IF: pioneer

An American legend.

IF: undone

The grass in the back has been uncut for weeks. My weekend chores remain undone... Its a good thing it is cold and the grass is mostly dormant... But in the middle of the patches of grey green and brown are rings of rich green grass and growing around the edge of the rings are mushrooms. They take a week or two to go from golfball shape to full umbrella shape... Big, white and tall.

IF: Hatch

What will hatch from the mysterious egg?

IF: crunchy

The season calls!

Santa would be zipping by so fast - time to taste a crunchy morsel... and zoom!

IF: entangled

Hard to resist the cliche!

IF: music

Busy Busy week... As much as I would like to post a finished looking illustration - I am finding it hard to make the time... This is a idea/comp for a page in nursery rhyme book. The art will never be used in the actual book - not even the layout... I liked the idea that Old King Cole could be a modern Grandpa leading his Grandchildren in a musical parade.

Halloween Party - Bones

The short comic/book here is an experiment with sequential panels and text treatment. The idea is to present a short story with a high interest subject and a moderately limited and targeted vocabulary (late first or early second grade). The targeted vocabulary is the letter/sound of "ea" The ee! in eek!

The story should be something that takes a reader only a few minutes - practicing the letter sound as they go. The comic format is a great way to present more interesting visuals and story telling that hopefully would keep a child focused and willing to work thru the words.

This format is targeted towards boys (especially) struggling with reading in the early grades... and addresses some of the problems boys have with focusing attention on a reading task, finding something of interest in the reading task and reading to understand - to be drawn into a little story enough to want to work thru the text. The short exclamatory sentences are closer to something a boy (or girl) might be willing to act out (read fluently) and not be embarrassed over.

The story takes one of the characters from here: Parade. The character is all alone here... Other stories will focus on interaction with other characters. More to come.

rhino in the door - some details

The process of posting here tends to degrade the images quite a bit.

The image above is a detail of the full size version of the rhino in door image from the previous post. The image was done entirely in Studio Artist. The image below is a color comp done originally to get an idea for composition and variety of colors. The final is considerably more dramatic in coloring. I hadn't intended to get so dramatic - but the results are interesting

IF: unbalanced

What was behind the door caused his usual cool to become unbalanced.

IF: blur

A fuzzy, blurry sort of image.

A color comp for a book illustration.

skinny big

The big version - closer to actual size.

IF: skinny

Web pages are not so good for long skinny images.

A closer to actual size version is here: link

This was a study done for this book: link

The medium was Studio Artist 3.4 or so... then. Retouched with V4(beta)

IF: Fast

The Abominable has to work fast to cover his tracks!

IF: flying

This was made as a poster for the book Froggies At Sea:

About three frog brothers misadventures...

It all got really going when a dragonfly went flying by!

If you click on the cover image on that link page you get a lot of pages - leading up to a climactic "make-or-break" moment!

This image is getting a little ancient - but still good.

Digital art never fades... Tho it might blink out entirely - one day!

The image was created in Studio Artist 2.5 or something... and Photoshop.

I was happy with the natural media like look.

IF: germs

Germs are everywhere!!

The Little Engine - pencil sketch

This fast draft was done after several previous explorational sketches. To my horror - I seemed to have internalized the images I saw of "The Little Engine..." - while researching the book online.

My first roughs - which were either action line scrawls or attempts to figure out the mechanical

shapes of a steam engine, looked a lot like covers you can see in a Google image search

of the book. On the bright side - I guess that indicates I am a quick study;)

The Little Engine

This is a final draft - comp for a book cover - created for the company I work for. The story, "The Little Engine That Could" is a classic and a fun subject to illustrate. This version will not see the light of day as is. The image was created entirely in Adobe Flash from a quick rough pencil sketch (The Little Engine - pencil sketch). The idea was to give the Engine a cute, bright, happy look - atypical of previous versions - but give it a clean, cartoony solidity.

IF: pattern

All it took was a little ingenuity to change the pattern of his life.

IF: infinite

Seemed like Grandpa had an infinite amount of lines in his face.

IF: welcome

"Welcome" always strikes me as part of a bigger picture, a slightly longer sentence: "Welcome home!".

The image I picked for "welcome" - is from a book that didn't happen. This is a couple of pages - Grandparents welcoming there grandkids to a day at the farm.

IF: Strong

Strong can cover such a broad range... Its hard to pick an idea that pins it down... So I am going to add several interpretations. The top one being the first that came to mind.

A big strong gorilla

Created with Studio Artist

Anansi the spider - strong in wits and back.

pencil and digital watercolor with SA

A strong hand - but a gentle touch

Created with Studio Artist

IF: Magnify

The water really did seem to magnify things in the tide pool!

Be sure to check into the Studio Artist Blog

http://studioartist.blogspot.com/

Craig Deeley's Hand Drawn Media Presets

IF: caution

The sky. The water. The air...

All were telling him to use caution.

IF: wrapped

I couldn't resist the coming season and mummy wrapped themes!

IF: impatience

This is actually from a Flash page done in 2000 as the very first placeholder image for my web page home: www.i-toons.com.

It fits the theme for this week.

The center panel animated a bit in the original.

IF: modify

Suddenly they all had to modify their definition of cool!

IF: idle

Nanas Chihuahua dog was anything but idle! Most of the time.

IF: tango

Are lifts illegal?

IF: hollow

Is an octopuses head really hollow?

IF: worn

If he had only worn shoes!!!

IF: Drifting

IF: unfold

When I was about five - I used to imagine that if I could get a giant paper airplane up into one of the big pine trees out in front of the house... I could climb in, push off and fly out of that tree and all around the field out front the way my paper airplanes would fly. That was the way events unfolded in my imagination.

IF: Craving

Sometimes you do crave a little quiet time!

IF: adapt

I started out wanting to create an image that shows -tongue in cheek- how artists have had to adapt to new tools (if the same audience)

That idea was to be a split screen with a cave artist having fun and then (me) in front of a monitor holding a digital pen... But I only got as far as the cave artist - and decided that would be enough.

Then it occurred to me that plants really adapt themselves to the strangest places - always looking for light. Much better! Not so much of a reach! Or I should say a more natural reach;)

Both images created with TabletDraw(sketch) and Studio Artist for the final look.

IF: cracked

"Why?"

IF: Contagious

I tried a little reversal of the theme of Rhinoceros - a play by Eugène Ionesco... Also a fun movie - I borrowed the actors from the movie... sort of.

Created with TabletDraw and Studio Artist

IF: Parade

A Parade on Halloween.

The character designs are my daughters.

Created with Expression3

IF: Hierarchy

Hierarchy of Monster evolution.

Starting from The Blob and going counter clock wise... The tree is not really a monster... but you cant have a creep show without a gnarled tree. ; )

This is another experiment with digital tools trying to create a look that has a little of the wild and loose of pen/ink and watercolor.

Created with TabletDraw and Studio Artist (finish)

IF: Impossibility

This was for last Xmas.

The Impossibility is pretty clear; )

This was done with Studio Artist

IF: Fleeting

"It's astounding 
Time is fleeting..."

- Riff-Raff

The lyrics came to mind - first thing. I could not resist.

TabletDraw and Studio Artist

IF: Talisman

The Doctor carried several powerful talismans!

After seeing a Little Rascals classic comedy short about the Wildman of Borneo...

My son asked me to draw a sketch of him. Add a few items and there it is.

Studio Artist for the final art.

Illustration Friday: Poise

"When they entered, they found hanging upon the wall a splendid portrait of their master as they had last seen him, in all the wonder of his exquisite youth and beauty. Lying on the floor was a dead man, in evening dress, with a knife in his heart. He was withered, wrinkled, and loathsome of visage. It was not till they had examined the rings that they recognized who it was."

-The Picture of Dorian Gray

Made with TabletDraw (rough sketch) , Studio Artist(art), Preview(final tint pass)

Its a sort of morbid subject - but I always imagined the original picture of Dorian Grey as the epitome of poise.

Color for IF: Subtract

The original color version for fun.

Illustration Friday: Subtract

The "Take Away" had happened again.

Studio Artist, Photoshop and Preview all served to make the fun woodcut look!