball at BDG. This one will be for a fruit crate. It's always fun to work with John. This one went pretty smoothly. I rented a costume and took pictures of a few options. I created once version with a hat and one with the umbrella, which we eventually went with.

I think either would have worked, which is a testament to how well the photo shoot went. It also goes to show how much easier things progress when you have great reference material.

In the past, I have shortchanged the reference gathering process and almost without fail, there is some aspect of the final rendering that does not go as well as planned. Some of these obstacles can be overcome easily by drawing upon years of experience or other creative means. Other times I am forced to go back to the drawing board and either find better reference or shoot new reference to solve the problem. This one is going well so far. I will post the final art as soon as I finish.

The Mailman Brought Some Gold!

Yesterday, this nice little package came in the mail! even though as I mentioned in a previous post, that I long ago gave up coveting such award, I admit that it was fun to hold this little gem in my sweaty little hands. Thanks to Alyce Heath and the Society of Illustrators Los Angeles and the esteemed jurors that felt my work was worthy of such recognition. Thanks and I will try to not disappoint!

See my award winning work on the SILA site here
Or on Life Needs Art here

Beaver Lodge Cutaway Finished

I just finished up this one for an educational publisher. It's fun to dig into details on something like this and create a feeling of reality even though this view is impossible to see in nature. I enjoyed the challenge of making the submerged portion of the beaver abode look like it was underwater which I achieved by shifting colors and values to reflect the effects of the water. Once again this is rendered in Photoshop over a graphite drawing. Size is 16" x 11" at 400 dpi. This one will print in the student edition as well as an oversize teacher edition to be used in group reading. 

Cloud Tower

Cloud Tower- 10" x 11" - Oil on panel by Greg Newbold

This painting will be available at the 300 Plates fundraiser show hosted by Art Access Gallery coming up next Thursday, May 15, 2014. This is the 12th year for this event and my first time participating. The show consists of 300 identically sized 10" x 11" "plates" which are painted or decorated by artists and then hung together by the pair of holed drilled at the top edge. The dimensions stem from the inception of the show when the works of art were actually painted on aluminum printing plates. The holes are a carry over from the registration holes that were actually in the plates. This year's event consists of masonite panels since the type of plates used in previous years are no longer available. I actually painted mine a few weeks ago in order to be included in the publicity materials. My painting will also be included in the silent blind auction portion of the sale with minimum bids beginning at $400. The rest of the works will be hung sequentially and sold starting from $85 and increasing in one dollar increments.

Anyone wanting to bid on my piece can attend the event by registering here.

Beginning Monday May 12, you can email your bid to sheryl@accessart.org. Bidding starts at $400 and it is a true blind auction meaning your bid will go in the box along with all the others and nobody will know what the high bid is, so BID HIGH! This is a the yearly fundraiser for Art Access and most of the proceeds stay with the gallery to help fund their programs which help people with disabilities experience and participate in art. Please be generous.

Beaver Lodge Cutaway Sketch

Certain things pose particular challenges when trying to illustrate a concept, such as how to show an entire environment, including both the inside and outside, in a single image.  I say illustrate, because whenever this type of problem is posed, it usually is not something to be solved using photography. This conundrum is often best solved by doing a cutaway illustration. I am working on just such an illustration right now for an educational publisher.  As I gathered information to design my own version of the cutaway beaver dam, I was surprised how poorly rendered most of such existing illustrations were. I ended up relying on photography to inform me on what the beavers and their houses looked like  and then created my own version. I referred to elements from dozens of sources to come up with my drawing, which I hope not only solves the problem, but does so in an aesthetically pleasing way. I am pretty happy with how it is coming together. I will post the fully rendered color version when it is complete.

Dragon Mountain Redux

Last year I did illustrations for a Boys' Life fiction article called "The Secret of Dragon Mountain". It was a cliffhanger story (quite literally as you can see from the main scene below) that readers were invited to finish. Well, a winner was chosen and I was asked to do another illustration to correspond with the winning entry. In the scene, he looks at the photos from his recovered camera. Luckily, my model lives in the neighborhood and it has not been long enough for him to get to outgrow the role.

It will run in an upcoming issue along with the complete story and previous illustrations. Thanks to Kevin Hurley, current BL art director and Scott Feaster, previous AD who was fantastic to let me work with Boys' Life so much in the past. It's great to have wonderful clients.

See Dragon Mountain sketches here
And also here

Autumn Dusting in 90th Annual Spring Salon

Autumn Dusting (Mt. Olympus)- 36" x 60" Oil on canvas by Greg Newbold

I am proud to announce that my painting Autumn Dusting has been accepted into the 90th Annual Spring Salon at the Springville Museum of Art. I am always happy to be accepted an I was pleased to see many of my friends and several former students on the accepted list. The announcement of the award winners is yet to come, so my fingers are still crossed for that also. The show opens this Wednesday, April 23rd, 2014 and runs through July 6th.

Previous post about Autumn Dusting progress