Jamie the Third

Here is the latest portrait of my friend Jamie which I just completed, she posed for our recent Dirty Palette Club meeting.

I'm doing at least two portrait paintings a week outside of the class I'm taking at school, plus the ones I am working on in class. I have also been studying my favorite artists a lot like Sargent and Fechin. I'm working on trying to be looser, doing more with less and man, that can be so frustrating, one stroke it seems you are closer to Heaven and the next closer or actually in Hell. AAaarrgh! I wiped out three starts on this painting and only with this, my 4th attempt did it seems to pull together better.

But practice does make perfect, or better...even if it can really me maddening at times.

December Ride

This is the latest in my commuter series of paintings exploring my commuting experience in Philly entitled: December Ride. 11 x 14 on Ampersand gessoboard, oil.

Phillustration 09

Today was the reception for the Philadelphia Sketch Club's annual Illustration show, which was held on a really nice, if a bit humid Sunday afternoon in center city. I have two pieces in the show this year, my recently finished Commuter painting and my Wolfman painting from a while back. It was great to stop by and chat and see many other artists and illustrators from the Philly area.

Jamie-2

This is a portrait of my friend Jamie I started during our Dirty Palette club meeting and finished this am. 12 x 1 0n MDF in OIL.

Commuter Painting: In Station

Here is the latest in my series of commuter paintings entitled: In Station. 18 x 24 oil on canvas

Wednesday Self Portrait

here is a quick self portrait I did for class, I worked with big shapes first taking my biggest brush and massing in the shape of my head and then worked big and loose with a larger brush to avoid doing too much detail. I really wanted this to be loser. I used Dick Blick prepared panel board and it's great, 11 x 14 in oil.

Portrait Class Week 3

Here are the next two portraits from Al Gury's portrait class I am taking at PAFA this summer. These were two week portraits and the one of Bonnie I did a major rework on, basically repainting what I did from the first sitting, my position and her pose were quite different this week.

Still fighting some proportional and value issues as I sometimes just rush the start and a bad start always means a fight. I'm really trying to be looser and yet keep the drawing, I'm working on applying Al's approach which is bolder and looser and I realize I'm by nature and traing an much tighter, closed form painter or drawer from all my years as a comics and animation artist.
The one of Emma has better drawing but they could both use many little tweaks and fixes, but this is sorta' like boot camp, you just have to hit it and run on to the next.

Mr. Scavee R.I.P

I had to have my little buddy Scavee put don last weekend as he was in liver failure from feline leukemia. It's really a brutal disease as Scavee was a big healthy cat, at over 12 lbs. He walked into my house Thanksgiving day of 07 like he owned the place, right after dinner as people milled about on the porch. In fact it was suggested he may have been my old dog Buster reincarnated, as Thanksgiving was his favorite day.

My Ex didn't stay but Scavee did and his name came from the sound effect I drew on an old comic strip, the sound of a laser gun firing, my ex thought that was so funny, and it was a running joke we'd name our son Scavee, well obviously we didn't and won't be having kids, but we did use the name. he was a great cat, and I haven't had a cat in 20 years, I am really a dog person, but Scavee won me over and after Buster died he was good company for my other dog Shazam, sometimes they'd even sit in the window together.

When he first fell ill last summer the vet diagnosed him with the disease and said the level which he had meant he probably had it at birth or contacted it soon after,so if you love your cat get him or her vaccinated! After that he had to become an indoor cat, he liked to fight and I hadn't gotten him fixed yet, he didn't like the former but I'm sure he was fine with the latter. I'll miss my little buddy. I went up to see him before they put him to sleep, and he was really out of it, but I got him to purr and when I left, tears in my eyes he even mewed a week mew goodbye.

Though it was a sad weekend and maybe to help get some emotions drained out I started another painting in my commuter series, this one is in progress and this is one sessions work, 18 x 24 in oil.

Jamie Portrait

This is a portrait I did of my friend Jamie who came by on Friday to pose for a quick portrait. I started it from life and then finished it from a photograph. It's still wet and once it's dry I will probably go pack in and slightly adjust some values. It's got such a sheen on it now I need to let it sink in a bit, hit it some retouch varnish and adjust it.

Portrait Class Week 2

This was the second week of the portrait Class with Al Gury I am taking at PAFA this summer. This is one of the two portraits I started yesterday, we get two sections of models, a morning section and an afternoon section. This start is from the afternoon session where I was more warmed up, I'm really trying to work a bit bolder and looser. I love having one long all day class, I think it works the best and i wish all the classes at school were taught this way.

Creepertins -June

After a two month hiatus, the Creepertins is back in the Delaware County Magazine. I missed drawing these little creeps on the break, but I think well be back on schedule now.

Saturday Self Portrait

Iere is a quick self portrait that I painted last night--or early this morning depending on how you look at it. I was really disappointed in the painting I did in Al Gury's class this week, so I watched the movie clips I took of him painting again last night and decided I would try again the do a painting with his bolder approach. I think it turned out much better than the painting I did in class and I hope to do a much better one this week. 11x 14 in oil.

Work Station

This is a plien air painting I did yesterday with the DPC group, you can read more about it on the DPC blog.

Claire's Room

This is a quick little painting I shot out today 12 x 8 on MDF in oil. While I am working on other things art wise and on bigger paintings I still want to do smaller studies and paintings. one of my goals is to try and do at least 20 paintings over the summer. Doing smaller paintings also helps keep me loose and focusing on the bigger shapes.

This is a painting of my friend Claire who's bunking in my spare bedroom over the summer, she was sitting writing a letter and the light coming into the room made it really appealing to try and capture. My dog Shazam also decided she wanted to be in the picture and the contrast on her vs the light on Claire was fun to try and capture.

Final Commute

Well here is the finished commuter painting I've been working on for over the last week or so. It's not the best photo, there is too much glare, so i will try and shoot it again later and see if the glare dies down. I'll also let it sit a few days and then see if there is anything that starts to bug me. I already have to ideas for the next two paintings in the series which I'll start in the next few days. This is by far the most complicated painting I have ever attempted and there were many issues working from the photos I took on the train. For instance I had to add the woman on the bottom left as i didn't have a complete picture of her and some info was just too over exposed or fuzzy, but in a way that also helped me to be too tight. This is still fairly tight but I wanted it to loosen up as we receded further into the car. I also added the city outside as I feel that really helps make this piece. the pictures I took with my cell phone were while we were still underground so there wasn't anything to really see. By adding the city I feel it opens the painting up and gives it atmosphere and more motion as well.

Saturdays Done

Here is the inked and colored cover for the book for Random House featuring the Secret Saturdays. I should have more progress on the paintings and other comics stuff to show by the end of the week.

Commuter Painting-Progress

here is the painting a little further along, the picture isn't the best as I was getting too much glare, but this is after two days of picking away on it. one of the things about using the pictures from my cell phone is that the color range is kinda wonky, so i can't rely upon them 100%, and here is a case where I have to really adjust and do things the painting needs vs what the reference says--or shows.

I have some other freelance work to do now so I will probably only work on it in the evenings or early mornings for the next week or so.

Commuter Painting

Now that I'm all done with school I am starting my summer schedule around here which includes many things like cleaning up the studio, getting rid of lots of old stuff like old worthless comics and paper---so much dam paper-the bane of the artist!

So I have tow big art projects this summer, the Martians Go Home comic and doing as many paintings as I can, and I'm starting with another paintings in my commuter series.

I snapped several pics with my cell phone while riding back and forth on the Market Frankford line on my way to and from school. I got pretty good at being very stealthy about doing it too, because if people see you taking their pic they get weirded out , self conscious or even mad and annoyed. You never know when A triple murder parolee escaped and is on the lame and doesn't want his picture taken.

I also like the distortions the phone makes and think that helps with the feeling of the paintings or atmosphere. so i combined the info from three different photos i snapped into this one drawing and had them open in photoshop and then sketched from them as if i was actually sitting on the train, that way I think I avoid one of the drawbacks to the use of photos which is the ocular vision of the camera and it's distortion of space. This also requires me to do more drawing "in the round' as opposed to tracing the flat forms of the photo, I can alter and fix shapes as needed.


the next step was to do a ink wash over the drawing like I did in the Vincent Desiderio workshop, the difference is I didn't then cover he whole painting in Shellac like we did in the workshop. So now that the warm Grisaille is done I can now start the actual painting with oils. I'll post the progress as I go along.

Random Saturdays

This is the cover pencils to a kids book featuring the Secret Saturdays I am working on for Random House. I had to tone it down a bit for the network as they don't want the kids to be scared reading the book, or scared away by the cover, so the show is more scary and violent that the book will be.

Warner Brothers Animation Background Style Guide

In cleaning up and sorting through a lot of old junk in the studio I came aacross this quickly aging and fading fax from George Stokes the head of the BG Dept. at WB Animation back during the Batman/Sueprman/Batman Beyond era.

In between seasons when the storyboarding was done I switched over to doing back ground designs for a while on the shows. When I started George sent me this fax breaking down how they did it at the time and the 'essence' of their style which owed a lot to Paul Rivoche's great work on Mr. X in the 80's.

George was a great guy to work with and made the long distance relationship with WB being off site here in Philly smoother. So I thought many animation students, fellow artists and fans would find this an interesting read and peak behind the scenes on how we worked.

Animation***I just got an e-mail tonight from Paul Rivoche saying these were his notes to himself about his approach to doing the backgrounds which George Stokes passed on to me.***