Work in progress . . . 4

I was able to paint some detail on the clown today . . . now it's time to relax and enjoy Turkey Day!

Work in progress . . . 3

I hope to have Depp and the other character's face finished by the end of today. Would be nice to finish a hand or two as well, but we'll see?

Work in progress . . . 2

Still a long ways to go, but this is what I have at the end of one day of painting . . .

Work in progress . . .

Still a long, long ways to go . . . just started painting this today . . . I'll continue to share as I work on it.

Major League Baseball World Series!

I was honored to do three paintings for the 2010 World Series Program, a full page illustration . . .




. . . and two smaller spot illustrations . . .






This was a fun job to do, but it had many challenges. While working on these three paintings, I also did my first painting for Rolling Stone, and on top of that I caught a nasty sinus infection. Good times, but the brush must move on!!! In the end, I only had 5 days to complete all three paintings. I decided to loosen up my style, I wanted them to be fun, and light-hearted. I decided to be more painterly as well, leaving brush strokes and some sketch lines. I wanted the paintings to feel more traditional than digital as I felt it would fit the article more.

I had a difficult time finding good references of Jeff Weaver of the Dodgers . . . I wanted a specific look which I could not find. The best reference I found was taken indoors with horrible lighting and just about everything else wrong with it. So I ended up re-building his face using several different reference shots including pictures I had taken of myself. Challenges are good fun, but can be stressful under such tight turnarounds.



Quick mock up sketch.



I wanted to show these close ups to share the loose and painterly look . . . less is more was the idea . . .



I love and hate painting hands!



I really enjoyed painting this camera. It's simple but I really had fun with the color and brush work.




The little details in this piece were fun as well.




This lady is so simple and took maybe a couple minutes at most, but she's my favorite part.



This painting was a lot of fun as well, but took almost as long to complete as the opener and this was only supposed to be a "spot illustration". Oh well, sometimes you gotta go with what you're feeling. Again, I really enjoyed creating the brushwork in this one. I wanted to capture the grimy lighting that you sometimes see in NY subways . . . and there's always someone sleeping somewhere with their mouth wide open, so I thought that would be a fun little bit to throw in there.




The sketch on the left was done very quickly and was the mock that I did for the art director. The version on the right side was how the block in looked before I decided to re-draw and paint the sleeping girl. I changed her because I felt in this version they looked like a couple instead of strangers and it's funnier if they don't know each other.



This was the last spot I did for the program . . . this one had to be done in one day. Again, less is more, I knew it would print rather small, so I kept it more brushy and loose.




This is a sketch I did for one of the spot's but then last minute I was asked to paint someone else instead.

Society of Illustrators 53! and the 2010 Editorial & Design Awards

Some cool news . . . my painting "Blow Hard" which was painted as a cover for the Miami New Times was accepted in the Society of Illustrators 53 show!



This just in . . . I just found out that my Obama cover for The Utne Reader Won 1st for the 2010 Editorial & Design Awards! I want to thank Stephanie at Utne Reader for choosing me to paint this cover!

Back from the Stanley Awards!

Well, I'm back from the Stanley Awards held this year in Melbourne Australia. I had a blast!!! Thanks to Grant and Kerry-Anne Brown for being such great hosts and for everyone I met at the Australian Cartoonist Association! I feel as if I've left a part of me behind . . . everyone felt like family, like I've always known them. Australia holds a special place in my heart, well that and Skydiving, but we'll get to that in a bit. First, to explain the picture above.

No, I did not win a Stanley Award, I was brought to the Stanley Awards as a guest of honor and as a speaker/teacher. But on the night of the Awards, I was asked to present the award to the Caricaturist of the year and instead I acted as if I had won the the award, I thanked my Mom and a few others . . . the guy to my left was a bit confused and wasn't quite sure what was going on? Hee hee . . . I didn't let the joke go on too long and soon gave the award to David Rowe for best Australian Caricaturist of the year. Congrats David!



Me with David Rowe and that other fella! :)




Here I am with Stan Goldberg and the Stanley Award winners . . . congrats to you all!!!




The ACA has put together a band of cartoonist who play every year at the Stanley Awards . . . someone found out that I play a little guitar here and there and so I was asked to join the band. It was a lot of fun, and they were good too!




It was an honor to be a guest of honor at the Stanleys but even cooler to be an honor alongside living legend, Stan Goldberg, artist for Archie and so many other great comics! It was really cool spending time with him talking about art and so on . . . it turns out that a lot of my friends are also some of Stan's friends, what a small world.



Stan and I did an open panel discussion, answering questions and preforming odd requests . . . at one point Stan stood on top of the table and made fart sounds with his armpits! No wait, maybe that was a dream I had?



Getting deep, because what I do is so intense! :)



I was sponsored by Wacom which was really cool . . . here I am starting my demo/discussion.







I discussed my process and how I go about creating a painting.





Here are some of the steps . . .




I had hoped to do some drawing and painting after discussing everything that I had planed to talk about, but time was short. Turns out the Aussie's didn't mind hanging out a bit longer, so I did a quick sketch of their Prime Minister, Julia Gillard.



I then did a quick-ish value painting for them, explaining my approach and thought process while painting. It was really cool because while I painted they asked questions as well as throwing out hilarious insults about Gillard! It was a relaxing and fun crowd to hang out with!







Overall, my trip to Australia was amazing. My friend Brian came with me and we made the most of it. We had tons of Sushi . . . YES! We went shark diving which was awesome and then after the conference, we went skydiving! What a rush . . . I'm completely hooked and can't wait to do it again!



We jumped from 10,000 ft, free fell for about 30 to 35 seconds, falling at about 155 mph before the shoot opened at 5,000 ft. It was awesome . . . I've been on a high ever since!






The day before we left Brian and I rented a car and headed towards the Great Ocean Road. We had more sushi, watched a few surfers and then drove along the beautiful coast . . . man it was amazing! We then came to a place called Kennith River which had Koala Bears and Parrots hanging out everywhere in the trees. It was an amazing day!

Thank you Australia for such a wonderful time, it was a great holiday filled with so many great memories!

Holiday Special at Schoolism.com

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The New Artistsketchbooks.com

Hi Everyone!

Imaginism Studios is excited to announce our newest project - ArtistSketchbooks.com!

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The featured artists, apps & books on the homepage are determined by how many "Likes" are received.

Click on the image below for more info: