Justin Gerard Visit

The piece above is NOT mine. I wish it were. I love this piece. It's Justin Gerard's. You might have noticed that I've had a link to Justin Gerard's website here on my blog for a few years now. When I came across his work for the first time in 2008 I was blown away. His sense of design, color, drawing, rendering, etc spoke to me right away. Definitely one of my mentors in illustration and I was so excited when Don Seegmiller invited him out to give a lecture and all day demo here in Utah at UVU.


After all the illustration stuff was out of the way a few of us: Don Seegmiller, Peter Sakievich, Justin, and myself were able to sneak away down to Goblin Valley for a few days.


It's so important to take time to get out and observe natural surroundings to increase your visual vocabulary but also unplug and feed your spirit.


There are lighting situations that you just can't conjure on your own - even if your work is highly stylized I believe that it all starts with careful observations that can later be distilled into original work.


Justin had way more energy than the rest of us put together - while we surrendered to taking our shoes off and fording the stream a few times - Justin took on the challenge showing off his mad scrambling skills. Then he walked the next two or three miles sans shoes!


Justin has a great sense of humor (not shown in this picture) and is very approachable (just don't say, "I'm lovin it!" - he hates crass commercial messages). I was surprised at how much we share in common especially our theories of making great images. He's accomplished much more than I ever did at age 31 - scary for some of the older students at UVU. We had a great time and I hope to meet up with him again sometime soon. Oh, one more thing - he doesn't snore but Don can compete with a diesel engine! Check out more of his work at his blog. He's also a regular contributor over at the Muddy Colors Blog.