Studio309 West

Studio309 West is up and running. It's my new painting studio with gallery space where I can display and sell my original paintings, limited edition prints, cards and other artsy stuff.

If you visit, use the side entrance, right there next to the big banner that says "ART Studio and Gallery". I'm upstairs in the loft, as I should be. The spaces below are available for rent. I'm really hoping someone will open a coffee shop right below me. The area really needs a cozy coffee shop. Especially one I can walk to, which would be easy if it was just one flight of stairs below me.

Studío 309 is located at 1987 Rt. 31, in Lakeport (Chittenango on your GPS), on the south shore of Oneida Lake. Twenty-five minutes from Syracuse.

GPS Coords: 43.14541, -75.86543

Hours: Thursday and Friday, 10am - 4pm
or by appointment

www.studio309.com

It's a Special Award!

So, I get this email today, and it explains that I've been selected by my associates and colleagues, (and an internal committee, and some online stuff) to receive a special award, chosen just for STUDIO 309,

Earlier this year, I sent a notification email to you recognizing that Studio 309 has been selected for the 2012 Best of Liverpool Awards in the Graphic Design Services category by the Liverpool Award Program committee.  Our selection of your company is a reflection of the hard work of not only yourself, but of many people that have supported your business and contributed to the subsequent success of your organization. Congratulations on joining such an elite group of small businesses. In recognition of your achievement, blah, blah, blah . . . http://liverpool.award-program-2012a.net/

Ooh! A prize!
Of course, whenever I see "You've been chosen..." I fire up Google and start tracing the scam back to its roots. This is, in fact . . . a SCAM. A ruse. A gambit.
The "award-program" website was launched back in July and has since been selling bogus awards to unsuspecting "winners". Now, if you just want a prize with your name on it (likely misspelled), this is one way to get one.
The "fill-in-the-blank.award-program-2012a.net" people don't know me or my company from Adam Ant, but they sure wanna sell me a prize! Maybe there's a 2-for-1 deal.
Now, if it was a Leg Lamp, I'd be all in! That's a special award!!

I'm all over E

My illustration is on the cover of E Magazine this month. My work is also on the inside, with a spot for E Word and 2 large infographics for the feature article about the Changing Ocean Chemistry.

I've been working with E for 15 years. 

Homage to Johnny Hart

Visit E Magazine's site

It's All About Me

I am tickled, and honored.
I've been doing illustrations for the Adirondack Explorer for over 14 years. And now, my friends at the Explorer have just released an anthology of some of those illustrations in a lovely 50 page book titled "A Jerry Russell Retrospective". Each page includes an illustration and a brief synopsis of the article that it accompanied in the original issue. (sample pages below)

You can get your own FREE copy when you subscribe to the Explorer.
http://www.adirondackexplorer.org/index.php

Space Cadet Illustration, Step-by-step

Space Cadet: by Robert Heinlein. 

This is another cover painting for a Full Cast Audio package.

This is the finished cover art.

Concept sketch & Comp.

This is the rough concept; the initial sketch, and the comp (comprehensive) that I presented to the client. They liked the concept, so I started exploring composition & lighting.

 I built a helmet and a rough hatch, and posed a model in 3D software so I could explore the composition, lighting, and camera angles. The helmet gave me good reference for reflections, and shadows on the face.

Here's another angle, which I kind of liked. We decided we wanted the boy facing more toward the viewer.

Here's the final pencil sketch which I scanned and placed on a colored background in Photoshop. The colored background shows through in places in the final art, and helps tie everything together. I drew the space suit based on several reference photos I have on hand, plus the helmet I built in Strata 3D. The story refers to the helmet as a "fish bowl".

Beginning the painting with the face, which went through several updates throughout the painting process. I decided I didn't like the "accordion" neck of the space suit, so I painted over it with fabric.

A closeup of the panting further along. I used a Wacom graphics tablet and Photoshop CS5. Most of the panting was done with one brush, a pastel-like brush that gives some texture to the brush strokes.

The final, un-cropped painting.

[click on an image to view larger]

Giant Hogweed

Another one for the Adirondack Explorer. Giant hogweed is a very large (some over 20 feet tall), noxious cousin of Queen Anne's Lace.

Sea Shepherd

This was for the JAN/FEB issue of E Magazine. The article is about the Sea Shepherd (as seen on Animal Planet's Whale Wars), a group who uses some extreme measures to fight against illegal whaling. The wave in the image is based on a well known Japanese watercolor. The Sea Shepherd regularly goes up against Japanese whaling ships which are in violation of international whaling laws established to protect threatened or endangered species and prevent overfishing.

1. Sketch  2. Final art

This is the concept sketch I sent to the client. Normally, rough concepts are -- rough, but I was pretty confident that the idea would fly,  so I went to a tighter sketch that I could use as a guide for the final art.

Painted in Photoshop

Freshwater Sponges

Who knew? Evidently, freshwater sponges live in cold streams in the Adirondacks. Here's an illustration I did for the upcoming issue of Adirondack Explorer about the subject. The colors are very saturated and brighter than they appear in print. This is intentional so that on newsprint, the colors don't look too dull.
1. Sketch 2. Line art  3. Final art.

Concept sketch

Line art

Final art. Line art is scanned and color is added in Photoshop.