Theater Poster: Mark Twain's Mississippi

Might have taken this project simply to play with the "Mississippi" type. But had a great time working  Twain's handwritten manuscripts into the image

Society of Illustrators Juried Show

Honored to have this book cover I did selected for the Society of Illustrators Annual 55 (whoo-hoo!)
The opening reception was last Friday and runs until March 2nd 2013.

Unfortunately my work schedule means that I won't be able to check out the show in person, but if you do go, please drop me a line (and maybe a photo?)

Portrait: Charlie Sheen

This is a new project for my illustration class.
The idea is to choose a celebrity and after researching him or her assign keywords that will determine how the viewer responds to the finished art. Not one to ask my students to do something I wouldn't, here is my interpretation of Charlie Sheen (circa spring 2011). My keywords were: "Manaical, Self Involved, Dangerous"

Here is the process I used to arrive at the finished piece:

I researched a bunch of photos of Charlie Sheen and chose one that had a single light source and strong cast shadows.
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Adjusted the photo so that it was more contrasty and the shapes that made up the features were clearer.
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The original photo did not have the feel/keywords I wanted so I modified his face to look more like the photos of Charlie Sheen when he was at his most volatile.
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Redrew the light and dark shapes so they could be transferred to watercolor paper
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Created and ink wash of painting of the photo, being conscious to use the brush to create quick angular strokes that would reinforce my keywords.
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I wanted to add a second element that would further reinforce my keywords and decided on the "catchphrases" Charlie would endlessly spout during this period. Again, actively using a mark making style that would suggest a person coming unhinged.
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The two pieces were composited digitally and this is the end result.
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What's really fun about this process is that you can easily substitute other equally compelling images to achieve a similar effect.

New Books: The Imagination Station Series

For the last year I have been working on a series of books "The Imagination Station" with Focus on the Family and Tyndale House Publishers. I've recently received my advance copies of the first two books in the series and wanted to show off the covers. Click the horizontal images for all the wraparound cover art goodness.

 

Illustration Friday: Early

Recent Sketches: Font Faces

Anybody who checked out my post yesterday might have noticed I started drawing the type as I watched "Helvetica". One of the things that starts to happen when you look at a letterform for too long is that the negative shapes start to become more interesting that the positive ones. (Sorta like when you look too long at your written name -- it becomes a meaningless jumble of strokes) Anyway the counter of the bowl of a lowercase "a" became fascinating to me as just a shape and I wanted to see what I could do with it. So these faces are make up of the negative shapes of the lowercase "a", "s", "e" and "w" from the font Helvetica. Makes me wonder what kind of expressions I might get if I had a go at Baskerville.

Recent Sketches

 

Watched the movie "Helvetica" last night. My doodles took on a decidedly typographic quality.

It is interesting that it's the counters to certain letterforms that I find the most distinctive. Not something I particularly noticed during my college type courses.

Recent Sketches

Playing with type and image.

Fun with Type

As a change of pace. . . here's some sketches for a typography project I'm playing with.  Ambigrams are fun! (For anyone who didn't catch "Angels and Demons" last summer the idea is that the word should read the same when it's turned 180˚. By the way the guy who did those ambigrams is 'freaking awesome. Check out John Langdon's work here )

Illustration Friday: Entangled

Two Book out this Fall

Just in time for the holidays -- the last two books in the Dandilion Rhymes series:

God Loves Me More Than That



and "When God Created My Toes"



Both are available on Amazon or ordered at your local bookseller.

New Books Coming This Fall 2007

These are the covers for the first two of a four book series I'm doing with Waterbrook Press an imprint of Random House Publishers. Look for these two to be published in October 2007.