Saturday, May 4, 2013

Another semester, another string o' demos

So, let's start of with the weird ones.

Really, they'd be more aptly labeled the "economical" or "versatile" demos. 

This little feller, for instance, started life out as a still life demo, specifically a still life of a pear. He went on to find employment as a skin tone mixing demo, whereupon he found himself sitting in the midst of a cloud demo which soon developed into a landscape demo. You see? He's not that weird after all.

  

Up next is François the Impressionist Man Boy. He began life as a demo on the proportions of a child, but several months later reappeared to assist in a demo about skin tone mixing techniques and lighting on facial hair. I'd like to say that, like pear man above, he's marked more by versatility than sheer weirdness, but no, he's weird. Like, don't-make-eye-contact-with-him weird.


That's it for the oddities. We're now up to some academic nudes, rendered in pencil and white gouache on toned paper. Various sizes.



 Some one hour oil painting demos. These are all completed on either canvas or primed paper, between 11" x 14" and 13" x 19".





And these last two chaps are little one hour demonstrations of what we in illustration affectionately refer to as "the C. F. Payne technique," though it has been used pretty broadly by Mark English and others as well, and to remarkably different effect. 



Demo Guy is one of the world's more unsung supervillains, if such a phrase exists. His only known superpower is a seemingly limitless supply of patience, which is of surprisingly little use in the superhero arena. As a supervillain, though, he has essentially donated his body to the whims of other villains as they work out the kinks in their freeze rays, paralyzing gazes, or—in this case—updates in their makeup regimes.



Tuesday, February 12, 2013

Sydney Taylor Blog Tour

There's an interview with me over at Leora Wenger's blog, as part of the Sydney Taylor blog tour, wherein I get only moderately long-winded about illustrating Linda Glaser's Hannah's Way for Kar-Ben, as well as all sorts of art making stuff. You can reading just by clicking here.




2010-2011, various sizes.
gouache on paper, pencil and gouache on paper, gouache on paper

Monday, January 21, 2013

Sydney Taylor Book Award

Hey! Author Linda Glaser's Kar-Ben title that I illustrated, Hannah's Way is this year's Gold Medal winner in the Sydney Taylor Book Award's Younger Reader category.

A quiet period piece that takes place in rural Minnesota, it was neat book to get to work on and had me surprisingly deep in research for a good stretch of time.  More news on the subject soon...






various sizes, gouache on paper

Thursday, December 20, 2012

The semester in demos

A selection of one hour oil painting demos from this past Fall semester at the University of the Arts.

Various supports (paper, canvas...),
various sizes,
various levels of success...