May Day

Happy May Day!

Here’s one of two concepts I did for a client recently. The client, Directorship, decided to go with a less-militant look instead and I’ll feature the one chosen in a couple of weeks after the magazine goes to press. In the meantime, since today is May 1st, I thought this would be a good image to feature.

The basic illustration was done in Illustrator and I played off of several posters from the WPA era. I later took the image into Photoshop and added a bit of texture to make it look as if it were old and getting a few creases in it.

Click on the image to see a larger version.

 

Juan Gris Fan

March 23rd is Juan Gris’ 125th birthday.

Gris has always been one of my favorite artists. I think he is terribly underrated.

Here are six portraits I did a few years back, clearly inspired by his style. These, by the way, were done in Illustrator.

Alice Returns

A couple of weeks ago I featured a similar picture of Alice as rock star. Later, it struck me that the image might make a fun T-shirt so I’ve uploaded it onto Threadless.com. I created some swirls behind and to the bottom of the image to fill out the front of the shirt.

To view a larger version, just click on the image.

Again, those of you who log into Threadless.com can vote on this and other submissions. If you’d like to vote, click HERE.

 

 

Blink!

 

Here’s my first Cinemagraph: “Blink!”

I’ve been fascinated  by cinemagraphs lately. For mine I took two photos of the model, one with her eyes open and one closed. In Photoshop I layered them. I thought it needed something more so I copied her mouth and used “Liquify” to make her smile.

This is a gif animation. If you click on the image you’ll see a slightly larger version.

Hope you enjoy it.

Alice & the Mad Hatters

I had a lot of fun coming up with this image. As I worked on it I wondered what Alice and her band might sound like. I suppose the obvious choice would be Jefferson Airplane and their big hit “White Rabbit.” But I hear something more contemporary like Ane Brun or maybe Sophie Zelmani.

I drew the image on the computer but I actually painted the colors traditionally using watercolors, scanned the painting in and added it to the drawing. The type was done in Illustrator using a type called “True Crime” which I distorted using Envelope Distort.

Click on the image to see a larger version.

Year of the Dragon!


Gung Hai Fat Choi! Here’s an image in celebration of the Chinese New Year which starts today, Jan. 23rd. This was executed in ink on board and scanned into the computer where I added color in Photoshop.

This is available as a T-shirt at my store (men, women and children sizes available). Click HERE to take a look.

The Future Past


Here’s my current submission to Threadless.com which is now up for voting.

This idea came to me while I was in Japan recently. Not because of anything I saw there. It just popped into my head one day and I sketched a thumbnail of it.

It refers to all of those promises of the future that were made in the 1960s. Promises that never came true. The “future” with its cellphones, iPads, and other electronic gizmos is even weirder in a way. It would be nice, however, to buzz through the air with our own jet packs, wouldn’t it?

Here’s a link to the submission where, those who are logged-in, can vote:

http://www.threadless.com/submission/395740/Future_Past

Musical Piracy

I just had my first submission to Threadless.com accepted and it’s now up for voting. Wish me luck.

All elements in this portrait of a pirate are made up of musical notations. I fiddled with the face for a couple of days, trying to get the elements right. But it wasn’t until I added the curving lines and the ship in the background that the entire image gelled.

Here’s a link to the submission where, those who are logged-in, can vote:

http://www.threadless.com/submission/393518/Musical_Piracy

Farewell, Hitch.

I just learned of the death of Christopher Hitchens and felt I should do a quick tribute. He died on December 15th while I was in Japan and not paying any attention to the news.

I disagreed with him about a few things—mainly his stand on Iraq. But I always admired his wit, the beauty of his prose and his ability to cut through the bull.

After creating a faithful portrait of Hitchens in Illustrator I used the Envelope Distort feature to tweak his features. I like the way I can exaggerate certain areas of the face using the Distort tool. Often the distortion feels more true than a straight image. In Photoshop, I added the grunge background using the Multiply tool.You can click on the image for a larger version.

Peace.