Up until now I've only fooled around with painting in photoshop. I started painting backgrounds for my paintings in photoshop due to the advice of Jim Madsen(represented by Shannon Associates) but never really tried to fully render a sketch. The day after Christmas was a day for putting together toys, searching for more batteries, playing Acquire, watching Avatar, and squeezing in a little time to experiment with photoshop. This is what I came up with.
I made this sketch for a book that got canceled (bummer) but since I liked it I decided it would be the guinea pig.
So, I'm looking for your opinion - what do you guys think I could do to make this a better piece? Thanks in advance for you input!
Here's an image I did a few years ago but I just came across it...too bad I didn't find it a week ago huh? This was used for packaging and posters for the Yankee Candle company. It was a really fun project to work on and I liked how it turned out.
You’re probably thinking that I’m going to apologies for my content drought since July…I think we’re way beyond that don’t you? I mean it’s obvious that I’m not worthy right? But every good slacker has a “good” excuse right? So here’s mine:
The sun was in my eyes…my alarm clock didn’t go off…my dog chewed my power cord…how bout this one: I suck.
The truth is I’ve had 2 books cancel and one postponed for a year due to the economy – very frustrating. I’ve been working on a bunch of book covers for Element but they prefer I don’t share that work until after they’ve been published. So I’ve been in an art funk since August.
I’ve been filling the rest of my time with a few new money making ventures. Of all things I’ve started stock trading with a great new system I recently found. I never thought I’d become a trader (not traitor haha) but this system was designed for morons so I easily qualified. Also, I’m working with a non-profit company that not only helps people get out of debt – they also help you increase your monthly income. I won’t cross-pollinate this blog by giving the details here but if anyone is interested call me at 801-368-7568.
So what’s up with this video? I finally felt the art deprivation bug chewing on the back of my neck so I decided to do something purely for fun. This photoshop painting was done in just over 10 min. I paint characters like this for my school visits and project them on a movie screen for assemblies. I like to give kids a taste of what my paintings are like and they seem to like it. I love how quiet a few hundred 2nd and 3rd graders become when I start painting my little frog, gator or boar with my Wacom tablet.
Shameless plug alert: I could come to a school near you to paint this lil fella if you want – just put me in touch with your librarian or media specialist.
So.....I'm not going to apologize for not posting for such a long time - I've been busy - and again, my clients won't let me show the stuff I've been working on until it's published. I just got back from Chicago - Rick Walton, Guy Francis and I drove to the American Library Association Conference back there. We went to promote ourselves to librarians since they recommend books for awards and consumers. It's an amazing conference/Expo - anything and everything that is used in a library is being pitched, sold, recommended, hucked, and pushed. From furniture to books it's all there - and so were we.
We stayed with Eric Rohmann and Candy Fleming in the suburbs the first night - thanks guys for being such wonderful hosts - they invited publicists, editors, authors, librarians, and a few illustrators to a party - Rick gave schmoozing demos.
Rick put Eric's Caldecott to good use - it was just collecting dust after all.
The view from our hotel - thank you Albert Whitman for putting us up.
We found Laura Seeger signing her books.
My cat allergy wasn't that bad in Chicago.
Guy finally found a hat that fit.
Rick was almost arrested for public intoxication - we convinced the authorities he was writting a book about poles - sequel to Holes.
I got to sign in the Albert Whitman booth.
We found Kristyn's book and took a really stupid picture with it - I don't really know what the purpose was other than to look really stupid - sorry Kristyn - we un-cooled your cool book.
If your in Chicago go here - you can start out your day feeling like you just had breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
Why did we go here on a Sunday? and stand infront of this sign? and get our picture taken?
We needed women in our group! WHY OH WHY WEREN'T THERE WOMEN WITH US?!!??!!
I got to sign again at a party.
At the Caldecott banquet we heard from Beth Krommes and Neil Gaimon - great speaches on their medals.
Me and Beth - She asked me what I thought of her limited palette - WOW - she....asked me!
Neil was very excited to have yet another photo taken with two strangers - PUT UP WITH IT NEIL!!! HAHA.
Me and uri shulevitz....WOW!
We came, we conquered, ....we stopped for nothing!!! NOTHING I TELL YOU!!! (It's 1:30 AM)
We thought we had seen it all - then on the drive home.......
Here are some sketches from a book I'm working on. The book was written by Margaret Read MacDonald and it's a compilation of friendship stories from around the world. Each story starts with one illustration and I've posted 4 illustrations from the book. What a dream job - the best thing about a project like this is that you never get bored from one image to the next and you don't have to worry about making the characters look the same from one page to the next.
These are character/environment sketches for a book I'm writing and that I've already scored one rejection on. We learn by our failures right? But in the publishing world you need many many failures, rejections, refusals, disapprovals, and disasters in order to be a success right? I've written many a book my friend and it's publishers 15 - Will Terry 0. Enjoy it while it lasts publishers - for one day I shall laugh at you for buying one of my manuscripts...MWAA HAA HAAA!
So I'm feeling bad because I can't post any of the images I'm working on right now because my clients feel wierd about letting the cat out of the bag before the projects are published - go figure right? So I was looking for something I could put up and then it occured to me - my pallet! This mound you see before you is constructed out of all of the acrylic paint I've used since 1990! It started out as my friend Carl Wayne's masonite oil pallet which he thought was too big so he cut his in half and tossed it (the piece you see) in the trash. Way back then it was just a flat piece of 1/4 inch board but when I pulled it out of the trash and started using it as my acrylic pallet it began to grow.
There was a time when I was going to discard it - it was growing out of control and I thought it would be easier to work on a new one. But then I looked at it again - all bumpy, lumpy, and full of character. There there lil fella don't you worry - daddy isn't going to abandon you like Carl did. (can you tell it's 2:00am?) So here he is - I figure he's probably middle aged like me - lots of miles but many more ahead. He's been to Maryland, California, technically Nevada and idaho, but mostly he's lived here in Utah. Like I said before of the thousands of paintings I've done he's got parts of all of them in him. Oh, and that arch you see was at the request of my children constantly nagging me to sculpt some form into him - that took about 9 months. I think I'll name him Benjamin since I never had any run-ins with anyone with that name.
Because of my involvement with the California Teachers Association and the school visits I've been doing lately my mind is often on reading and it's importance in the development of the lives of children. This was a little doodle I did while my wife was at the doctor's office.
I just got back from Houston and had a great time at the TLA conference. I never got tierd of hearing those southern accents! They make you feel like you belong even if you don't say "yall".
Even though this is a state conference it feels like a national one because Texas is so huge - most publishers and vendors treat it like it's national.
This was the first time I met Helen the author of Armadilly Chili and our new book The Three Little Gators - what a nice woman! It was so much fun signing books with her! We sold out on the second day and had some really fun conversations over dinner.
But how well do you really know someone after a few dinners? - in order to get to really get to know someone I suggest getting into a car crash with them. :) One of Helen's friends took us to dinner at a publishers party and on the way back we got into a really fun wreck! Her poor friend was driving and wasn't used to downtown Houston - Helen was so nurturing and kind helping her friend stay calm and get through the hard time.
Luckily there were no injuries and we had to leave before the police could finish their reports because there was a guy shooting a shotgun just down the street and they told us to get in our cars and get out of there. Exciting!
Just got back a few weeks ago from Yuba City CA - giving assemblies on reading and illusrating for picture books. This was me barely making it over Donnor Summit before it got really bad.
I got to visit my sister Beth and her husband Michael - Beth is a famous blogger in the Bay area - her blog: fakeplasticfish talks about living life using less plastic.
I gave about 4-5 assemblies each day for 4 days - it was really fun watching kids get excited over my work. It's hard for me to get a reaction from my own kids - they've seen behind the curtain.
At the end of each assembly I painted one of my characters in photoshop on the screen - kids got really quiet watching a drawing come to life.
For some of the older classes I gave some drawing lessons.
We took some goofy pictures...
This is Craig and Leslie Reading - Leslie set up all the schools and made all the arrangements - She did so much to facilitate these presentations - I can't thank her enough!
I feel bad for not posting anything for 3 weeks...I've been in California doing school visits and teaching, writing, and working on a few projects. I'm not allowed to post the work from the projects because my clients don't want them visible before their products release.
So I dug this out - a scratch board I did a few years ago for my R.O.P. art class in California. I liked the piece but it never saw the light of day - it was a demo.
This was a painting I did when I thought it would be fun to sell work in a gallery...then I realized that finding a gallery that wanted my work was going to be tough...and I would have to frame everything on my dime...and then there's shipping...and wearing an earing...and pretending to be be tortured ...and I would have to eat peyote ...plus I couldn't think of anything else I really wanted to paint...then I was glad I had an illustration career...and I took a nap.
This is the finish - it was a lot of fun working on it and talking to students. I was happy that they thought it was funny...or at least didn't beat me up for poking fun. I worked on it in class for about 4 hours and spent an additional 2 at home putting a few finishing touches on it.
This is the digital stage where my main concern is getting everything no lighter than about 50% value. Using photoshop I spent about 20 minutes laying in shadows and color and then printed it on watercolor paper - then I stipple a layer of acrylic gel medium over the print and it's ready to start painting.
I was asked by Greg Newbold to do a demo in his illustration classes monday the 23rd...so I racked my brain to come up with something that would be fun but non-offensive to the students. I really like this sketch and I'm going to paint it but I'm concerned that student's might not like that I've decided to portray a BYU alumni overweight. :) Check back next week - I'll post the finish.
So here are some pictures from my trip to Los Angeles where I got to sign "Read Across America" posters for the CTA. As I mentioned a few months ago I was chosen to be their illustrator for a few years. I was also able to take my boys and we enjoyed a warm weekend sans snow.
The conference was held in the Bonaventure hotel - where they filmed part of the chase scene in "True Lies" - the first five levels was mall style shopping.
Then it was time for me to sign posters for the teachers to take back to their schools. My hand told me he signed about 800 but I told him to stop complaining.
Rick and Ryan Zeeb wrote a great book - "Snowpeople" and they sold over 550 copies - behind them is Sheri - the brains behind it all - Diana in front of me the "barker" -and then there's me with that really stupid look on my face - I think that was before I fainted.
My kids had to entertain themselves while I was doin my thang - They didn't get into too much trouble - although they got "told" to leave the 35th floor - only L.A. Prime guests allowed!
On the way home we snaped a few picts at some abandoned roadside dives - and drove into a snowstorm around Beaver - welcome back.
Here is a link to the BYU Writers and Illustrators Conference coming up in June. I was fortunate enough to be asked to teach again this year and they used some art from my new gator book for the promotion. If you're thinking about or planning to write and/or illustrate for children's books this conference is great! The list of published authors and illustrators who have attended this conference continues to grow each year.
Just finished this piece for Scholastic's Storyworks magazine cover. I think it will release in May. It was fun to illustrate a fun assignment: "Kids having fun with a reading theme" This was produced 100% in acrylics as my printer has finally given up trying to please me - we are no longer friends and I have banished it to the garage....when there is room in the trash can it will beautify the bottom of it...sense any hostility?
In the interest of keeping new stuff uploaded here's a wizard I did a little while ago that was never used by my client - Klutz. I liked him but he didn't fit into the project so the poor guy got scrapped. Enjoy your 15 min little sorcerer.
I feel bad for not posting anything new but isn't uploading old better than nothing? I've been working hard but I can't post anything from my big project because I had to sign a non-disclosure agreement which prevents me from letting the cat out of the bag.
I did this image in a high school art class I was teaching in California. I enjoyed working on the same assignments I gave my students - that's why I gave the assignment - so I could play along too! This assignment was simple - create an image for a T-shirt for our class that would represent what we do.
So my son Aaron and I were watching the food network show - Diners Drive-In's and Dives and we just happened to catch the episode where they featured the Blue Plate Diner in Salt Lake. We both love Guy Fieri and when we saw him interview the owner of the Blue Plate, Johnny Chopper and saw the love and attention to the food we both knew we had to go.
So we googled the Blue Plate and put it on our "to do" list. One day when we found ourselves downing some Blue Plate goodies, Johnny Chopper just showed up and my son says, "HEY Johnny Chopper showed up" and so after the meal when we struck up a conversation one thing led to another and yadayada I walked out with a trade agreement - food for art - I highly recommend it....the food for art thingy....and the Blue Plate.
So I told Johnny I would send him a sketch of an idea I got while stuffing my face with his food. I just thought it would be cool to do this painting of a blue plate that might be a flying saucer but might only be a blue plate flying in the air - perhaps someone threw it like a frizbee (a satisfied customer of course) but I wanted to keep it ambiguous.
After he saw and dug the sketch I wasn't happy with the way the cars were in front of his place and even though you can only parallel park I thought It would look cooler to have all the cars pulled in. So to make my job easier I just nabbed a bunch of cars off the net like the one above and tossed them into the sketch using photoshop.
After I got all the cars distorted the way I wanted them I changed the mode to grayscale to get rid of all the color. This allowed me to not only add my own color but with the distortions texture and color changes I'm safe from copy right infringement. Next I printed this out on watercolor paper and added texture to prepare it for acrylic paint.
Here's another car that should be up with the Cadillac but since I put it in the wrong place and don't know how to delete and move it you'll have to imagine that it's up with the other one.
And here is the final painting - It was a fun diversion from my regular workload
So I loaded the fam into the car and we headed for Blue Plate heaven to deliver the painting.
It's funny how enthusiasm for food changes in about a half hour - while waiting for your food to arrive it's sometimes hard to maintain your train of thought as you struggle to control salivation - after you're stuffed you're wondering what you were all psyched about? Well now we have a bunch of gift certificates and we can enjoy Blue Plate whenever we're up that way. YAY Blue Plate!!
Ok, so here is a sketch for an english language text book for Element - the idea is that by learning english you become more free to pursue whatever you want - that doors are open to english speakers. My client wanted some of the buildings in the shape of letters to further the language angle.
I was asked to paint the background separate from the foreground so they can use it for other covers that we are currently working on.
This is a challenge because as I'm painting it's hard to control values and colors but here they are combined.
I got myself a new look for the holidays - my wife saw it and let me have it for the rest of the day! Now I don't look like this anymore.
Friday, December 26, 2008
So my 9 year old said my art is for babies - so I wanted to see if I could still conjure something from my junior high days of drawing sculls in the margins of my tests. Yup - still got it. I did this doodle out in the car while my wife shopped for those last minute Christmas gifts. I showed it to 9 year old - he thought it was "bad" meaning good of course - score one for the old guy. Oh - and I fooled around with it in photoshop to add some mood.
