Ball point pen on newsprint Today I had two photo shoots for book covers I'm working on. That means a commute into the city. I think New Jersey Transit coaches might have the worst suspensions of any moving vehicles still in operation. Besides making it challenging to read a newspaper, it makes it very difficult to draw a picture...but not impossible. I did this doodle on the train. You have to abandon all hope of placing the pen down and moving it exactly where you'd like, in short, forget about line and think like a painter scribbling in mass and form. After my shootings I stuck around and went to see James Gurney Lecture at the Society of Illustrators. This is the second time I saw him lecture at the society. He is a perfect cocktail of talent, intellect, imagination and dedication,...and I'm not just saying that because he was gracious enough to sign my book and add a doodle of hi ...
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Ball point pen on the morning newsprint After I graduated from Parsons I started to get book cover work from Simon and Schuster. I loved going there to drop off work. Before the digital age, art departments were filled with racks and racks of original art by all of my heros in the business. But while I loved looking at the work, I also realized I needed to step up my game if I wanted to stick around in this field. So, even though I was keeping busy with commissions during the day, I started lugging my french easel up to the Art Students League at night. Forty years earlier, before he got his break in films, Charlton Heston was an artists model at the League. I'm no fan of the NRA, but you could see why the camera loved him. He had great chiseled features and I would've liked to have been around forty years earlier to paint him. ...
Read MoreSunday Morning I was pleased to learn this week that I had a piece accepted to this years Communication Arts Illustration Competition. detail Julie Borg is a wonderful designer that I've been working with for a few years. I enjoy hearing from her because I get to paint in a loose style. This piece was done for a series of CD covers, Sunday Morning Music Series. The songs are inspirational, so I was trying to capture a Sunday morning ritual with an inspirational light. For those of you who know me, you may recognize my dining room. I set up this still life at sunrise to capture the low light sweeping across the table. detail ...
Read MoreBall point pen on envelpoe. While it's liberating to draw on trash, (see above) occasionally there's a drawing I wish I had saved. About two months ago I saw an article in the paper about a little known (at least to me) Albany bureaucrat. The article (as I recall) revolved around a wrongful firing suit against said bureaucrat. The plaintiff claimed that he was fired on the basis of race, he was white, the defendant black. The defense was that said bureaucrat is blind and had no idea the plaintiff was white. Sort of interesting...but not so much that I remembered his name. He did have an interesting face. So, I drew him in the news paper and summarily through it in the recycling bin at the end of the day....A few weeks later, then Governor of New York, Eliot Spitzer is caught in a prostitution/money laundering scandal. He has to step down and a little known bureaucrat, David Paterson, r ...
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