My Kind of Town ...

Goodbye warm warm florida. Hello Chicago. The family and I are relocating! I'm taking a position as a senior product designer for the Bradford Group. I'll be near my two sisters and have a little stability again without having to deal with the ups and downs of the freelance/animation world. Not to mention have good health insurance again. I'm leaving Orlando next week! If anybody needs to buy a house, there's a mighty fine one just waiting to be bought!

battie

sketchie baby

Secret Garden Poster - my process

I submitted these 3 sketches for the Secret Garden to the client:



I was lukewarm about the first one as I'd seen several different versions of this same solution for Secret Garden book covers. However, the second two I loved b/c I was told that this particular play was going to stress the magic and the character of the book. They chose the second one which I was excited about. However, I realized that Mary was depicted far too young, so I made a new sketch in my sketchbook for the client that showed a girl of 10 instead of a 4-5 year old"

then, I localized my color choices in corel painter as a quick wash underneath the drawing:

I then approached the rest of the painting with Painter's Vine Charcoal brush, which to me emulates the actual feel of real pastels better than their pastel brush ... I work into just like I would with the real materials, but it gives me much more leeway to correct mistakes, and my hands aren't drying out and chapping like they do with the real materials.


Finally, I came to this image which I was pretty happy with. The detriment to working digitally is that I don't have an actual piece to keep and perhaps sell at a later date, but I did make some high scale prints on nice archival paper to give as a gift. I find that the clients are usually happier when I can make changes on the fly since they are digital images and I can deliver them the files instead of the actual artwork. Professionally, it always works out better, while it is more fun to get your hands dirty with real materials.

Opus

This was an interesting play about a string quartet. One of its members has disappeared and is being replaced by a young woman. Its up for a Pulitzer Prize this year. Many other productions' posters had showcased a violin, but I wanted to showcase all the questions and sexual tensions that occur between the characters through a very subtle arrangement of the necks of 2 violins, a viola and a cello (which are the instruments in a string quartet - I didn't know that b/f this) ...
I think it turned out decent enough

Shylock

I think after a year, I'm getting more and more comfortable in Painter. I haven't used Painter X yet, but I'm eager to try it. This poster was created for a one man play by Gareth Davies about the only Jewish character showcased in any shakespeare play. "Shylock" has become such a derogatory term for Jews. I was faced with the challenge of trying not to offend anyone, but still offer something that evoked the play. I enhanced a drawing from my sketchbook in Painter and I wrote out Shylock's famous monologue behind him ... "if you prick us, do we not bleed ..." I actually never knew that monologue came from Merchant of Venice, nor did I know it referred to the bigotry that Jews faced during Shakespeare's time. In all likelihood, William Shakespeare had never met a jew. They were banished from England, and almost all of Europe. The last place I think they were allowed was in Italy, where merchant of venice takes place.

a Tuna Christmas

This one was fun to do. I've never seen the play, but after a quick read of the script, it's about a fictional town in Texas where some crazy texans prepare for Christmas. Its large cast is performed by two actors, and its pretty clever. check out more on their site:
A Tuna Christmas