Tuesday, January 19, 2010
Nonslick Interview!
Thursday, January 14, 2010
2010: The Future! (?)
Hello!
So far, January has been a very exciting month! After the holidays, a plethora of great books are arriving from amazon.com, and I have been flying through graphic novels and trades such as Invincible, the Goon, Joe Mad's Ultimates 3, and Jim Lee's Superman run (hey, I am a fan of the last two. I don't care what other think). I also picked up two volumes of Drawn to Life, a series of books showcasing the teaching materials of Disney animator Walt Stanchfield. Its a real "back to roots" type of approach from what I've skimmed so far. I also ordered James Gurney's Imaginative Realism with is full of great information for any artist. And I just finished Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell; its a very interesting read and really inspiring. I recently read Gladwell's Blink, and I also recommend it if you are interested in how you make unconscious decisions. I think both of Gladwell's book have helped me with my previous post about how I am reading up on why we draw, how the brain works for artists, etc.
Wow, when do I have time to work with so many books?!? Well, honestly, I'm sleeping less to fit everything in!
Also, as a holiday treat, I purchased the new imac to replace this slowly eroding G4. Its so cool. Sadly, I have not had time to set everything up on it so I am still working on the ol' battle-axe until I turn in some projects on Monday. So once final art is approved I will allow this sleek new technology to seduce me.
What else is going on? Well, I just started an illustrator collective called Illostop. We are a group of young illustrators with similar interests and goals. Check out our blog featuring art and sketches here. We are also on facebook and twitter if you would like to be updated regularly on new work.
Speaking of blogs, I also want to share fellow illustrator Pete Ryan's blog, nonslick. Pete is a smart conceptual illustrator, and nonslick is a blog where he interviews art ditectors and illustrators. Its definitely a worthwhile place to spend your time!
And now for some art. Here is a new editorial recently completed for Carli at Macworld. The article's focus was using IMAP to link all of your email accounts/locations so that you can access any of your email from anywhere. Whoa, technology. I can't wait for the future beyond 2010. the final art:
And here are the sketches:
The article spoke about how one would be able to access desktop email remotely via iphone.
I like the idea of mailboxes as a tin-can radio; the metaphor of advanced email technology communicating with antiquated methods really appealed to me.
This sketch focused on the consolidation aspect of the article, and I felt was the strongest choice as it not only showed grouping but alluded to ease of use (wouldn't a mailman love it if he only had to check one mailbox a day?
Working with Carli was GREAT. She challenged me with very abstract subject matter, and I really enjoyed the mental challenge of solving the problem. Thanks Carli!
Enjoy the Day,
Chris
So far, January has been a very exciting month! After the holidays, a plethora of great books are arriving from amazon.com, and I have been flying through graphic novels and trades such as Invincible, the Goon, Joe Mad's Ultimates 3, and Jim Lee's Superman run (hey, I am a fan of the last two. I don't care what other think). I also picked up two volumes of Drawn to Life, a series of books showcasing the teaching materials of Disney animator Walt Stanchfield. Its a real "back to roots" type of approach from what I've skimmed so far. I also ordered James Gurney's Imaginative Realism with is full of great information for any artist. And I just finished Outliers by Malcolm Gladwell; its a very interesting read and really inspiring. I recently read Gladwell's Blink, and I also recommend it if you are interested in how you make unconscious decisions. I think both of Gladwell's book have helped me with my previous post about how I am reading up on why we draw, how the brain works for artists, etc.
Wow, when do I have time to work with so many books?!? Well, honestly, I'm sleeping less to fit everything in!
Also, as a holiday treat, I purchased the new imac to replace this slowly eroding G4. Its so cool. Sadly, I have not had time to set everything up on it so I am still working on the ol' battle-axe until I turn in some projects on Monday. So once final art is approved I will allow this sleek new technology to seduce me.
What else is going on? Well, I just started an illustrator collective called Illostop. We are a group of young illustrators with similar interests and goals. Check out our blog featuring art and sketches here. We are also on facebook and twitter if you would like to be updated regularly on new work.
Speaking of blogs, I also want to share fellow illustrator Pete Ryan's blog, nonslick. Pete is a smart conceptual illustrator, and nonslick is a blog where he interviews art ditectors and illustrators. Its definitely a worthwhile place to spend your time!
And now for some art. Here is a new editorial recently completed for Carli at Macworld. The article's focus was using IMAP to link all of your email accounts/locations so that you can access any of your email from anywhere. Whoa, technology. I can't wait for the future beyond 2010. the final art:
And here are the sketches:
The article spoke about how one would be able to access desktop email remotely via iphone.
I like the idea of mailboxes as a tin-can radio; the metaphor of advanced email technology communicating with antiquated methods really appealed to me.
This sketch focused on the consolidation aspect of the article, and I felt was the strongest choice as it not only showed grouping but alluded to ease of use (wouldn't a mailman love it if he only had to check one mailbox a day?Working with Carli was GREAT. She challenged me with very abstract subject matter, and I really enjoyed the mental challenge of solving the problem. Thanks Carli!
Enjoy the Day,
Chris
Friday, January 8, 2010
You Ain't Nothin' But A Houn' Dog.
Happy belated New Year! What a way to start 2010!
I must say I'm very happy to be back in the studio; I missed it so much. The holidays are great, but not very productive for this guy due to lots of travel. But I got back just in time for an awesome assignment!
Ryan at Las Vegas Weekly contacted me with the new year to do a iconic portrait of THE KING! The reason being that today is the birthday of Elvis. There was no particular concept to the cover, but Ryan wanted me to try out a contemplative hands-to-mouth concept. After I worked up these roughs, Ryan and I agreed that the hands would not work well with his original layout so we decided to just work with a classy head shot:
I tightened up the rough into a clean sketch that I was pretty happy with:
And worked in a "golden light" for that holy/religious feel:
Sadly, the golden aura had to go as they had just recently run a similarly colored image. So Ryan suggested black (which wouldn't work without the logo), and I think it looks very mysterious: perfect for Elvis!
Want to read the article? Click here. Thanks to Ryan for a really fun and educational assignment, and hail to the King, baby!
Enjoy the Day,
Chris
I must say I'm very happy to be back in the studio; I missed it so much. The holidays are great, but not very productive for this guy due to lots of travel. But I got back just in time for an awesome assignment!
Ryan at Las Vegas Weekly contacted me with the new year to do a iconic portrait of THE KING! The reason being that today is the birthday of Elvis. There was no particular concept to the cover, but Ryan wanted me to try out a contemplative hands-to-mouth concept. After I worked up these roughs, Ryan and I agreed that the hands would not work well with his original layout so we decided to just work with a classy head shot:
I tightened up the rough into a clean sketch that I was pretty happy with:
And worked in a "golden light" for that holy/religious feel:
Sadly, the golden aura had to go as they had just recently run a similarly colored image. So Ryan suggested black (which wouldn't work without the logo), and I think it looks very mysterious: perfect for Elvis!
Want to read the article? Click here. Thanks to Ryan for a really fun and educational assignment, and hail to the King, baby!Enjoy the Day,
Chris
Monday, December 7, 2009
Open Space Print Process
Hello again! As promised, I remembered to document the stencil process of prints for the upcoming Open Space Limited Run show. I managed to do three editions, and I am retiring these stencils as I have made ten prints each with them and they are starting to fall apart.
The following is the process as performed by me; you will find I am a bit unorthodox as I am all about keeping my prints nice and neat. Also please keep in mind that this method is used for flat printing and not for stenciling on vertical surfaces:
First, you need to cut your images/layers. I am using stencils from last year due to time constraints so I will not be showing this part of the process. I'm sure you can find lots of tutorials online.
For this process, I focused on one image; above is the Buscemi stencil laid out. I actually keep all of my layers attached to a piece of board so that they are lined up with each other; this way, I just need to flop the layer onto the paper and the registration is lined up.
I printed both outdoors and at SUNY New Paltz. I prefer working at SUNY as its indoors and they have a hood that whisks those pesky paint fumes away. However, I have to wait until the students leave, so I decided to get a jumpstart by working outside during the day. I use one of those "science project" pieced of folded cardboard as both a surface to spray on and to transport materials.
In addition to keeping my layers lined up, I used built-up corners of tape to ensure that my paper is always placed in the same spot.
Its widely advocated to use spray adhesive to hold down a layers to avoid underspray (paint getting under the layer). However, I despise spray adhesive with every ounce of my being, and I only use it when permanently mounting an image to board; I just find it a pain to have sticky fingers or when there is a possibility of everything sticking to each other, and its easy to accidentally destroy a layer or print. So I weigh my layers down. With pennies. And nuts. Sometimes I use fishing sinkers.
The first layer weighed down and ready to be painted. A piece of cardboard protects the unused layer.
Bright orange!
The first layer dry and ready to be covered.
Layer two ready to go. Please note that the previous layer is covered to protect it from the paint.
A heavy layer of black. Its important to me to cover the overlap of black and orange well. Otherwise, the figure has a weird brownish aura.
Layer two complete. This layer took a long time to dry so I had to wait to do a final layer of white. I did not photograph it as I finished up at another location and did not have my camera.
Sometimes it is possible to "float" areas of white on a layer by connecting them to the border with wire; however, I find that doing so makes for stencils that are problematic to store. So I just cut an extra layer and this way I am able to store all my stencils flat. Again, this is not the "purist" approach, but its how I solved the problem.
The final prints. Please note the whites on the Buscemi.
And that's it. I delivered the prints this morning, and the show opens on the 12th. Sadly, I will not be able to attend the opening as I have prior commitments, but I definitely want to stop in at some point as its a huge show with all of the walls covered salon-style. Its a great place to pick up a cheap gift for art lovers as well.
With the holiday frenzy approaching, I will be giving the blog a break until the new year as I will be traveling extensively form now until 2010. So I get to say "see you next year!"
Enjoy the Day,
Chris
The following is the process as performed by me; you will find I am a bit unorthodox as I am all about keeping my prints nice and neat. Also please keep in mind that this method is used for flat printing and not for stenciling on vertical surfaces:
First, you need to cut your images/layers. I am using stencils from last year due to time constraints so I will not be showing this part of the process. I'm sure you can find lots of tutorials online.
For this process, I focused on one image; above is the Buscemi stencil laid out. I actually keep all of my layers attached to a piece of board so that they are lined up with each other; this way, I just need to flop the layer onto the paper and the registration is lined up.I printed both outdoors and at SUNY New Paltz. I prefer working at SUNY as its indoors and they have a hood that whisks those pesky paint fumes away. However, I have to wait until the students leave, so I decided to get a jumpstart by working outside during the day. I use one of those "science project" pieced of folded cardboard as both a surface to spray on and to transport materials.
In addition to keeping my layers lined up, I used built-up corners of tape to ensure that my paper is always placed in the same spot.
Its widely advocated to use spray adhesive to hold down a layers to avoid underspray (paint getting under the layer). However, I despise spray adhesive with every ounce of my being, and I only use it when permanently mounting an image to board; I just find it a pain to have sticky fingers or when there is a possibility of everything sticking to each other, and its easy to accidentally destroy a layer or print. So I weigh my layers down. With pennies. And nuts. Sometimes I use fishing sinkers.
The first layer weighed down and ready to be painted. A piece of cardboard protects the unused layer.
Bright orange!
The first layer dry and ready to be covered.
Layer two ready to go. Please note that the previous layer is covered to protect it from the paint.
A heavy layer of black. Its important to me to cover the overlap of black and orange well. Otherwise, the figure has a weird brownish aura.
Layer two complete. This layer took a long time to dry so I had to wait to do a final layer of white. I did not photograph it as I finished up at another location and did not have my camera.Sometimes it is possible to "float" areas of white on a layer by connecting them to the border with wire; however, I find that doing so makes for stencils that are problematic to store. So I just cut an extra layer and this way I am able to store all my stencils flat. Again, this is not the "purist" approach, but its how I solved the problem.
The final prints. Please note the whites on the Buscemi.And that's it. I delivered the prints this morning, and the show opens on the 12th. Sadly, I will not be able to attend the opening as I have prior commitments, but I definitely want to stop in at some point as its a huge show with all of the walls covered salon-style. Its a great place to pick up a cheap gift for art lovers as well.
With the holiday frenzy approaching, I will be giving the blog a break until the new year as I will be traveling extensively form now until 2010. So I get to say "see you next year!"
Enjoy the Day,
Chris
Thursday, December 3, 2009
Open Space Beacon's Limited Run III
Howdy folks! I just wanted to take a moment to plug Open Space's annual print show. Dan and Kalene run a great gallery, and their shows are always a joy to check out.
I will have (hopefully) three stencil editions in the show as well as a few prints that the gallery has also been offering through their online store.
Prints I featured last year:
Sadly, I don't have any images of the prints as I will be stenciling like a madman over the weekend for a Monday delivery. Look for print images and process photos next week!
Last year's Limited Run (December blog post)
Open Space's Website and Show Announcement (with links to featured artists)
Open Space's Store (you could... you know...buy my work...)
Enjoy the Day,
Chris
Tuesday, November 17, 2009
Unions: the negative effect
Hello! So I just realized I completely missed my blog post for last week. Sorry! I'll try to make it up at some point by posting some embarrassing reference or something along those lines.
This blog post features artwork I did for Kerri at MYBusiness magazine. I have been very fortunate to work with Kerri on many occasions, and it is always a pleasure. In this instance, Kerri was looking for some eye-catching artwork for their cover. It had not been decided which article was going to grace the cover, so we worked on ideas for the two possibilities. One feature was about Unions/Big Labor and the other is about the military heroes of Small Business. Here are the sketches:
The first sketch for the "small business soldier" was a very simple man-in-suit with stars on his lapels and a striped tie, looking heroic and patriotic. Although I enjoy the sketch as a drawing, I feel this was too subtle.
The second sketch has a better feel. Kerri wanted a superhero-type image similar to the Blue-collar football image I had done a few months back. I feel that a patriotic superhero costume has been perfected, so I alluded the the amazing Captain America.
The second article dealt with the effect of labor unions on small business owners. In today's tough economy, some already suffering businesses are on thin ice because of union-enforced regulations that may or may not relate to their business and employees. For the first, sketch I went with a laborer's gloved hand squeezing a small businessman.
My second sketch played off a "boxing in" phrase used in the article in reference to government and labor unions trying to make small businesses fit a generic mold of what all businesses should be and how they should perform, waht they should provide, etc.
Both Kerri and I were surprised when the higher-ups decided to run the Unions/Big Labor article as the cover; Kerri was almost certain when initially contacting me that they were going to run the Soldier article, and I thought the best sketch was the superhero concept. It was decided to go with the squeezing sketch while dropping the suit (yes!) and adding a female. With this type of work, it is always a consideration to portray multiple nationalities and both sexes. I got into the revision and even added a third figure for a better balance and composition.
I submitted two versions, and Kerri chose the limited color palette. I always enjoy Kerri's type layouts over my images. With this illustration, I tried to plan for her use of white text and as such limited my own use of lighter values. All in all, I think we collaborated on a striking cover that grab's attention (no pun intended).
The article is a pretty interesting read, especially when taking into account union effects on businesses with only a few employees that have to meet these "large business union" demands.
Read the article here.
Enjoy the Day,
Chris
This blog post features artwork I did for Kerri at MYBusiness magazine. I have been very fortunate to work with Kerri on many occasions, and it is always a pleasure. In this instance, Kerri was looking for some eye-catching artwork for their cover. It had not been decided which article was going to grace the cover, so we worked on ideas for the two possibilities. One feature was about Unions/Big Labor and the other is about the military heroes of Small Business. Here are the sketches:
The first sketch for the "small business soldier" was a very simple man-in-suit with stars on his lapels and a striped tie, looking heroic and patriotic. Although I enjoy the sketch as a drawing, I feel this was too subtle.
The second sketch has a better feel. Kerri wanted a superhero-type image similar to the Blue-collar football image I had done a few months back. I feel that a patriotic superhero costume has been perfected, so I alluded the the amazing Captain America.
The second article dealt with the effect of labor unions on small business owners. In today's tough economy, some already suffering businesses are on thin ice because of union-enforced regulations that may or may not relate to their business and employees. For the first, sketch I went with a laborer's gloved hand squeezing a small businessman.
My second sketch played off a "boxing in" phrase used in the article in reference to government and labor unions trying to make small businesses fit a generic mold of what all businesses should be and how they should perform, waht they should provide, etc.
Both Kerri and I were surprised when the higher-ups decided to run the Unions/Big Labor article as the cover; Kerri was almost certain when initially contacting me that they were going to run the Soldier article, and I thought the best sketch was the superhero concept. It was decided to go with the squeezing sketch while dropping the suit (yes!) and adding a female. With this type of work, it is always a consideration to portray multiple nationalities and both sexes. I got into the revision and even added a third figure for a better balance and composition.
I submitted two versions, and Kerri chose the limited color palette. I always enjoy Kerri's type layouts over my images. With this illustration, I tried to plan for her use of white text and as such limited my own use of lighter values. All in all, I think we collaborated on a striking cover that grab's attention (no pun intended).The article is a pretty interesting read, especially when taking into account union effects on businesses with only a few employees that have to meet these "large business union" demands.
Read the article here.
Enjoy the Day,
Chris
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