Storyworks

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?

Illustration Friday - Climbing

Dug this up from over a decade ago - originally printed for Hispanic Magazine.

Not Forgotten

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.

Another Illustration Friday - "Pale"

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.

Illustration Friday Contained

I did this image a while ago but I thought it fit.

Blue Plate Diner

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 yada yada 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!!