Final Piece

My client is one Eric Posman, a producer for ESPN and a sports writer.  Posman [...]]]> I just finished a commission that pushed and challenged my creative and technical skill set, and I outwitted my inner critic!  Here is the piece.  Keep reading to see how and why I created this piece.

Final Piece

The Client

My client is one Eric Posman, a producer for ESPN and a sports writer.  Posman came to me with a photograph of his children looking out a window of a high rise hotel in NYC.  His request?  He wanted a piece of work showing his children looking out into a fantastic world that reflects today’s culture with a twist towards the children and the incredible possibilities of their futures.  Sounds fun!  Sounds hard…

The Process

Brainstorming

I started this project with my trusty mind-mapping technique (fig A).  I fist made a list of nouns that refer to New York, today’s children, movies, books, and cultural icons.  I then did a free drawing that I am, quite honestly a little embarrassed to post here as it is very infantile, but it was so much fun to draw!  It also allowed my mind a chance to think visually. I really enjoyed it as a brainstorming activity, and I think I will incorporate it more often into my planning stages (fig B).

fig. A The Mindmap for Posman Project

Reference Collecting

From there, I began to collect references of New York and other characters and images that crept into my brainstorming sessions.  All-in-all, I collected over 60 different photo references some of which added to the ideas already conceived and some of them changed my ideas completely.

Thumbnails

My next step was to devise a composition or layout plan for the piece (figs C, D, E, F).  I completed several different thumbnail sketches that would have made my grad school professors cringe…  Thank goodness I wasn’t graded

Fig C

Fig D

Fig E

Fig F

Preliminary Drawing

After choosing the thumbnail I liked the best, I began my preliminary drawing incorporating the thumbnail, the references, and the results from the brainstorming sessions.  I drafted the drawing to size at 20″ x 16″.  I then made a few modifications with overlapping tracing paper.  It was at the point I was ready to meet with Posman again.  I wanted to get his take on the direction I was heading.  I also wanted to pick his brain about his children’s likes and dislikes.  Eric Posman was able to help draft the drawing in it’s final stages.

Preliminary Dawing

The Final Piece

Finally I was able to mock up the final piece in a digital collage combining my drawings, my references, and digital painting with my Wacom tablet.  This step is not one that I often use, but it made sense with the amount of information and imagery going on within this one piece.  I used this step as well to prepare a color plan for the final painting.

Color Planning Digitally painted

NOw for the final Art!!  Wooo Hooo!

After all of these steps, I finally get to paint the picture.  I first redraw the entire scene on Clayboard in pencil and then I inked the board.  After allowing the ink to dry, I sprayed the board with a healthy dose of Krylon Crystal Clear to seal the ink.  I painted the images with many different painting techniques, including wet-on-wet, glazing and dry brush.  After the paint dried, I reinked some of the areas.  The piece was finished with a protective coating.

Drum roll please….

Final Piece

I think I would have gotten an A+ on this guy!  Thank you for the challenge, Mr Posman.  Let’s do it again sometime!

LCS, the Illustration News Portal, publishes a short article about The Heirloom Jewel Series. Check it out!

Through various meditation practices, these articles encourage us to revisit and reconnect with our inner child at various ages in order to heal past wounds. These articles (which I have listed below) insist that many of us overlook the inner [...]]]>

I have come across several articles lately that talk about nurturing the inner child.

Through various meditation practices, these articles encourage us to revisit and reconnect with our inner child at various ages in order to heal past wounds. These articles (which I have listed below) insist that many of us overlook the inner child in ourselves, only to distance ourselves from who we were at certain points in our lives and the pain or needs that were not met. The psychologists suggest that becoming so removed from our distant selves can be harmful to our present selves.

Deliberating the Existence of My Inner Child

I found this all very interesting, and began to wonder if I was removed from my inner child, but I have to admit it. I am often the equivalent of a 4 year old child. Or a 7 year old or 11 or even 17 for that matter. I have always loved to entertain my inner-child. It keeps things exciting and fun. Upon further review of myself, I notice that much of my artwork is testimonial to nurturing my inner child.

I have recently finished 3 new pieces for the Heirloom Jewel Series.

The imagery is clearly child-like, and I have found that in addition to the imagery, I have fallen in love with the symbolism tbehind each of the animals I have depicted. This, too, is quite child-like and intuitive. So check out the images and the symbology and listen to what your inner child has to say about them.

The Octopus Jewel

The Octopus is an animal that holds very strong symbolism that is so extremely layered. A bottom-dwelling water creature, the octopus symbolizes emotion, intuition, and creativity that is also grounded. The fact that an octupus may loose a limb and regenerate that lost limb symbolizes self-healing, cycles, and regeneration. When an octupus is frightened it “inks” it’s predator clouding the water so that it may escape or it can even shed a limb to form a distraction. These are forms of creating an illusion for the sake of survival or self-preservation in the same way that people are often outwardly deceptive for the sake of survival.

The Dragonfly Jewel

A dragonfly is a magical symbol of agility in the face of change, especially changes having to do with deeper consciousness. A dragonfly can fly in any direction, but their wings are very sensitive to the smallest changes in the wind, thus they encourage us to heed the winds of change and not fight against it but work with the change. In addition, the Dragonfly is an animal of born of water and maturing to the air, thereby this beautiful creature is also symbolic of the passion and emotion of youth giving way to control and clarity in maturity.

The Sea Turtle Jewel

The Turtle is a special animal that takes the comfort of his shell with him on his travels. In this respect, the sea turtle is a symbol of protection, inner knowledge, and healing especially within the elemental water areas of emotion, intuition, and creativity. The sea turtle depends on water currents (tides of change) for fast-progression, but without the strong exterior currents, the turtle must courageously stick his neck out and patiently yet persistently progress on his own. Many Tribal Native American cultures believe that the continent arose on the back of a great turtle, and such they often referred to it as Turtle Island.

Articles about Nurturing the Inner Child:

Nurturing and Caring For Your Inner Child: How to Heal Emotionally and Master the Art of Self-love

Inner Child Focus, Work and Therapy from Elevated Therapy International in London.

Inner Child

Back When Bob

The Golf Geek

Green Jeanne

The [...]]]> The April Edition of The Skinnie is on the stands, and it features seven full page illustrations by yours truly.  The articles illustrated highlight the different personality types found at The Landings in Savannah, but never fear because these personality types are fairly universal.

Back When Bob

The Golf Geek

Green Jeanne

The Insta_Friend

The Landings Lush

The Reluctant Rebel

The Tennis Temptress

You must read the accompanying articles!

Sarah Meurer and Charles Hendrix over at The Skinnie were wonderful to work with, and I am certain they would be willing to send you a copy of the magazine, if you were to request one for around $3 plus postage.  Send them a shout out or at least let them know how much you enjoy the illustrations!

St Pattys Promo from Savannah

The leprechaun is legendary, but what about his sexy wife?

Man, I sure would like to tell him where to stick it!

Creative play is becoming a widely recognized method of producing unique ideas in many design firms across the globe.  Creative play activities involve exploration, experimentation, role-playing, challenging preconceived ideas, and other tactics to push the boundaries of thought.  In today’s society, there are many artists that render well, [...]]]>

Creative Play as a Brainstorming Aid

Creative play is becoming a widely recognized method of producing unique ideas in many design firms across the globe.  Creative play activities involve exploration, experimentation, role-playing, challenging preconceived ideas, and other tactics to push the boundaries of thought.  In today’s society, there are many artists that render well, but there are fewer that begin the rendering process with a concept that speaks to the audience.  Through creative play and brainstorming exercises, illustrators can learn to expand their brainstorming to produce a firm conceptual foundation for their work through creative play.  The object of creative play is to limit the self-censoring tendencies adults often foster and to focus on the quantity of ideas.

For More Information on Creative Play visit The Help Guide, The National Institute for Play, or watch Tim Brown’s video from the 2008 Serious Play Conference.

Review and Categorization of Ideas into Thumbnail Drawings

Preliminary Sketch

Personally, I find that in the creative play phase the artist should steer as far from attempting to categorize as possible as the object of the play is to develop ideas outside of one’s normal train of thought.  That being said, after the play is complete, the artist must go through the ideas gained during play to somehow make sense of the ideas and possibly push them further.  Such strategies as visual mind-mapping, list making, etc. can aid the categorization process.  It is here that the artist should narrow down the conceptual notion and begin to develop basic thumbnails to communicate the idea through the compositional plan.

Drawing, Personal Style and the Sketchbook

Personal Style Appears through Drawing Consistently

Illustrators often struggle with creating a style that they like, when the truth is that through drawing each person develops his own personal style naturally.  In our current era of instant gratification, illustrators tend to what their style to develop quickly with little dedication of the part of the artist.  This is where the sketchbook plays a vital role in the development of the illustrator.  Through daily sketching, the natural “style” of the artist presents itself in its own time.   The sketchbook is a necessary tool for the illustrator and should not be overlooked or undervalued.

Follow The Daily Sketch on Twitter for daily sketchbook activities to jump start your mind!

Illustration Techniques

Digital Rendering

Watercolor and Ink Rendering

Acrylic Rendering

The many methods in which an illustrator may render the final illustration is unlimited, but the artist can narrow down the options through experimentation, observation, and consideration of time.  Choosing the technique is a personal decision that can prove challenging yet the artist’s natural inclination towards a certain technique will avail itself through the artist’s trial and error. The techniques available to illustrators range from traditional methods to digital methods of illustration.  Traditional methods include acrylic painting, watercolor, ink, pencil, pastel, collage, and sculpture to name a few while digital methods tend to be either raster, vector, or a combination of the two.  It is advisable to experiment with each of these techniques.

Promotional Marketing

Marketing any business has changed substantially over the past few years.  While traditional marketing practices, such as postcards, mailers, and other print materials are still appreciated and valued, eMarketing and Social Networking has become necessary as well.  As an artist, if you don’t have a website with a digital portfolio, you are missing out on an estimated 80% of your possible market.  These days a website is only the beginning of the online marketing world.   It is preferable for your website to include a blog where you can post new projects, talk about your industry, offer advice to others and much more. There are also online communities such as LinkedIn, Red Bubble, and Flickr that allow for networking with other artists, potential buyers and other clients.  The wide world of the web has become more and more active due to the blogosphere and the social media folks that use services such as Twitter, Digg, and Stumbleupon to mark articles and artwork of interest.  By learning to use these venues properly, an artist can become quite well-known without an agent.

A word of caution is in order – if you are spending all of your time online, then you aren’t drawing, and that’s the name of the game – right?

While we have several design projects that have been transgressing, in December the [...]]]> Whewww!! Cotton Studios was very busy the month of December.  With all of the holiday madness and then beginning of the year catch-up game, it has been a madhouse!  I am now sitting down to keep you all up to date.

While we have several design projects that have been transgressing, in December the Commissioned Paintings took the lead with the Custom Greeting Card Design taking a close second.  Below, I will highlight December’s design fun!

Bootney

Mr. Clint Ledger acquired a painting for his beautiful wife Lorrie, featuring her beloved cat Bootney.  Man, now that is one wonderful husband!

“Bootney”
16″ x 20″ acrylic on canvas

House Portrait

Mrs. Paula Martin commissioned a painting for her husband depciting his childhood home.
Unfortunately the picture I got of this piece of work was TERRIBLE!  But no worries… I’ll get a photograph soon.

18″ x 10″ Mixed Media

Andrew Thayer

Mr. & Mrs. Jason Thayer welcomed their new baby boy, Andrew Thayer to the world earlier this month.  Mrs Ashley Thayer planned ahead, and asked if I would do a painting for the baby’s nursery.  With the colors and bedding already chosen, I made sure to get a sample of the bedroom colors.  The bedding can be found at Pottery Barn kids and the new artwork is on little Drew’s walls.

3 – 18″ x 20″ Acrylic on Canvas

The Hulsey’s Christmas Card

Mrs. Christy Griner Hulsey took the sweetest picture of her little chica-dee at Halloween, and when Christmas rolled around it was just too good not to see the photograph again.  This time we tweaked it to go along with Christy’s headline.  In case you aren’t in the know, Christy is a fabulous writer.  Check out her blog at http://christyhulsey.wordpress.com.

Digital Collage

Alchemy Virtual Solutions Christmas Card

Alchemy Virtual Solutions is based in Savannah, Georgia.  The owner Melissa Silva is one up and coming entrepreneur in the area.  Alchemy exists for people like me that can run our business, but we sometimes need a little help in those pesky areas like bookkeeping, call centers, personal assistance, event planning, and so much more.  Check them out at http://alchemysavannah.com.

Illustration and Design