Wrapping up 2013

   Here are commissioned pieces from the last quarter of 2013. As you can see, I was pretty busy! It was one of my busiest Christmas seasons in the last few years, which is hopefully a sign that the Great Recession is coming to an end. I also have had several commissions already in 2014 as well which I will post at a later date.

(Click on any photo to see a larger version)

   This is the CEO of Chiquita (you know, the banana shippers) He was on the TV show Undercover Boss, and is pretty famous around the Cincinnati area. That is his wife in the background and he is also a part-owner of the Cincinnati Reds.  He was speaking at a conference and the organizers wanted to honor him with a caricature gift.  Below is a group picture of the organizers of the conference, a gift for their work of service to organize the conference.  Below that is another gift caricature for the organization president featuring his family, engaging in one of their favorite past-times, skiing in Park City, Utah.

   I had a couple of different commissions featuring boats. The color one is a digital caricature given to a retiree featuring a certain type of boat that the man made from scratch. The other is a black and white watercolor given as an anniversary gift. 

   Below are some drawing featuring more elaborate backgrounds. I often get commissions for caricatures featuring an activity, but lately I've had several featuring a certain place. It's fun to play Bob Ross and paint landscapes, even if it is with pixels and not oil paints. Even so, I still whisper to myself about highlights on happy little trees and rocks while I do it... I just don't use a palette knife or slap my digital brush back and forth on the base of my monitor.

   This drawing was a present from a group of workers to their boss for Christmas. They call themselves Jerry's Angels and wanted to be doing certain things but still look like the famous logo from the TV show. It was hard to make holding grapes and eating oatmeal look like holding guns and doing karate, but I think I pulled it off.

   This caricature commission required me to draw a family feast. He didn't want them eating it, just a family portrait caricature around the table. It was done in black and white ink. Below is another family caricature of sorts... a wedding caricature! This couple ordered a black and white plus one color watercolor caricature. It was for their wedding gift table display and as a gift to each other to commemorate the special occasion.

   These are digital portraits done in digital b/w watercolor of two sides of one couple's family-- her side on the left and his side on the right. They printed out at 16x20" and were given as Christmas presents to all of the family members. (As you can see, one couple appears in both pieces)  I also learned that the drawing on the left was even more special because the lady at the bottom had died within the year of cancer. I was touched to learn her story in a blog post by a friend of a friend which can be read here:

 http://parksrecreation.wordpress.com/2013/02/26/she-crawled/

    A black and white digital drawing done for the cover of a family album. It's always fun to draw old folks and old cars!

   This was a drawing done as a series of portraits for a philosophy textbook. On right is the photo reference I was given. I had to bring an ancient sculpture to life, including adding pupils and giving him a "nose job". This is the second commission I've done for this publisher. My third was just completed this month and I will post some drawings from that group of illustrations soon. As usual, let me know what you think!

Happy New Year! (Christmas 2009)

The last time I blogged, the work I was doing was for Christmas gifts, so I couldn't post them for fear the recipients might see their gift in advance (yeah, unlikely, but still didn't want to risk it). Work was kinda slow this year (I hear it was for just about everyone), but here is the artwork that I did in the months of November and December of '09.

This one was for the head honcho at the local CBS affiliate, WBNS-10. The client gave me pretty good reference on this one, and other than having to do some tight turns with the pen to do the logos and type so small, it was a fun one to do.

(Click for enlarged view)

Earlier in the year I did a pencil drawing of this subject (a company owner's farm house) that was used for company t-shirts for their annual picnic (held at the same place). For Christmas I was asked to recreate the drawing in watercolor to give as a gift. I rarely do realistic trees and grass (most of my "landscapes" are part of a cartoony background in a caricature!), but this was fun to do because I got to tap into my "inner-impressionist".

The hardest part of this one was doing the railings because with a watercolor, dark colors are painted around lighter ones, so if you are painting a very thing light colored thing, you have to be very careful painting around it so as not to obliterate the light color you're trying to preserve. Some artists use a masking fluid to cover over parts they don't want to accidentally paint over, but I just go with the "hold your breath and pray" method.

(Click for enlarged view)

This one is done in "ink wash" (or b/w watercolor). I've included the pencil sketch version as well to show how I first provide a detailed pencil sketch for the client and then use that sketch to do the final artwork. This one was for someone retiring to a life of yachting and golfing. Sounds good!

(Click for enlarged view)

This one was done as a gift from her to him. This scan is a bit dark and the colors a bit more bold than the actual painting, but I didn't know that until now because I just replaced my monitor yesterday and am discovering that old one was going bad quite awhile before it finally gave up the ghost two days ago. That said, orange is a tough color to work with because it is so bright and hard to create from color mixing. Fortunately I've done annual soccer team caricatures for a high school whose team colors feature orange as the main color, so I had a bottle of liquid orange watercolor paint that I bought for that project that I used for this one.

(Click for enlarged view)

That's all for now. More to come soon!
Happy New Year!
--Steve

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