Breakthrough Contest

A few months ago, I entered a contest that Richard Solomon {artist representative} put on for new illustrators. The winner was to be flown to New York and introduced to a whole bunch of new contacts, in addition recieving a cash prize. There was only one winner, and alas, it was not I, but I did just recieve notice today that among all of the entries, myself and nineteen other artists were selected as staff favorites and given a little bit of the spotlight on their web page. Check that out here! I'm towards the bottom of the page (alphabetical), but there I am! All of the artists up there are so talented -- it's such an honor to be included.

Stay tuned for some art later this week!

Dragons

I've been burning through George R. R. Martin's "A Song of Ice and Fire" books lately. I usually fluctuate between biographies and fiction, but I find that most of the books that have really absorbed me fully over the years have been really good epic fantasies. It's funny, because my art goes in such a different direction, but I keep getting drawn to these big stories. I first noticed A Game of Thrones a while back when HBO started their series, but I really got interested when a whole bunch of completely different artists that I follow professed their love for it to the internet on their own blogs and started making art inspired by it.

Dragons play a fairly major part in the series. I've always thought that they were the coolest -- I spent a lot of time drawing them as a kid, and I've actually spent a lot of time drawing them quickly recently with kids that I teach. But I haven't really tried to piece one together using reference like I do my actual work. Here's a start? I found a bunch of cool looking lizards to put together as inspiration.

Joisey

New illustrations for Inside New Jersey Magazine. They are for the December 2011 issue, so printing is a bit of a distance off, but here they are now! The assignment was not a particularly edgy concept -- the article was about native New Jersey-ans love/hate relationship with their own state, and I was told to base both compositions on American Gothic -- but I had a lot of fun playing around regardless. My goal was both to give these paintings their own style, and to make them as technically interesting as I could.

The first image, with the less happy theme, is going to be the magazine's cover. Later, when I get samples, I'll post a picture. The second image is a full page for the feature article.

In unrelated news, I am going to try something seriously, seriously, seriously new for this blog: weekly posts. From here on out, I am going to post SOMETHING at least once a week. It might have something to do with a project I'm working on, it might be simple drawings and sketches, or it might be something that is particularly inspiring to me at the moment. It's going to be something, and it's going to be once a week. For serious.

Walkies

New work for FDU. The article was about some students getting their degrees in The Dominican Republic, so I got to play a little with the image concept.

Willie Nelson

Another wonderful assignment for The Stranger. I loved doing this drawing -- the man has an amazing face. Seriously.

Primative Slacklines

I designed this logo a few months ago for a very good friend; their website just recently went live. I don't usually do design work, but I really like the way this ended up coming out (probably because it involved drawing something, and Celocampths are ridiculously cool). You can visit their page here.

I've been quiet for the past month, but I have several really exciting projects in progress. A portrait of Willie Nelson for The Stranger (up next week), a full page for FDU's Alumni mag (sometime this month), and two full pages for the Star Ledger's magazine (Inside New Jersey) for sometime in the next few months. Also, a Michele Bachmann painting for me, because it's just irresistible. Check back for updates!

Orange

Just finished this painting and accompanying spot for the cover of The Washington Post Capital Business. The article was about executive compensation. I love the way that the colors came out! As always, this was a blast. When I get a pdf of the cover next week, I'll add it to this post.