Busy busy busy

Wow, another unintentionally long hiatus from posting. Until recently, it has been chaos in the studio working as fast as I could on all kinds of fun, interesting projects. Now, it's quiet again and I'll have a few days before the panic sets in that I don't have any work. "Gee, that looks like a good dumpster to live out of."

Four months ago I was approached by Eat n Park Hospitality Group to do some safety posters for in-house use. They sent me some samples of the style they were looking for and asked if I could do it. The pieces they sent were all 80s airbrush work and it took me a while to figure out how to pull them off in Photoshop. The fun twist is that they wanted the faces of their various VPs on the posters. It's a fun series to work on and I can't wait to start the next one. They are so popular amongst their people that VPs are vying for their own poster.

Another fun project I'm still working on is another book for Penguin Random House, Who Was Nikola Tesla. Who doesn't love Nikola Tesla?

This comic book project was insanely fun. A lot of it had to be drawn so as to be animated, which made for quite a chore keeping layers labeled. Can't wait to see the animations and printed comic.

This was an oil painting commission for Christmas. The client wanted a portrait of their deceased dog in a copy of Wyeth's Christine's World. Quite a challenge since Christine's World is a very large egg-tempera painting and this is an 11x14" oil on paper. Still, I'm very happy with the finished painting. And so is the client, which is what matters.

I somehow found time to squeeze in this full-page illustration for a gardening magazine. Some stuff is just too fun to pass up.

And, finally, I attended a WPaSCBWI event on picture books and spent the day listening to interesting lectures and doodling. It's what I do.

Whew, you know that old axiom that if you want something done give it to the busy person? Well, don't. Just kidding, my schedule is finally cleared up. So, got work?

Finished up 80 illustrations for a book about the Galapagos Islands for Penguin Random House. Now I can draw tortoises in my sleep!

Speaking of Penguin Random House, also just finished 80 sketches for a biography of Chuck Jones. Yes, now I can draw animators in my sleep.

Also had the opportunity to do a series of 9 illustrations for Cobblestone Magazine depicting important historical figures from Chicago. Since it's a kids magazine I always have to "youth-enize" the portraits.

A friend discovered this portrait I painted a few years ago. It's hanging in a doctor's office.

And I'm still hoping to find time to get back to this painting.

In the meantime, I've really been enjoying our weekly figure drawing sessions. It's nice to get away from the Wacom tablet and draw from real life.

Yikes, it's been a long time with no updates. Been kinda busy in the studio, Yay!  Here are some drawings from last night's figure session.

Made it to figure session last night for the first time in a year! Yikes, didn't know it had been that long. It took several pages of drawings to get back in the swing of things. A great group of talented artists and lively conversation.

Doing a little work in the studio this morning while listening to my shows on NPR. This is a sample done for a client. It could be a really fun project.

This out-of-order series shows the drawing I did for the Boys & Girls Club auction. I started by painting a piece of Strathmore with paynes grey acrylic washes before transferring my pencil rough. Then I did the rendering with black and white pencils and a blending stump. I'll try to get a better photo of the finished piece as this scan dropped out all the middle tones. The mask is part of the event logo and I punched it up with some white acrylic highlights.

"Her Love Was Never Free"
One work-in-progress shot and the finished piece. Pencils, black and white, on gessoed and painted Strathmore.

This is a conte pencil drawing I did over the weekend. It's on Strathmore that has been gessoed and painted with an acrylic wash.

Some pen and ink sketches from last night's figure group. I really like drawing with a fountain pen and this Namiki pen is awesome. I haven't used it for over 4 months but it fired right up and worked great. Unfortunately, it ran out of ink before I could finish my last drawing. Oh well.

I still love the look of these little warm-up drawings.

More Chinese white pencil on black paper drawings from last night's figure session.