Jenny Saville

Jenny Saville, an amazing artist. I did this in about four to five hours, started sketching and blocking in last night and then woke up early this morning and finished it off. Been working on a fairly detailed painting for a while now and needed to sketch and paint something fresh, I'm glad I did.

Steve Jobs sketch-a-roony!

Quick sketch of "Apple genius" Steve Jobs . . . 15-18 minutes

Meeting the Man!

A few weeks back, Rolling Stone asked me to paint Gary Clark Jr. for the music reviews section! I'm really into music, for me, music and my art are one in the same . . . I don't ever draw or paint unless there's music pumping out of my speakers! I'm into lots of "kinds" of music, but the blues is where it's at . . . and Gary Clark Jr. is THE MAN when it comes to the blues, "You gonna know his name by the end of the night"

Not long after the issue came out, I was contacted by Gary's manager and was told how much the painting meant to him and how much he loved it. That was very cool to hear and quite unexpected to say the least. I was also put on the guest list for his recent show at Space Evanston just north of Chicago. It was an amazing and inspiring show. What that man can say with six strings and some wood is beyond inspiring . . . I wanted to paint him again, but this time it would be different. Gary's style of blues is, "I'm gonna kick your ass" blues . . . and he does, all night long!

After the show, I got to meet Gary. It was really cool meeting an artist who I painted for Rolling Stone and hearing from him how much in meant to him. I'll never forget that. What a great night . . . !

Cover for D Magazine.

Cover I painted about three weeks ago for D Magazine. This was another quick turn-around. The subject isn't "famous" in the sense that there are pictures available for referencing. I was given one picture to base his likeness from and of course the look and expression they needed was completely different from that of the reference. So, I had to make up his expression . . . I did that by referencing my own face.






Sketches and block in process. You can see from the first sketches that I sketched him smiling . . . after my first sketch, I was told he had to have a different mood and expression. As I mentioned above, I only had one picture to reference from, so I had to imagine what he might look like if he were scowling or a little upset. It was a fun challenge.

Character study

Quick study for something I've been working on for a few years . . . hope to get it moving again soon?

Daniel McMahon study

Quick paint study of my friend Dan McMahon, an amazing musician and really neat guy.

Friday Warm Up Sketches . . .

35 minute sketch . . . I may refine this one a bit more if I have time . . . was fun to sketch.

NY Observer cover Full Court Press!

This week's cover for the NY Observer.




This was another two day turnaround. Starting Monday morning, final due end of the day, Tuesday. I spent half of Monday sketching and then spent the rest of my time painting as quickly as I could. I really enjoyed working on the character's of these two guys, especially Dominique Strauss-Kahn.



Detail of Kenneth Thompson's face. I wanted to share these close ups to show how loose and sketchy I worked.



Detail of DSK.



Head sketch.




Head sketch.

Murdoch cover for ADWEEK

Last week I was called by Adweek to do a one-day-turnaround, which would be used for an interior illustration. They ended up liking the painting so much that they decided to use it as the cover instead!

Read the article HERE.



They wanted a realistic portrait of Murdoch and wanted a "mafia-like" feel to the look of the piece . . . notice my nod to The Godfather. It was a lot of fun creating the mood and feel of this piece . . . it had to look like Murdoch but feel dark and moody . . . I had a blast! BTW, I had only one day to turn this piece around.



I'm really happy with the brush work in this piece . . . the more I paint, the more I love it!




As I mentioned above, it was decided that my art would be used for the cover rather than inside the magazine. For that, I was asked to simplify the background as to not distract from typesetting and so on.




This is my mock sketch.

Great White sketch . . . shark week!

One more sketch for shark week!

Shark sketches.

Quick sketches in honor of shark week . . .

Gary Clark Jr. for Rolling Stone

I did this painting last week for the music reviews section of Rolling Stone. It was a quick turnaround. I was called for the job at 3:00 p.m. last Thursday, and the final was due 3:00 p.m. Friday, the following day.

I truly enjoy every chance I get to paint for Rolling Stone, and I enjoy working with the art directors as well. For me, painting musicians for Rolling Stone is a dream come true, it's something I've always wanted to do.

I really enjoyed my time while working on this piece. Like the "blues", I just went for it, painted with emotion and feeling . . . and over all, my goal was to capture character and mood.

It's not caricature, but just as exciting for me. For me the challenge for capturing a person's essence and character is even greater when not caricatured, and so it's fulfilling for me to paint a piece like this and try to capture what I was seeing in my head.




I enjoy seeing how the work looks in print.



These are a few of my really quick thumbnails. The point of these were to help me come up with a nice framing, or composition and because of my short turn around, it had to be done quickly.




This is my color sketch, working out types of colors that I wanted to use.



This is an earlier phase in the painting that I saved to share some of the block in and process.