I was saddened to learn of former First Lady Nancy Reagan’s passing yesterday. President Ronald Reagan and Nancy graced the White House with an elegance and charm during their stay in the 1980s. Unlike any United States president in my lifetime did I ever see so many Democrats and Republicans working together and seeming to enjoy each other’s company as much.
I never did meet Mrs. Reagan, but was pleased on one occasion to have met her husband, though he was in the early stages of his Alzheimer’s. Even in that moment well past his presidency, Mr. Reagan cut an imposing figure in person, and had my earned respect for the public office he once held.
The following is a drawing I did a few years ago for President Reagan’s 100th birthday (which you can read by clicking here). I tweaked it a little last night, and felt in light of Mrs. Reagan’s passing (whom I had never drawn), I would post this piece once again of her husband in her honor.
Welcome to the final step-by-step explanation of the Abigail & John Adams illustration that appears in this month’s issue of Clubhouse Magazine. Today we will look at the last digital methods to add some color to the art and to age it a bit.
First, I start with the traditionally painted image, and scan it into Photoshop. The rest of the steps are all completed in that program. Hopefully you have a decent working knowledge of Photoshop for the rest of what you will read to make sense to you. If not, then just enjoy the visual progression!
So we begin where we left off yesterday with the completely traditionally created ink-washed art.I begin in Photoshop by creating a layer and dropping in a brown color with the paint bucket across the whole image, making sure the layer is set to Overlay. This tints the whole picture, then I adjust the opacity percentage to suit my taste.I don’t want the tint to affect most other areas where color will go, so I erased the brown from over most of our happy couple.I begin to lay in colors now on the windows, the hearts on the letters, and the stamps. Each set of colors is on their own Overlay or Multiply layers so opacities can be adjusted independently.Abigail Adams gets some color with many layers (10), each set for Overlay or Multiply, whichever looked better. Both those settings allow the original art to come through the color in different ways.John Adams joins Abby in the land of color. You can see I even gave a bit of a purple tint to his dark jacket.Now some aging techniques come into play. I have a set of splatter brushes in Photoshop. I used several of them on 11 layers, manipulating each in different ways to make it look like this “photograph” has been affected by the 240 years or so it has been passed down through history. You can see the spots on the wall, windows, characters, borders – everywhere!In this image, I painted in a bit of a dark shadow around the edge of the image area. Helps to look older, and maybe the result of John’s camera having a flash on it.And last, using some plug-in filters, I was able to put in some surface scratches, and some fold marks to complete the aging process!
So, there you go! Now you can go and make your own presidential selfie! Thanks for following along in this little exercise. Hope you are off creating great things on your own!
Yesterday I began sharing with you the preliminary steps in coming up with the composition and overall drawing for the John & Abigail Adams illustration published this month in Clubhouse Magazine. Today I will share with you the next step in the process in which the traditional art supplies come out of the drawer to breathe some life into this piece.
Once the art director was pleased with the drawing, as was I, it was time to do the final art. I printed out my line-art drawing (without all the tones in it) onto a thin Layout Bond paper (I use the Strathmore brand). Then using homemade graphite paper under the print out, I traced the drawing onto thick watercolor paper.
Homemade graphite paper made by rubbing a woodless pencil onto one side of tracing paper.Taping down the layout bond paper with the drawing, I put the graphite paper face down on the watercolor paper, then trace the art with a pencil. It leaves a decent graphite image on the watercolor paper that you can continue to tweak with pencil & eraser if needed.
I use the watercolor block paper that either Strathmore or Arches makes. Arches is better (I have more control over my paint on it), but it also is waaaaay more expensive. If you are a newbie, try the cheaper Strathmore first. The block paper is nice because it is a thick pad glued together on the edges like a block (thus the name). This means if you paint very wet, the paper can’t curl up and warp. When it is all dried, you peel the top sheet off the pad and you have a nice flat painting.
This is a pad of watercolor block paper made by Arches. You can see how the sides are glued together.
Using a watercolor technique, I painted the whole piece with black ink. Yep, black ink. I used a non-waterproof ink, and mixed four shades of black by taking little plastic condiment cups, putting a few drops of ink into each, and then adding various amounts of water. This process takes a bit of time to finesse because each cup needs to be slightly darker than the last one. I actually paint with 5 shades, but #5 is the black ink right out of the bottle. I use non-waterproof ink because it is malleable. You can still work it with water after it dries. I tend to not touch it after it dries completely, but even while it is still slightly wet, I can push it around, or add more to it and it blends in nicely together.
I use Higgins Non-waterproof Drawing Ink for pieces like this, mixing various watered down levels of ink in 1 oz condiment cups.
If you are not accustomed to working with watercolors, do note that this process is not as easy as it sounds. I’ve been doing this for years, and there’s a lot to be said about the experience of trial and error of manipulating paint that I couldn’t possibly put into words. You just have to practice.
When the painting process is done, I put some finishing touches on it with gray colored pencils, and maybe some white highlights with white gouache paint and white colored pencils. Unfortunately, I don’t have a picture of this piece before the pencils were put on it, but trust me, it tightens up the piece a LOT when the pencils are added.
Here’s a close-up of the finished art. I love having the texture of the paper in there to emphasize that it is handmade art, and it helps give a nostalgic look to nostalgic subject matter.
So, now you can see the finished traditional piece of art that physically is sitting in my studio right now. It is just a black ink washed painting with some colored pencil lines added for good measure. It doesn’t quite look like the final illustration I posted two days ago, does it?
Here’s the final piece of traditional art. The ink is black, the paper is white. It still will go through another few digital steps before it is complete, such as adding a sepia tone to it, and other colors and effects.
Come back tomorrow when I will show you the final digital steps I used to add some color and to make this resemble something from the past!
That’s a pretty austere title, isn’t it? The Making of a President. While I don’t fancy myself a political puppeteer making it possible for certain people to take possession of the Oval Office, I do, from time-to-time, make images of presidents. Today I wish to share with you the methods used to make the illustration of John and Abigail Adams that I posted here yesterday.
First, this started with an idea from Jenny Dillon, the art director of Clubhouse Magazine. She needed an illustration of the Adams family (not the creepy one) in a presidential home looking like they were in love with lots of love letters strewn about them. Specifically, she asked that I make it look like they were taking a selfie as I had done once before with Abraham Lincoln.
The first thing I needed to do was a little research into what John and Abigail looked like when he was the President of the United States. As best as I could decipher, these are what they looked like from old art made of them back in the day.
Paintings (no cameras back then, kids) of seasoned versions of Abigail & John Adams.
As I always do, I worked out my initial rough sketch of the shmoopy-faced couple digitally on my Cintique monitor. That is a special computer screen that allows me to draw with an electronic pen (a stylus) right onto the screen. For this, I used the Photoshop program.
This is my first rough of an elderly Abigail & John Adams still in love after a lifetime of love letters.
First sketches are just that – a first pass. It is the first time artist and art director can see what the possibilities are with the concept. This means there is time for refinement. When I was a young illustrator first starting out, I HATED drawing things more than once. It was a by-product of youthful impatience. I always felt my first drawing was genius. I was stupid. Being able to go back and work on poses, expressions – even the environment – not only gives you a chance to improve the scene technically with a better drawing, but it also gives you reason to think more about the image and perhaps come up with more ideas to make it better.
Upon reflection, the first sketch made our happy couple look like old geezers. This was primarily an article about love between a courting couple in a kid’s magazine. So, I took a second stab at it making Abigail look younger, again based on old art created of her.
Here is my second take on the happy couple, but while Abigail looks like a blushing schoolgirl, John Adams looks like an old creeper by comparison. Another version is in order.
Guess what? Now Abby looks young and cute, but in the arms of a creepy old man! Yikes! Even though John was nine years older than Abigail, there was no reason he should look like the age of her grandfather. So, one more pass should do the trick.
By the way, the brown tones and pink I threw in there were just to make it easier to see what is going on in the art since there is so much detail. It doesn’t necessarily mean that will be the final color scheme. You can see I left it out of the last sketch below since by this time all parties involved just needed to see little tweaks to the drawing.
Old art of a young Abigail Smith and John Adams.Ah, now Abigail & John Adams look a bit more relatable to each other. This love stuff is HARD!
To make John Adams appear younger, I gave him a little more hair on top (perhaps even more than his young portrait showed), darkened his hair, and gave his face more angular features – less rounded. This one was a keeper!
Tomorrow I will show you the next steps using traditional art methods (real paint & paper believe it or not!) in creating the illustration.
Today, when many thoughts are turned to love, I wanted to share with you a lovey-dovey illustration I created for a children’s magazine.
Clubhouse Magazine, a publication for kids put out by Focus on the Family, hired me last year to illustrate a story they were running in their 2016 February issue about the love between our second United States President John Adams and his wife Abigail Adams. Before he was president, John Adams was a lawyer who courted Miss Abigail Smith, and a big part of their courtship involved written letters. Even their life as a married couple spending time apart from each other in the tumultuous early days of our country included written love letters.
Click on the image above to read the actual magazine article that this illustrates.
Yes, John Adams is taking a selfie with Abigail surrounded by all their inscribed mush. To some of you, this image may cause you to reflect on a piece I did for President’s Day two years ago of Abraham & Mary Lincoln. (CLICK HERE to see the image in question.) I had sent that out as a greeting card, and the fine folks at Clubhouse Magazine remembered that image when this assignment came up. I was very happy to add to my portfolio of presidential selfies by creating this early American Polaroid just for them!
This is the cover of the February 2016 issue of “Clubhouse Magazine” in which my illustration appears. Click on the image to see about subscribing to the magazine, and maybe if you ask politely, they might make this issue available to you.
So, remember, the written word can be a powerful thing, especially when written by hand. I wrote a card that led to a job. John Adams wrote a young lady that led to a wife. Write your loved one a special note today to let them know what you really think of them. Who knows, maybe it will lead you to become president, too!
Come back tomorrow, and I’ll show you a little step-by-step of the creation of this piece!
With an interest in Star Wars recently being reawakened (pun intended), some of us never actually fell asleep in the first place. Today I thought I’d share with you a set of wooden Star Wars nesting dolls, otherwise known as matryoshkas, that I painted while floating down a lazy Russian waterway two years ago.
The Skywalker family in happier times.
In 2014, I was seeing the sights in Russia for about sixteen days by way of a river cruise ship. From Moscow to St. Petersburg and everything in-between, we sailed the rivers, lakes, & canals of that beautiful country.
On one travel day up on the social deck, the tour guides explained to us the art of matryoshkas. They had many amazing examples of ornately painted dolls, and in our travels we even saw strange ones like a set of Vladimir Putin dolls, Bart Simpson dolls, Winnie the Pooh, and in a little out of the way village I saw a set with the San Antonio Spurs players on them. (I am suspicious that none of those were officially licensed products.)
Our entertainment director gave us a little set of unpainted wooden dolls along with paints that we could use to decorate them ourselves. Each doll had a design of a matronly Russian woman etched into it with a wood burner, so all of us were painting the same basic design. Colors and embellishments were up to us.
Front and back of my old lady nesting doll.
After having painted my old Russian woman first, I was looking at the overall shape and thought, “Hmm, this looks like Darth Vader.” I mentioned my funny observation to one of the tour guides who went off and found another set that didn’t have the etching burned into it too deeply. So I took it to my cabin and proceeded to work on it in secret. I say “secret,” because they announced that this was to be a competition among the passengers to see who painted the best matryoshka.
Something the other passengers didn’t know was that I was also working on a painting in my cabin for an art show when I returned to Los Angeles (CLICK HERE to read about that). This means I had some decent paints and brushes with me that were a tad bit better than the craft store kiddie supplies that came with the dolls, and I wasn’t afraid to use them.
These were all the entries in the nesting doll competition.
Later, the dolls entered in the contest were put on display for all to vote on. It was funny, but to walk past the array, you could hear some of the ladies commenting on the Star Wars entry, “Oh, that’s not fair. She didn’t paint them like the design!” I was now a “she” because I guess they didn’t notice any men painting during the group session.
See, Luke would have never kissed Leia if it hadn’t been for ‘ol Darthy boy hiding in the shadows using the Force on them while chuckling to himself.
Well, when the awards ceremony took place a couple of nights later after dinner, all were waiting with baited breath to see who the winner was. I must admit, I was a bit on the edge of my seat, too. They called out a third place, a second place, and then………the Skywalker family did not win first place. However, my old lady matryoshka did!!
I only won a mug, but it was my sweet cup of victory!
When one packs for a trip, especially a trip with lots of time sitting in airports, one would be remiss to not include a sketchbook. On my latest travels, I ended up spending the most time at my own Los Angeles airport awaiting my flight. I picked out a nice comfy seat facing the airport corridor, and waited for some interesting people to pass my way. They did not disappoint. Yep, these were real people I saw rushing to and fro on whatever journeys they were about to take.
Beware of the guy sitting there staring at you with a black book in his lap.
I recently spent some time on the east coast of the United States, and was terribly disappointed that not a hint of snow was to be had anywhere in my travels. I returned to California this past week, and of course, the snow fell upon the ground I had tread just a few days before. Sigh.
With the hopes of snow dancing in my head, I sketched this bleak midwinter scene on the back of an envelope I sent to a friend who is situated in a very cold, white place where the winters seem endless. Perhaps that was mean of me. I should have shared some of my sunshine instead.
Apparently the back of an envelope is the only place where snow exists for this California cartoonist.
