Monday, October 25, 2010

Illostribute - Norman Saunders




Here is my next submission for the collaborative illustration blog Illostribute.com . The idea is to honor master illustrators and fine artists by investigating their work, through interpretation. After researching the chosen artists work, each contributing illustrator is to respond by creating their own piece of art, inspired by the work of the referenced artist.

The master illustrator that was selected for this months submissions was the amazing pulp cover artist Norman Saunders. His work is fun, dangerous, and a bit racy, and you can read more about him HERE. My thought process behind the piece I did, was first and foremost to try and capture the spirit of what Mr. Saunders did so well in his work, showcasing an intriguing preview of the novel as cover art. I wanted to layer my piece with compelling story elements including danger, lust, conflict, romance, murder, espionage, ect. Pretty much everything that you could find in Mr. Saunders work, I wanted to try and include in mine.

As far as style went, I wanted to keep my piece strong and bold. I chose a very limited color pallet and simple graphic style. I didn't want to get bogged down with multiple color choices for clothing, hair, and background elements, I wanted it to be simple. Lady in white (hero) man in black (villain) and a messy textured red background to help showcase the feeling of the blood and danger encompassing this illustration. This piece was painted with a combination of acrylic paint and paper collage. The piece shown above includes typography and printing effects created in photoshop. The piece below is what the actual original illustration looks like. This original painting is available for purchase in the store HERE. .



Original Painting



Human Sheild
8" x 10"
Acrylic / Paper Collage
2010

Below is a collection of some of Mr. Saunders work, which I referenced for my painting inspired by his work.

Wednesday, October 20, 2010

Intergalactic Dance Party


Here is another commissioned painting I finished a little while back. The theme for this piece was to showcase the retro dance moves known as the "Batusi" in a painting in what ever way I wanted to. So, seeing as how the "Batusi" was popular back in the 60's, I thought I'd explore a Sci-Fi / GoGo Dancer concept for this piece. Ultimately I ended up with one sweet intergalactic Batusi dance party. My guess is these Astronaut GoGo Dancers were looking for a nice planet or asteroid to practice their space dance moves on, and while doing so, they encountered some aliens looking to bust-a-move too.


Just above is a small comp I did to help plan the colors and textures for the piece. The Aliens suits are made with Aluminum Foil collage while and the GoGo Dancers space dresses are collaged from Glitter Ribbon. To mix those two elements, with other paper collage elements and acrylic paint was a fun challenge, and in the end, really added some fun texture and depth to the original piece.

Intergalactic Dance Party
11" x 17"
Acrylic / Paper Collage / Aluminum Foil / Glitter Ribbon
2010

Mini Comp Painting
4" x 4"
Acrylic / Paper Collage / Aluminum Foil / Glitter Ribbon
2010

Friday, October 15, 2010

Ray LaMontagne Concert



Last month, I surprised my wife Crystal with concert tickets to see one of our favorite singer / song writers of all time, RAY LaMONTAGNE . To say she was excited to go to the show is a huge understatement, and to say I was excited would be another understatement too. We had a great time, and like most amazing performers, hearing his music live was truly inspiring. I think both Crystal and I could agree that his music is definitely in our all time top 10.

And while I love attending concerts, I also really love concert poster design. I've always loved seeing artists interpret other artists through different artistic mediums, and concert poster design takes the cake for me in that department. So I thought I would throw a little something together to help remember the show (just like I did for the "She & Him" concert we went to earlier this summer) so I made this little "mock" concert poster. I let my self be inspired by the music, and the experience at the show to better help me create the artwork for this tribute poster. The original painting for this is also available in my online art store HERE . The piece does not include any of the type/text, just the art used to create the poster.

Sasquatch Strum
14" x 9 1/2"
Acrylic / Paper Collage / Burlap
2010

Thursday, October 14, 2010

Currently Working On...


A project involving these two. More to come soon.