Got a photo from one of my clients from last summer. I had done a series of full size figures for an interactive museum installation, and here’s how it is looking in the installation phase. Should be open to the public soon. I’ll have to get some further information regarding where and when this is taking place and perhaps plan on a road trip this summer to take a look. (I have a dim memory that this is somewhere in Minnesota, but I could be wrong).
Today I spent most of the morning working on another of the ‘investment book’ illustrations (under wraps for the time being), plus started work on two illustrations for an upcoming museum display project (pictured at bottom). After the day’s ‘real work’ was completed, I found a little time for another ‘facebook portrait’. This one, still in the same style I’ve been playing around with for the past three days, is of Matt, a musician I met a few years ago (pictured above).
Doing several rough sketches today, for various projects. The above is a rough sample for a museum wall mural I’ll be doing in the near future, and below is one of 29 sketches I did for an upcoming set of illustrations for a local client (for which the finishes will all be done in a faux ‘woodcut’ style).
Also found a brief window of time in the late afternoon to do a couple quickie portraits. These are both facebook acquaintances I’m none too familiar with (I think one of them is a high school classmate, maybe a couple years younger than I – the other one is maybe related in some way to one of the bars I frequently play at), Dawn and Samantha (#150 & 151 respectively). One done in the ‘liquid inks’ tools that I discovered a month or so ago, and the other a failed experiment combining pen and ink and oils.
Started coming down with a virus yesterday afternoon (thankfully, after most of the heavy workload was completed for the day, but I had to cancel band practice in the evening), and didn’t get much sleep last night. Feeling pretty awful today. I couldn’t sleep, so got up around 2:30 in the morning to work on a ‘blown covers’ idea that had occurred to me for this month’s contest, and finally got a few hours of shuteye between 5-8. Had another illustration for the ongoing ‘investment book’ (which I won’t be posting samples of, at the author’s request) yesterday and today, and finished up the last figure for the museum display project yesterday morning (pictured below). In between projects today, I did another ‘facebook portrait’ (above) of my cousin Kelly (her brothers #29 & #30, and her sister was #58), in pen and ink with a watercolor wash (since I’ll be working in a pen and ink style later this afternoon, I thought I’d use it to warm up).
On Monday, I tried to tackle another of the ‘Amish Girl’ illustrations, but the editor didn’t care for it, and I’ll be doing the replacement for this one later today.
And later in the day, did another ‘portrait’, this one of the daughter of the drummer for one of the bands I’m currently involved in, Kayleigh.
Working today on the ‘museum figures’, and will take a break in the afternoon for a long bike ride, but in the meantime, I also found time for today’s ‘facebook portrait’. This one is of my wife and ‘first mate’, Terri, done in oils (taken from a photo of her on our sailboat last summer).
And, there are some changes going on over at the ‘blown covers’ blog, with the weekly pace becoming too hectic to keep up with for the authors/curators, and it will switch over to a monthly format starting this week (with 7 more contests promised). The sketch below was my entry for last week’s ‘cats and dogs’ theme, which ended up in the reject pile. I was happy to see, however, that I was the only one who touched on the ‘Romney dog carrier’ idea. My first idea, doing something along the lines of a ‘facebook for dogs’ (whenever our dog goes out to sniff along the property line, we refer to it as ‘checking nosebook’, and imagine her ‘liking’ certain scents, or feeling the need to ‘comment’ on others), well, that concept was only picked up by one other artist, and it was more neatly and concisely drawn than I probably would have handled it.
Anyhow, with seven more of these ‘contests’ to go, I plan on trying to do a sketch for each and finish out the cycle. It has been an invaluable creativity exercise over the past few months, right when I needed it most.
Later in the afternoon I finished up another of the ‘museum figures’ (as well as made some adjustments to some of the existing figures).