Tag Archive: illustration

Feb
29
2008

826 Valencia Field Trip artwork: the Day the Kids didn’t come

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For the latest 826 Valencia field trip I arrived Thursday morning and was surprised to see a group of folks from Santa Fe New Mexico who would help out with the field trip to see how it is done. That meant instead of the 5 people who usually work the field trips, there was more like 12. The group was also going to compete in a spoken word slam this weekend (which is very cool).

I set up my work area to illustrate the student’s story and help re-arrange chairs and tables and even drew a quick pirate….

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…But the kids never came. The school class canceled at the last minuet, which kind of sucked and here was 12 people with nothing to do (plus there is a year wait for another field trip date for the school, bummer) . So our leader Chad went on and explained how the event went which was hard since our publisher Mr. Blue was none too happy at the circumstances. No kids=no books to publish.

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So I did drawings while Chad had these older students through the process with a sample story that featured a female toe nail clipper made of peanut butter and her best friend a non gender specific jar of concord grape jelly. The dream of the toe nail clipper…to clip the toenails of the queen.

Here are the drawings I created.

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Feb
11
2008

Lots of Art Links

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Watercolor paintings of Warner Bros. Cartoon Characters by Scott Seeto for the Warner Bros. Store. Great stuff. LINK

Blue Sky Disney has reported the loss of movie poster artist John Alvin who is best know, to me, for the beautiful moody preview poster for Disney’s Beauty and the Beast. LINK

He also worked on: Aladdin, Pocahontas, Atlantis, Quest for Camelot, Hunchback, Lion King, Harry Potter, Hercules,  Tarzan, StarWars, etc. He did all the serious Disney movie posters vs. the happy kids posters.

Felix Lorioux’s Puss In Boots at the ASIFA Archive. Great illustrations. LINK

Charles Vess shows progress photos of a painting commission. Some amazing stuff. LINK

Dinotopia artist James Gurney has posts on doing a painting with a limited pallet. Great idea for illustration as well maybe the color of comics. LINK

A lucky lady has won to be immortalized (for a year) as a pirate in the line for Disneyland’s Pirates of the Caribbean. Check out the beautiful watercolor here. LINK

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Feb
08
2008

826 Valencia Field Trip artwork: Annie’s Gold

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Annie is a funny colored hamster who wants to mine for gold during the American Gold Rush in California. So she leaves from her home in Spain to go to California on the back of a swimming horse. She’s attacked by flying pigs before being rescued.

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This is the latest book I illustrated at the 826 Valencia writing center for their book making field trips. The kids write the story and Illustrate it in real time. It’s a blast. It challenges you to create faster and more creatively.

From the website:

This is our most popular field trip. Students are charged with the task of writing, as a group, a story, with the help of 826 volunteers. While the students decide on character and plot points, an 826 volunteer is typing the story into a computer, which is projected onto the wall. The students can track the story’s progress, and make corrections as needed. Meanwhile, the story is being illustrated by a professional artist. As the pages are finished, they’re being copied — one set for each student — and collated in our back production room. Thus, as soon as the class finishes creating the story, we’re ready to bind the books with our in-house tape bindery. The students illustrate their covers, add their photo to the back (for an About the Author page), and go home with personalized books created as a class. This field trip teaches students about collaboration, self-editing, the bookmaking process, and elements of successful storytelling. And it’s really a good time for all. Recommended for students 7–11 years old.

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Feb
07
2008

Yee-Haaw

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Jan
24
2008

826 Valencia Field Trip artwork: The adventure of the French Veggies.

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Today was the first 826 Valencia field trip of the year in which I work with a school group to illustrate a story they write as a group. Now, I won’t post the whole story like some folks have done (I am lazy I guess), but I will show you the drawings I created.

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The story is of a French, blue, carrot named Jon. He lives in a mushroom with Tom the tomato. Now Jon has a crush on the evil rotten peach who wants to take over the garden. The carrot love to play Ro Sham Bo (Rock, Scissors, Paper).

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The plotting rotten peach send our hero a gift that is the remains of his brother Jim, now a jar of carrot juice.

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The ending was written by each student and approved by our editor Mrs. Blue.

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Jan
17
2008

SDCC 07 Pirate Panda

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This piece was drawn at the San Diego Comic Con 2007 last July. It’s a sketch xeroxed onto card stalk and then colored with Watercolors. Not a perfect drawing, but that was a lot of fun to do.

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I would like to re-do this piece as a finished illustration this year.

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Nov
25
2007

Monsters and Thugs

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Here are some new illustrations I created while mellowing out after a hearty Thanksgiving Dinner. They are created with washes of goash and then scanning them into the computer and adding digital coloring.

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A imaginary rock band, the Monsters in a faux album cover. I might have to use it if I make any CD/DVD’s as gifts.

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I like the look of the drawing and I feel very good about the simple use of color too.

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I really like the vampire image, but I realize now that the upper arm is too long, but the coloring with a simple pallet that I have been using lately seems pretty successful.

What do you folks think?

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Nov
24
2007

826 Valencia Field Trip artwork: Crystal Blue

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These are some drawings I did at the 826 Valencia writing center in San Francisco CA. I volunteer to work as an artist and illustrate the work of visiting school groups in real time. Instead of my usual storybook illustrations these were storyboards drawn with preteens. I really like the mixed media approach that happened on these drawings. I would start with a quick rough blue pencil drawing and then work it up to a mixture of pen and pencil shading. The look/technique was partially inspired by the work of Ruben Procopio from his illustrations and concept art. The illustrations were bound with the script the kids wrote as a group along with their own ending.

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These are from last month, but I forgot to post them. Whoops.

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