Quick Digital Portrait-Andy Kaufman

I'm just feeling it creatively right now. If I could draw and paint 24 hours a day I would. A lot of times as a creative person you get in what I like to call that "sweet zone." You just feel like ideas are coming at you all the time and you just want to create.

A few weeks ago I just had this sudden desire to do a digital portrait of comedian Andy Kaufman. No sketch done first in pencil, no scanning...just my Wacom tablet, Photoshop and a self-imposed time limit of 45 minutes.

The above is the result. It not only captures his likeness but some of that childlike wonder Kaufman had in his expressive face.

Turner Classic Movie Portraits-Audrey Hepburn

A few months ago Turner Classic Movies started following me on Twitter. I think it was because of my often-tweeted about profession of love for old movies and classic stars. I began illustrating TCM's Star of the Month.

Even though Audrey Hepburn wasn't Star of the Month when I did this illustration TCM gladly retweeted it to thousands of their followers.

Doing these monthly portraits has become something I look forward to and something that TCM and their followers seem to like also.

Illustration Friday-Moustache

Illustration Friday's subject for this week was/is mustache. I immediately thought of Salvador Dali. I like to think he might even like the surrealistic way I depicted his 'stache being drawn.

Illustration Friday-Wild

The word this week for Illustration Friday is "wild." Who embodied that word better than the recently passed Jonathan Winters? I decided to do a relatively quick illustration of Jonathan from his role as the crazed truck driver in Stanley Kramer's all-star comedy film It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World. Every time this comic genius was on the screen he stole the scene. Nothing was funnier than when he singlehandedly destroyed the gas station.

Illustration Friday-Egg

Okay, I went for the obvious here. Several years ago I did an illustration for a business magazine where Humpty was wearing a 3 piece business suit. I had so much fun doing that I thought it'd be fun to revisit the character.

My second choice was to do Vincent Price as the TV Batman bad guy Egghead.

Animal Shelter Piece

For the last few years I have donated illustration work to a couple of different animal shelters: One here in Georgia and one down in Tallahassee, Florida. The piece below is a new cover for a brochure that won me an Addy Award a couple of years ago.

Speaking at The University of Georgia

This coming Tuesday, September 20th I will be speaking to a group of young people at The University of Georgia. The professor has asked me to talk about magazine cover and children's book illustration.

I have some portfolio material I'm bringing, including a great deal of my work on a CD. Having been a teacher several years ago at The Art Institute of Atlanta I'm really looking forward to this.

I illustrated and had printed a postcard that has the above image on the front of it. That card has all of my contact info on the back. I'm going to hand one out to each of the students. I think it's important and could be a good thing for these guys to have a link to a working professional in the business.

....and if any of you UGA kids are reading this now don't hesitate to leave a comment here or to contact me anytime.

Illustration Friday-Imperfect

The word for this week's Illustration Friday assignment is "imperfect." Now I ask you, who or what is more imperfect than the idiots (from both parties) who supposedly represent all of our interests in Washington?...So I decided to show my reptilian version of a typical U.S. political hack.

No sketch prep work on this. I just started sketching on an open top layer in Photoshop. Once I had a decent working sketch I set that layer's (named "linework") properties to "multiply." I then created a separate layer, named it "color" and put it underneath the linework layer. All the color work can be done on the color layer while preserving the sketch on the top layer.

I hope you like it.

Illustration Friday-Obsession

The word for this week's Illustration Friday assignment is "obsession." I thought about Imelda Marcos and her shoes and Howard Hughes with his OCD. I settled on what might be the greatest case of fictional obsession: Captain Ahab from Moby Dick. His obsession with this beast was all-encompassing and would make a potentially fun and interesting illustration. I had fun with this.

Illustration Friday-Gesture

The word for this week from Illustration Friday was "gesture." For some reason the mannerisms that Marlon Brando adopted for his portrayal of Vito Corleone in The Godfather came to my mind immediately. So I knocked out this illustration in just a few hours. This says gesture to me. I hope you like it.

Steve Bartkowski

I did this painting of Steve Bartkowski (quarterback of the Atlanta Falcons during the 1970's and 80's) late last fall for a charity luncheon. Bart attended and spoke to several of us Falcon fans. I got to meet him and had him sign a print of this for me. It now hangs proudly in my studio.

Illustration Friday-Stay

The word for this week was "stay." I knew a lot of my fellow artists would probably illustrate the command for dogs or some variation of that command. I went in a different direction.

I thought of that old great pop song "Stay." You know it.....Stay A-a-a-a-ah, just a little bit longer (Please) Please, please, please, please Tell me you're going to....Remakes of this great song were done by several artists and hits came from the versions by Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons and Jackson Browne.

The original hit though that most of us know was penned by a 15 year old Maurice Williams and recorded later by Williams and his group the Zodiacs. That is who I chose to depict in my illustration....Maurice Williams and the Zodiacs in the studio (or on stage singing "Stay." I hope that you like it.

Competition

This job was kind of fun. Business Tennessee magazine has me illustrate their Small Business section each issue. The article this month was about watching your competitors in business. The article stated how it's a good thing if your competition is doing well because it lifts your entire industry.


The first sketch I did was just a generic "people scrambling up a hill" take. Blehh. I liked the balance but this approach had nothing else going for it.


This second sketch is getting closer. I was starting to get some interaction between the people, but it somehow looked too balanced now.


This is the sketch that the art director approved. He wanted me to move the far right balloon closer to the viewer and change the balloons into light bulbs to represent ideas. I liked the position changes but have to admit that I wasn't crazy about the light bulb revision.....


Here is the finished illustration. The new art director for Business Tennessee likes this particular style of illustration that I do so the Small Business section will have this style from now on. All in all I was pleased with how it came out. More importantly the art director felt the same way.

Business Tennessee illustration-Competition

Here's some detailed closeup on one of the figures in the Competition illustration.

Let's Get This Bad Boy Started.....

I have noticed recently that a whole lot of illustrators keep active blogs in addition to their website. I never really thought about doing it until a couple of weeks ago.

This is what I want to do with this blog. I want to post projects that I'm currently working on, including sketches and alternative solutions to the illustrative answers I come up with for my clients. I also want to post different promotional ideas and artwork I'm working on or considering. Finally I want to include personal and experimental work.

All in all this hopefully will be a running narrative and graphic testament of an illustrator's working life.