General

Arts on Foot
Saturday, September 16
Rain or Shine
11:00am – 5:00pm
FREE

Arts on Foot will take place in various locations in the downtown area between 4th and 14th streets, NW and Pennsylvania Avenue and L Street, NW

Metro: Metro Center, Federal Triangle, Gallery Pl-Chinatown, Archives-Navy Mem’l-Penn Quarter, Judiciary Sq, or Mt. Vernon Sq/7th St-Convention Center

Use the Gallery Pl-Chinatown Metro stop for the Art Market and Outdoor Festival Site located on F Street, NW between 7th and 9th streets and 8th Street, NW between E and F streets

Come join the fun at Arts on Foot 2006, the 14th annual celebration of the arts in Downtown’s Penn Quarter!

It’s been over a month since I’ve posted here. Several things are going on.
The agent I’ve been working with has kept me busy with several assignments.
Here are a few illustrations from the last project. I was really happy with
the way these kids turned out. I did 12 finished illustrations over the
Labor Day weekend. Fun eh?

These were done a bit differently than a few of my recent posts. The
sketches were done on plain paper and scanned in. After getting approval I
changed the opacity level to 10% in the layers menu and printed it out on
smooth Bristol using my trusty Epson Pixma 1500. This time I used just
gouache for the bulk of the work. Followed up with some fine detail work
using a terra cotta and then black verithin colored pencil. Finally I went
though with white for the highlights.

One of the differences with these illustrations is that I used a very light tone throughout and it made a big difference. My illustrations tend to get dark at times so it’s nice to make some progress. I look forwardto applying it in my fine arts as well.

This is for a project earlier in the month called “Squid attack” All the cool kids are doing squids attacking whales so if you haven’t done yours get on the stick.

From Wired Magazine. Good news for all of us that are over 29 and still plugging away.

link

“What he has found is that genius – whether in art or architecture or even business – is not the sole province of 17-year-old Picassos and 22-year-old Andreessens. Instead, it comes in two very different forms, embodied by two very different types of people. “Conceptual innovators,” as Galenson calls them, make bold, dramatic leaps in their disciplines. They do their breakthrough work when they are young. Think Edvard Munch, Herman Melville, and Orson Welles. They make the rest of us feel like also-rans. Then there’s a second character type, someone who’s just as significant but trudging by comparison. Galenson calls this group “experimental innovators.” Geniuses like Auguste Rodin, Mark Twain, and Alfred Hitchcock proceed by a lifetime of trial and error and thus do their important work much later in their careers. Galenson maintains that this duality – conceptualists are from Mars, experimentalists are from Venus – is the core of the creative process. And it applies to virtually every field of intellectual endeavor, from painters and poets to economists.”

Are Genius and Madness Related? Contemporary Answers to an Ancient Question

Link

“The idea that creativity and psychopathology are somehow linked goes way back to antiquity–to the time of Aristotle. Centuries later, this belief was developed and expanded by various psychiatrists, psychoanalysts and psychologists. For instance, Cesare Lombroso, M.D., argued toward the end of the 19th century that genius and madness were closely connected manifestations of an underlying degenerative neurological disorder. To be sure, this idea has not gone without challenge. On the contrary, humanistic psychologists were inclined to associate creativity with mental health. Nevertheless, the prevailing view appears to be that psychopathology and creativity are positively associated.”

I’m fine, really.

There was a time I worked almost exclusively in graphite; something about the simplicity appealed to me. While I’ve taken it up again in my fine arts, black and white illustration jobs haven’t come my way in while. This one is for Cicada magazine, which is Cricket for older kids. The story is set in the forest, but there is no specific time or place.

It’s a strange story. The boy is an awful hunter and fisherman and a supposed drain on his tribe. The Almighty Spirit of the Forest seems to think it’s his job to take him out. He finds an old she-bear, possesses her body and mind, and sets out to kill the young warrior.

This is the original sketch. The editors liked it, but the boy’s proportions are a little odd and his neck ornament is too big for a warrior who has not yet proven himself.

Here is the final for the first illustration. The boy’s proportions are in check, and the neckwear is appropriate for someone lacking that killer instinct.

Back to the story… Unfortunately for the Spirit of the Forest, the she-bear he picked—out of all the bears in the woods—is half blind and has a bad paw, among other ailments. So, the young boy warrior kills the old she-bear and becomes a man-warrior. Of course the Spirit guy is almighty and removes himself from the bear as she ascends into bear heaven. Ooops, sorry! Cut and run.

Finished art. The only changes were the kid’s legs needed to be more sprawled out and to make sure the bear was in the water.

The moral of the story is that, if you are weak and can’t hunt or fish, you should be killed by a possessed bear.

The drawings were done using a mechanical pencil with 2H lead on 11″ x 14″ smooth bristol. I used a blending stick to soften it up and an ebony pencil for the darker areas.