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.