This year the National Cartoonists Society is having their annual Reuben Awards convention weekend in good ol’ Memphis, Tennessee. As part of the festivities, members were asked to create some Memphis-themed art that could be used for several purposes:
Decorations on the tables during the awards dinner.
Art to be used by a Memphis travel bureau to help promote the attractions of the city.
The choice was obvious – since Memphis is the home of Elvis (which is all I really knew it for, having never been to the city in my life), I chose to illustrate the Memphis Zoo with a slight nod to Elvis, of course. I present to you The King of the Beasts.
King of the Beasts
While this is not quite a velvet Elvis painting, it is a real painting nonetheless. I procrastinated a little in creating it, but ultimately decided it’s now or never. To ease your suspicious mind, I broke out my long-unused gouache paints, some of which needed a little reconstitution with the aid of some Kentucky rain. Basically the paints needed a little less conversation, a little more action. The only part created digitally are the words, so there is a nice painting there for one lucky bidder TONIGHT! Sales are final in benefit of the sick kids – bidders can’t return to sender.
Yes, that last paragraph was a little corny, but please don’t be cruel with your comments.
Today I thought I would use my abilities to indulge my secondary interest in filmmaking, which is film music. I enjoy film music so much that there is a whole category for it here on the ol’ blog.
I saw Disney’s new version of The Jungle Book on its opening weekend three weeks ago and was completely mesmerized. It has to be a pretty tough gig to take a beloved Disney animated feature, and create a new version of it that is live action, er, animated as well. Director Jon Favreau did a fantastic job of making something old new again not only with the story, but with the eye-popping visuals.
Aiding the visuals in a huge way was the music by veteran composer John Debney. The original Jungle Book was charming in large part because of the music that aided the storytellers. John skillfully wrote a beautiful jungle score of his own that immediately captures your attention, and then audibly gives the audience a nostalgic thrill by weaving in some of the well-loved songs from the original movie. It was enchanting.
It struck me that this was the fourth feature film collaboration between director and composer. Jon Favreau and John Debney first worked together on 2003’s Elf (a personal favorite Christmas movie), 2005’s Zathura, Iron Man 2 in 2010, and now The Jungle Book. Each outing has proven that they make beautiful music together.
I was so enamored with their latest collaboration that I felt compelled to get it down on paper. Ironically, I celebrate their digital masterpiece by using the traditional art tools of watercolor, gouache, and colored pencils. May I present to you, The Two Jons/Johns:
Jon Favreau as King Louie dancing in the jungle with frequent musical collaborator John Debney as Baloo.
I for one can’t wait to see what their next project together will yield, but you can be sure it will be a swingin’ good time!
Oh, by the way, this is the second time I have illustrated John Debney. The first time was when he worked on one of Jon Favreau’s earlier films Iron Man 2. If you’d like to see that painting, CLICK HERE!
Today is the British monarch’s 90th birthday. She is longest reigning monarch in Great Britain’s history, and the first sovereign to reach the age of 90. I wish her all the happiness one can possibly have with a life as public as her own.
Her Royal Highness
Believe it or not, I do happen to have my own Queen Elizabeth story. A few years back I was working on a TV show for Disney called My Friends Tigger & Pooh. It was a CG (computer generated) series that ran for two seasons on the Disney Channel, and became notorious for eliminating Christopher Robin and replacing him with a little girl named Darby (voiced by a very young Chloë Moretz).
As we were preparing the first season to air, we were told that an aide to Queen Elizabeth had called the head of the Disney Channel to voice an opinion on behalf of the queen. “Queen Elizabeth understands that the new Winnie the Pooh series does not include Christopher Robin. The Queen is not amused.” Apparently Queen Elizabeth had a certain fondness for Pooh Bear because, like the queen, he had also been born in 1926 when his first book was published. Queen Elizabeth and Pooh grew up together.
So, due to that phone call, we included Christopher Robin in just a couple of episodes to appease her royal highness.
So sorry to have learned today of the passing of Doris Roberts over the weekend. I had, on several occasions, been able to chat with her just while out and about in town, and she was always patient and gracious. And to watch her work…what a privilege! I attended many tapings of Everybody Loves Raymond and no one could deliver a line with an icy stare that brought the house down like she could. (In fact, she once did bring the house down literally when she ran a car through the wall of the set for one of the episodes!)
I wrote about Doris here on my blog just last year (CLICK HERE to see that post) after I was able to share with her this painting I had done of the cast back in 2005 – a parody of Norman Rockwell’s Freedom From Want painting. She loved it, just like anyone’s grandmother would have.
“Everybody Loves Raymond” in watercolor based on Norman Rockwell’s “Freedom From Want” painting.
With images of bunnies being in all the stores these days, and half price now (Easter – what are you going to do?), I thought I’d share with you a bunny painting created in collaboration with a couple of young artists.
A couple of years ago I visited my brother and his family at their home in the midwest. It was just around Mother’s Day, which also happens to be the week of my mother’s birthday. I got my head together with my nephews Cameron and Marshall, and we set out to make a birthday/Mother’s Day card for my mom/their grandmom. The idea was to draw ourselves like rabbits since they are a good symbol of spring.
Behold the magnificence of our collaborative masterpiece…
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!
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!
