4/29/09 - Testing Strathmore Sequential Art Boards 500 Series

I met Barbara Faro, a Strathmore paper rep, a couple of years ago when she was visiting Lexington on vacation with her husband. She was kind enough to send to me a box of the sample papers from their new line of Sequential Art Bristol Boards and Wet Media Illustration Boards for our local comic creators group.

Here are three samples (5.25"x8.5") on their semi-smooth and plate 500 series boards. All were completed in April 2009. (Tools and material notes on image)

semi-smooth bristol, Gillott 404

semi-smooth bristol, W&N SS7 #2

plate bristol, W&N SS7 #2, Gillott 1950

Here is a link to a small watercolor illustration I did on the Wet Media Illustration Board sample.

08/16/09 - Watercolor Illustration

This was done back in August from a photo ref (Target newspaper circular) with W&N Cotman paints on a 8.5 x 5 in sample of Strathmore's Wet Media Illustration Board (thanks to Barbara Faro, our local Strathmore paper sales rep!).

I spent about 3.5 hours (probably much too long for the size of the painting) or so on this - I really tried to do this in a controlled manner and am relatively please with the results. I was striving to keep the look controlled while matching the vibrancy of the photo's colors.

I 'm not sure about the watermark proclaiming my copyright as this is very faithful to the photo which I don't have any claims to.

02/16/08 - Digital - Photoshop Painting

I have been recuperating at home the last week after after a week in the hospital. The meds and bed rest had me all revved up with no place to go. But I have been able to get in some time and progress (I think) on my Photoshop CS2 digital painting skills. Here are some pieces created in the last couple of days.

Lady Washington and the treasure cave are from my head and Dorothy and the Tobbogan Lady are from photoreference (but still free hand drawn without sampling colors).

10/27/07 - Character Design - Childrens Story

This is the first rough (and working version) draft character design sheet for a teacher friend's illustrated short story "Zukes and Cukes!"

Holly and I produced several simple finished line drawings using these character designs to accompany a short story that was developed for project head start.

This was a good experience because we had to produce the drawings in a very short time and it gave me a feel for what must be done to deliver work on a deadline.