Divorced Guy's Star Trek Club

An illustration done this year, one of the worst years of my life. I am going through an extremely painful divorce, and have two close male friends; one who is recently divorced, and the other, in the process of getting divorced. We all share a love of Star Trek, which we bonded over years ago, watch together, and which has been a welcome refuge from all the crap going on in our lives.
The idea is based on a photo taken of me siting in the captain's chair on the bridge of the Enterprise, at the official Star Trek Original Series Set Tour, in Ticonderoga New York. https://www.startrektour.com/,  which was one of the happiest days of my life. Ironically, I went with my soon to be ex-wife, who took the picture.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I made the above sticker with the final artwork in Adobe Illustrator with "Divorced Guy's Star Trek Club" and more importantly "To Boldly Go".
I have not been producing much artwork this year, as like a lot of people, my stress levels have been high, and my mental health has not been great, but I am very proud of the fact that I was able to bang this out, in spite of how I feel, and that I have not lost my sense of humor. 

The final artwork is 7.5" x 7.5" and was done in Prismacolor marker, and colored pencil on Bristol board.

Original Artwork

26 Show at the Zephyr Gallery

My piece titled: The Scarlet Letter, The Pastor and His Parishioner , 2014,
a 16" x 20" digital, archival print on paper, framed dimensions: 18" x 22", will be featured in the "26" show at the Zephyr Gallery at 37 Turner Street, Salem this month. The show features text-based art. The opening reception is Friday, May 13th 5:30 - 7:30, and the show dates are May 6th through May 30th, 2016. Gallery hours are Friday noon -6:00 pm, Saturday through Monday 11:00 am to 5:00pm. The gallery is open Memorial Day 11:00 am till 3:00 pm.

Summer Work: Adventure Squad

Some sketches for a story idea I am kicking around.  Another in a series of "images for stories that haven't been written yet". Would probably be a Y/A fantasy story tentatively titled "Adventure Squad Ltd.. A mixed group of outcasts and misfits from different cultures meet, and although initially suspicious of and antagonistic towards each other, band together and become a kind of family. 

Aiden, an inexperienced human farm boy on a quest to find his father, Bren, a jovial but very-dangerous were-bear seeking to undo his curse and return to his family, Erisandra, a shrewd halfling girl seeking treasure to save her village, and Denarial, an elf princess seeking revenge against the creature who killed her father. Taking some well known elements and retooling them into something that is hopefully interesting, not for the fantasy trappings, but for the relationships between the characters.

Some studies of the main characters.

Sketches of their equipment.

 
Denarial the elf, tells her story.

 

Fighting together.

Animals and Adjectives Challenge: Week 3

If you have been following my posts for the last couple of weeks, you know my wife Amy came up with a fun challenge  to keep me drawing each day. She wrote a list of about 30 adjectives on a piece of paper, and a list of animals on another; she put all the adjective slips in one cup, and all the animal slips in another. I pick an adjective slip and an animal slip at random from the cups each day and then draw whatever came up.
Here are my sketches for this week, 3 of the challenge.

The first one was "Hungry  Platypus". It's y very cartoon-ey rendition of a platypus with a cheeseburger. Who knew they were carnivores?


















Next was "Flexible Bear". I really like bears, so I did several versions of this one.

 Then came "Frustrated Field Mouse".

A"Grasping Dragon".

 

A"Proud Anteater".

 A"Nervous Fox".

 And finally, a "Jealous Duck".

 I still have more to go, but I am going to take a week off. I will post more when I return.

Animals and Adjectives Challenge: Week 2

If you read my post from last week, you know my wife Amy came up with a task to keep me drawing each day. She wrote a list of about 30 adjectives on a piece of paper, and a list of animals on another. then she cut up the paper so each of the adjectives and each of the animals names were on a separate slip of paper. Then she put all the adjective slips in one big coffee cup, and all the animal slips in another. I was to pick an adjective slip and an animal slip at random from the cups each day and then draw whatever came up.
Here are my sketches for this week, week 2 of the challenge.

The first one was "Excited Shark".

I liked this one so much I did several alternate versions.  

   Then "Creative Unicorn".

 
















"Tense Hummingbird."

"Timid Aardvark".

 "Loyal Elephant".

 

















"Infatuated Chicken".

 





















An "Infatuated Chicken" alternate version.

And finally "Ecstatic Sheep".

I still have a cup full to go, So I will post more over the next few weeks.

NESCBWI - Illustration Challenge

My wife Amy and I are attending the Society of Children's Book Writer's and Illustrators New England conference in Springfield, MA this April. I just joined SCBWI this year and this will be my first conference as a member. I have worked as a graphic designer for almost exactly 30 years, and although it pays the bills (mostly) my first love has always been illustration. To that end, I am trying to jump into the illustration field.
In keeping with the conference theme, "Think Outside the Crayon Box!", and to "get your creative juices working" SCBWI holds an illustration challenge. Your artwork is displayed at the conference all day Saturday for everyone to see. It is a great portfolio building exercise and a wonderful
promotional opportunity. The Challenge for this year was:
We would like you to illustrate this single line of text for a double-page spread of a picture
book: “Don’t worry–I fixed it.” Interpret in any way you like.
So first, I did some thumbnail sketches.

I like to work small, really small. These sketches are all about 3" x 2". I drew them in pencil and then colored them with ink and watercolor. I did (8) sketches total. I showed the sketches to my illustration critique group. They felt that some ideas were not appropriate for a children's book, and some were not that clear. The two they liked the most were the "Alien Garage" (upper left hand corner) and the "Mermaid Patching Job" (right hand top), but they had suggestions for changes on both of them.
"Alien Garage" shows an large orange alien mechanic finishing up repairs on a flying saucer belonging to a young girl astronaut, and her blue-skinned companion. The repairs have not gone well, and the saucer is definitely not space-worthy despite the alien's assurances.
Some issues pointed out for Alien Garage: it lacked context. Where was it located? What made it alien? Also; the body language of the children was not clear. What were they feeling?
"Mermaid Patching Job", shows a mermaid just finished repairing a hole in a rowboat that has struck a submerged rock, by covering it with a large starfish, and giving the "OK" sign to the little girl in the boat, while her father examines the strange patch. Issues with Mermaid Patching Job were mostly with it not being clear what the mermaid is doing. Is she finished patching the hole or is she assisting the "captain" figure with the patching? They wanted to see more context, more obvious damage to the boat, more clues as to what had happened. They also wanted the mermaids head farther out of the water, and her hair to cover her "side-boob".
I couldn't choose between the two until I had done some more work on them. So I took the two selections and reworked them.

First of all, now that I had two fairly solid ideas, I would need to rework them to the proportion of the final specifications, which was 10" x 16", the equivalent of a 2-page spread. Since at this point I was leaning heavily towards the mermaid idea, I extended the mermaid in watercolor, but only did the alien garage digitally.

I showed my group the revisions. They thought they were an improvement, but still thought they both needed additional work. Especially the mermaid. I did further sketches/revisions.

I changed the position of the "captain" figure, and adjusted the position of the mermaid so that her head was farther out of the water, and her hair was covering her upper torso. I added broken pieces of the boat to the water, and made the starfish "patch" larger and brighter. Although I liked it, I decided I liked the alien garage better.
I started to work on the finished piece. I added a lot more detail to let the viewer know that the spaceship was having issues. More broken wires, leaks, sparks flashing, essential-looking components strewn about. I had done sketches of various spacecraft components to populate the area around the ship.

Here is the final pencil sketch on Bristol board with all of the major elements in place.

I then started laying in the values using Payne's Gray acrylic paint.

Finally I started adding the color. Here is the color version of the painting.

I scanned the final illustration, did a bit of touch-up and color adjustment in Photoshop, brought it into InDesign and set the text. Here is the version that will be on display at the conference.

Rachel's Island

 I joined the SCBWI (Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators) this year. They have an annual conference of the New England chapter in the spring, which I am hoping to attend. In anticipation of their illustrator's portfolio review, I am working on adding to/updating my portfolio of work. I have been an illustrator for a long time, but my work has not been specific to children's books, so I am looking to fill up that gap.
I have notebooks full of story ideas that I have been hoping to develop, but rather than work one of them into a book dummy, I have decided to produce a series of covers for "books that never were" (but might someday exist).
Kind of like a teaser showing what I can do.
One of my favorite books is the "Mysteries of Harris Burdick" by Chris Van Allsburg. The main conceit of the book, is that an unknown  and mysterious illustrator drops off his portfolio at a publisher, and then never returns. Not only is his dissappearrance mysterious, but so are his somewhat enigmatic pictures and story fragments. The book is comprised of a series of single black & white illustrations accompanied by a story title and a fragment of text. They are intriguing because the the illustrations show odd or compelling moments, and the text is only a tiny glimpse of an implied larger story, so your imagination runs wild with the possibilities. I am trying for a similar effect, showing what I hope are provocative moments from stories as yet unwritten, that will intrigue the viewer and leave them wanting to know more about the implied story.
My first one is called "Rachel's Island". The story is set in Maine in the early part of the last century and is about the relationship between a Native American girl and a local boy and an island that they "discover" and explore together. It is an idea that I have been kicking around , in one form or another for more than 20 years.
My first version of the image above, was a thumbnail sketch I did in one of my small sketchbooks.

I started doing some research for the individual elements that would appear in the composition. The first step was finding a suitable island location. This is a photo of an Island on the Maine Island Trail, a route for kayakers and boaters. I loved this image, not only because it fit the composition, but also because the water looks beautiful, like something you might find in the Caribbean.

Next was to find an appropriate-looking rowboat. Something classic-New England looking. I considered using a dory, which is very common in New England, but I loved the white-and-wood look of this sailing dinghy. She is of clinker construction, also termed lapstrake: the planks overlap to form ridges along the hull, outside and inside. These ridges are termed "laps", or "lands", and are fastened with clinched copper nails or rivets. Steam-bent ribs inside the planks, thwarts, a solid keel, a stem, and a transom provide the supporting framework. Clinker sailing dinghies were used in near-shore fishing and carrying, and were carried on ships for harbor-going boats. These strong and fairly simple boats had to be able to carry a load and to stand some rough conditions. Besides being better-looking, its design predates the dory. It can also be rigged to sail.
 I now had my setting and my major prop.

I worked this into a black and white sketch. Among other elements I pulled together to use as reference or inspiration:
Pictures of mill-working children from that time period (1900).

A portrait of Lena Cayuga, a beautiful Seneca girl, also from about the same time period (1904)

And an American river otter.

I put all of these items together in a black and white sketch. I then transferred this to a piece of 3-ply-bristol by tracing the original sketch and putting a piece of artist's wax-free graphite paper underneath. I added some refinements. You may notice the "transparent" otter. He was originally much farther to the left, and not standing on his hind legs.

Working in watercolor, and guache, I started with outlining the main shapes in black, waterproof acrylic ink with a fine sable brush, then roughing in the color, working from lighter washes to darker ones, adding and refining details as I went.

I finished up the details with colored pencil. I varnished the final piece with watercolor varnish.
Here is a shot of the nearly-finished painting.