yet another self portrait

Did another self portrait to experiment with traditional and digital elements. I feel like I'm on to something, but I'm not quite there yet. Stay tuned for some more finished art and sketches!

Portfolio/Branding

Here's my portfolio thus far with my promotional material. I still need to make a nice holster for my business cards and post cards on the inside. Gotta thank Josh Graydon for screen printing my logo design on the front of my portfolio case.

Lord of the Flies

Always wanted to do my own version of this book cover. It's basically a graphite drawing with FW and Sumi Inks, then scanned and finished in Photoshop. Barron Storey and Sam Weber are both illustrator giants that have done amazing images for this classic book. I wanted to challenge myself and see what I could bring to the table. Enjoy! (Below are some of my ideation thumbnails for this piece.)

The Sirens of Titan

Final

Final Sketch

Thumbnail Sketches (all 10,000,000,000 not shown)


Here's my tentative final for the book "The Sirens of Titan" by Kurt Vonnegut. I also included some of the the thumbnails I scribbled down during the ideation process. The final execution is mixed media (to say the least): graphite, acrylic, acrylic gel medium, oil paint, and photoshop.

silhouette sketches

Playing around with some silhouettes to break the monotony of rendering. Stay tuned for an update of my most recent project, an illustration inspired by the Kurt Vonnegut novel "The Sirens of Titan". It will be complete with process work and final execution.

More Figures

Did these last Spring in my Advanced Figure Drawing class with Albert Epshteyn. They are both from live models and are graphite on Bristol Vellum.

Sketchbook pages

Final Attempt

Final tweaks to my book cover assignment. Graphite, acrylic, and digital.

Self Portrait

This is graphite and minor digital color on 5"x5" grey rives for practice. I think next time I'm not going to use paper with that amount of texture.

Second Attempt

Got rid of the confusing "Ghosted Face" on the left and redrew the head of the monk. Still have some more corrections to make before it's finished, but here it is as it stands right now. Graphite, acrylic paint, digital

First Attempt

Early stages of my book cover for the novel, "A Canticle for Leibowitz" by Walter M. Miller for my Senior Portfolio class. I'm sure a lot is going to change before it's finished.

Figure Drawings

Back to School Sketches

Seeing as how this is my last semester, I guess it makes this the beginning of the end of my VCU sketches.

Latin Acoustic Improv

Playing around with a variation of a Latin Song I used to know.

Brave New World

summer sketch update

First sketch offerings of the summer. Trying to keep the energy of the illustration academy up. Stay posted for more finished work and of course sketches.

Illustration Academy 2010

Here's my work from this summers illustration academy. By far one of the best experiences I've had, not just as an artist. I got to work side by side with some of my biggest heroes: Sterling Hundley, Robert Meganck, Doug Chayka, Josh George, John English, Jon Foster, Anita Kunz, C.F. Payne, Jason Manley, our interaction via the web with the Kansas City Chapter, and not to mention all the artists from around the globe that I had the privilege of working beside for 4 weeks.


^This was a 20 minute head study of fellow artist and friend Charles Valsechi, for Doug Chayka's alternative portrait assignment. It was done in oils on Strathmore 500 illustration board.

^This was Chris Payne's assignment, simply called "conversation", in which we had to come up with a scene interacting with 2 characters.

^This was for Jon Foster's young adult book cover assignment. I chose "Lullaby" from Chuck Palahniuk, in which parents are unknowingly killing their children with this nursery rhyme, that actually is an African culling song for those who are deathly ill or infirm.

^Here is Anita Kunz's assignment, Conceptual Portrait of a famous person. I did John Belushi. I wanted to show him in a light that was different from what we immediately remember him as. He was a big, wild, and volatile comedian and actor. All of the images I could find had him acting goofy or in character. I wanted to show him as he would look after his performance, when the joke isn't funny anymore. My feeling was that for someone to be that animated and in need of attention, there must be more going on under the surface.

^This one was Robert Meganck's alternative assignment: Illustrate the lyrics to the Tom Waits song "What's he building in there?". I did this with ink and acrylic and it had to be black and white (I technically used unbleach titanium white for the background so it's totally legal!).

^I did this one on my own, just taking the opportunity to play with paint and get feedback from my heroes. Just for fun. It's oil on board 10"x10".

^Again this was for fun. I did this one because the first day of the illustration academy we all saw this place right down the street and I couldn't pass on the opportunity to paint it. That's pretty much my reasoning for doing it. oil on panel 6"x6".