Wild Thing

This is the Max costume I made for Andrew when he was a seedling. He wore it to bed. A lot. I still have it around here somewhere. I think. I made several costumes for him when he was a tyke, including a full Renaissance costume for Fairy Tale Theater.

Digital Paint

Audiobook cover for Rubber Houses.


Audiobook cover for Red Planet.


Syracuse Opera Poster for Faust.

Digital Paintings using Photoshop CS2/CS3 and Wacom Intuos II graphics tablet. Sketches for these were all done traditionally--pencil on paper. Color comps and final art were done digitally (Photoshop). A "comp" (short for comprehensive) is a rough study of what the final art will look like in place, with text and other design elements. It gives the client a good idea of composition, color, type placement & design, etc.
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All about Pixels (well, some stuff about them)

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Marvel Milk

A series of illustrations I did for te Dairy Council for a video about keeping milk on the school menu. Two versions of the video are below.



Video 1
Video 2

Study of Hamlin Marsh

Study of Hamlin Marsh
Oil on canvas panel • 8 x 10

Quick oil study of Hamlin Marsh in Liverpool. Haven't done much plein air painting, and found out when I opened my paintbox, I didn't have any yellow. None. I mixed a "sort of" yellow on site using raw umber and white and filled in the blanks when I got back to my studio. It was very windy, (storm approaching) and the canvas blew off the easel a couple times. I added tape, a small bungy cord and a couple clips to my paintbox.

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Work in progress . . . Audiobook Cover

Thought I'd post some sketches and working images of this illustration-in-progress. Initial ideas were sent to the client via text message attachment. I was at Barnes & Noble sipping coffee and working on ideas. I used my cell phone to snap a few photos of sketches and sent them to the client. He called me back and we discussed the sketches and agreed on a concept. The story is narrated by the sister of a boy who dies of cancer. Baseball plays a central role in the story, and the glove is an important linking element.

This is the concept we agreed on.

This is the cover comp. It's a rough idea of how the concept will look in color, in place with the title & text. This is also where I begin to work out the composition, lighting, etc.

This is the final sketch of the concept. I scanned this and brought it into Photoshop for painting.

I colored the background and began blocking in the window and curtain, working my way to the rest of the background and then the figure.

More work on the background and window.
Reworked the face and decided to add some filtered shadows in the lighting.

Here's a detail of the face. I think this part's done.

A little more work on the face to warm up some of the skin tones. Worked on her left hand & arm ... still awkward, needs more work. The glove is finished, except for final once over when everything else is done. Added more contrast between the figure and background.

Finished! Several projects in between the last entry and today. Here's the final illustration and the cover with the artwork in place. I painted a lot that wouldn't be seen in the final crop to allow me some flexibility when it came to positioning the image on the package cover. 

This was painted in Photoshop CS3.

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RECENT ARTWORK

Recent illustrations, paintings.
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