C.F. Payne Documentary

Teaser Trailer for "C.F. Payne: An American Illustrator" from Tony Moorman on Vimeo.

Filmmaker Tony Moorman did an amazing documentary about the work and career of C. F. Payne.

It will be available to stream October 13 for $4.99

More info here: https://www.facebook.com/cfpayneamericanillustrator/


Artists on Payne from Tony Moorman on Vimeo.

The Low-Down on Mo: A Conversation with Mo Willems and Hilary Price, Friday August 19th

Hey guys- on Friday there is an event in Columbus called THE LOW-DOWN ON MO: A CONVERSATION WITH MO WILLEMS AND HILARY PRICE 

Mo Willems is a children's book writer and illustrator, and also has a background in writing, directing, and creating art for animation. If you're able to get to the event it could be really interesting.

Mo Willems

Here is the info from the Wexner Center's website:

FREE for all audiences (No RSVP or ticket required) 

Hear from award-winning author and illustrator Mo Willems, who discusses his life, career, and creative process with Hilary Price, the creator behind the internationally syndicated comic strip Rhymes with Orange. Parents, educators, librarians, and aspiring children’s book authors won’t want to miss this event! 

A number one New York Times best-selling author and illustrator, Willems has been awarded three Caldecott Honors for his books Don’t Let the Pigeon Drive the Bus!, Knuffle Bunny: A Cautionary Tale, and Knuffle Bunny Too: A Case of Mistaken Identity. This year, Willems celebrates the 25th and final book in his long-running Elephant and Piggie series, which has twice won the Theodor Seuss Geisel Medal. Price has been awarded the “Best Newspaper Panel” four times by the National Cartoonists Society for Rhymes with Orange. Her work also appears in Parade Magazine, The Funny Times, People, and Glamour.

Copresented by Ohio State’s The Billy Ireland Cartoon Library & Museum. 

Poster by Mo Willems for The Carle Museum

This is his IMDB Page if you want to know more about the TV he has been involved with.

Friday August 19th at 7 PM
Wexner Center for the Arts
1871 N High St, Columbus, Ohio 43210

The Illustrators Art Show

Check out the Illustrators Art Show at The Flats Gallery on July 30th. Jeffrey Ebbeler and I will be signing books 5-7 and C. F. Payne and Jerry Dowling will be signing 7-9!

Check out the interview Channel 12 did with Jeffrey Ebbeler about the opening!

http://local12.com/news/good-morning-cincinnati/flats-art-gallery-hosts-the-illustrators-art-show-on-july-30

3028 Price Ave. in the Incline District.

Here are the details: https://www.facebook.com/events/1121858164501732/

GIG OPPORTUNITY posted 4/27/15

GIG OPPORTUNITY posted 4/27/15- 

Seeking an Illustrator in the Cincinnati area who can do 3D chalk drawings for a commercial shoot in Cincinnati next week- email me (darcy) at cincycan@gmail.com for the client's contact info...we received this email today at Cincinnati Animation Network's Global Headquarters so let's network:)

Posters for Clifton Performance Theatre

I've been slacking on posting my artwork. Here are three posters I've created for the tail end of Clifton Performance Theatre's 2014-2015 season.

Great Blog Post by Giuseppe Castellano

Giuseppe Castellano is an art director at Penguin Random House. He recently started a blog with illustration advice.

There is a lot of terrible advice out there for beginning illustrators!

If you want to illustrate as a full time occupation, it is made up of all kinds of jobs, not just some Platonic ideal job that will make your career. I know a lot of artists who routinely turn down work that is not precisely what they want to do and they suffer; eventually taking a job completely unrelated to what they want to do because that rent bill is not going to pay itself.

Giuseppe's post is the best advice I have seen in a while. Check it out!

Do What You Don’t Love

 http://www.gcastellano.com/arttips/2015/1/8/do-what-you-dont-love

My favorite quote (and I have actually told people this in the past):

"When discussing this topic with my wife, she said it better (and in fewer words) than I ever could, “It’s like saying ‘I’m holding out for Lear’.” She went on to quote, “There are no small parts, only small actors.” Exactly."

Sometimes a small job or something that seems at first glance not what you would ideally want to do may be the springboard to an amazing job.

He compares illustration to plumbing but it really is more like bricklaying to me. Sometimes you are building a small house, sometimes it is a high-rise condo but it is still built one brick at a time.

Poe Project Part Deux

Here are the rest of the illustrations I created for my Poe Project.

Poe project

For the past week I've been doing a (nearly) daily illustration of an Edgar Allen Poe short story, going in order in which they appear in an old Poe anthology I have. This is just a personal project, to get me drawing something other than editorial cartoons and commissions. The goal is to do each illustration in about 2 hours or less, so I'm not taking up too much of my time. I'm flying by the seat of my pants on each one, doing maybe one or two quick thumbnails, but usually I'm just diving in with my Wacom, pushing pixels around until I find an interesting shape, and then running with it. I probably should have started this earlier in October, but oh well. Here are the six I've drawn so far.

The Tale-Tell Heart

The Masque of the Red Death

The Cask of Amontillado

Metzengerstein

The Pit and the Pendulum

The Fall of the House of Usher

Local Illustrator Receives Writer's Residency in NM

Taos, New Mexico has been known for years as a destination that appeals to artists and writers alike.  Cincinnati based artist and illustrator Amy Bogard has been taking students to Taos as part of her Illuminated Travel Journal workshop each summer.  While there this past June, Amy applied for and was granted a residency opportunity to return to Taos next winter to work on some of her own projects outside of teaching.

It's been a life long goal of Amy's to create children's picture books for publication and this Writer-In-Residence opportunity at the historic Mabel Dodge Luhan House will afford her the time and space to focus on two book ideas she has had brewing for some time.  Amy's intrepid traveling hamster character Ginger Small has had a small but devoted fan base for some time and these weeks in Taos will help pull years of images and ideas into a solid story.

The other story features some of Amy's whimsical sheep and a small rabbit who counts them.

Amy is accepting donations to help offset the cost of the trip.  Lodging and a small stipend have been graciously offered by the folks at the Mabel Dodge House, but New Mexico is a far away place!  You can read more about Amy's plans and see more of her work at her website: www.amybogard.com 

Habitat

This is an illustration I did for a radio play called "Habitat," which will be premiering on Earbud Theater.

C is for Camello

Are there really 26 letters in the alphabet? This could take forever. (The image came through darker than it is.)

Call for illustrators

Hey guys- The Red Tree Gallery and Coffee Shop in Oakley is looking for Illustrators for an illustration show they're having in April called "Illumination." There is no entry fee but they take a commission off of sales, as expected.

The deadline and the show are in April, so hustle over to Oakley if you have some art to sell!  Here is more info:

http://www.redtreegallery.net/call/

Gabriel Utasi - Caricatures

I just finished my yearly caricature of graduating fellows from Cincinnati Sportsmedicine and Orthopoedic Center. What a fun group to paint.
Thanks for looking!
Gabe
http://gabrielutasi.com/editorial-illustration/illustration/

New Lessons

Just picked up the new FX magazine. It's as good as the last one. James Gurney is in it, again. This time with lessons from Howard Pyle. Dan Dos Santos has a great composition article, too. This image, along with the two preliminary images, are studies I finished right after reading the two features.

'Bat Rider'

I was at the Museum Centre looking through a book I purchased for use as bat reference and stumbled across a picture that made me go, '... Hmmmm, this bat needs an evil skeletal rider with a fiery mace! Yes it does! :P I made the drawing a while back, and always wanted to paint it. Tonight it just seemed the right time. Sat down, and three hours later, whapow! Bat rider. Photoshop over a drawing.

I forgot to blow the drawing up so when I shrank it down the painting would tighten up at its normal size. Sooo, this reproduces well at half its size. That's okay, though. It ends up being about 5"x6.5", which means it's nearly cover size. HOWEVER, the dimensions are closer to a magazine proportion. So, in the end, I'm calling this a glorified colour study, lol. Which it is, anyway. It was an experiment and has the little thumbnail I used to layout the final design in the bottom left corner.

Middle Sea Blog

Hey, guys. I've been out of circulation for a bit. My internet's down. I'm going to post more, starting with a project I'm doing when I have some down time. I'll post my new map, soon, too. TAG's got me working on another project for their Hellfrost setting.

Here's the link to my blog: www.middleseachronicles.blogspot.com (I can't remember how to hot link things, so unless Christina fixes this, please copy and past the link)

The purpose of this blog is to explore lots of ideas and materials and just have fun. It's a place for me to feel no pressure about art and let loose when I need to.

Enjoy, guys! See you at lunch, soon!

J.

And one image from the blog, just so there's some art up in this post :P)

Logo & Illustrations

I don't believe I shared this logo design with my Cincinnati people. I created this for an online directory of bars, clubs, and events. Click on the image to see it full size.

I'm getting more aware of my audience. Before posting this piece, I lengthened the lady's skirt.

Movie Poster

My most recent illustration job was a lot of fun to do. "One Day Summer" is a short film being released this month by Piñata Productions. The writer/director, e.E. Charlton-Trujillo, liked my poster for the film "Intangible" but wanted something rougher, younger, and filled with punk rock energy.


The key to the scribbly look of the drawing was to not ink my drawing. The black lines are scans from the original pencils. 


The fun came from the client. We met at a restaurant; she talked and I sketched, and we pushed the sketches back and forth across the table until we agreed on a composition and attitude. She trusted me to do the job, and boom - we were both happy with the results. Ideal.

'Whimsy', or, 'Come Ye Unto These Yellow Shores'

Hey, guys,

This is another illustratour piece. I'd like some critique, if you have any. I am going to stop for a minute and finish this when I hear back from some of you and my friend in Connecticut. Impressions? Likes? Dislikes?

I also included some of the sketches/studies I did for this piece.

I'm really happy with how this piece turned out. Making some changes based on the critiques of some of the awesome people from this blog, and from my best friend, Chris, and from my own observations, I was able to come up with a very unified image I can beproud of. I am really happy with the change in the cloud location. The one touching both the boat and the castle. You can see in the first images, that cloud was awkwardly tangent in several places. Just nudging it a little to the right made all the difference in the world and helped to create a convincing sense of 'space' and develops a heirarchy of shape from foreground to background. The changes I made to the ship helped it to become to centre of focus while not coming off too strong, or heavy handed. I made a change I did not post here, where I really cranked up the ship. It was a lot more complicated in design, and a bold blood red. It was very strong and hard to look at. Toning it back down and removing some of the design elements helped a great deal. I hope you guys like this. And feel free to critique away! It's not perfect and I can use the information for later pieces (this one is finished, for now).

Vectour Dragon

Here's my vectour dragon illustration :P I updated the dragon, dropping the opacity on the scales, wing bones, and knee swirl. I also reduced the stroke size on the smoke and dropped its opacity. This also did wonders! Thanks, Chuck! :)