First Date with Danger

I was asked to contribute a 10" x 10" piece for a charity art auction next month, and this is what I came up with. I've been looking through John Canemaker's beautiful book "The Art And Flair of Mary Blair" lately, and taking a lot of inspiration from her color schemes and techniques, so that's what was going through my head as I colored up this one.

If you're in Pittsburgh, please consider buying a ticket for Future Tenant's "Sugar Factory" fundraiser at Bakery Square. It's a great cause, and you can bid on my artwork and lots of other (I assume) great pieces as well.

In the works

I don't usually post much process stuff, but I thought I'd change that today. Here are a couple rejected sketches I submitted for an illustration I'm currently working on. The article is about mystery authors here in Pittsburgh, and the client wanted a "film noir" feel.

I'm not exactly sure what the protocol is about posting works-in-progress, so I'll hold off on showing you the approved sketch until the final illustration runs. Personally, I'm still really sold on the bottom sketch--so much so that I might ink and color it up anyway, just for my own use. We'll see!

Giraffe

This is barely a thing: just a silly little giraffe I drew in my sketchbook and decided to scan and color for fun. I'm always concerned that my color sense tends to be a little too conservative so I wanted to really push the colors here and shoot for something more whimsical. Not a bad effort, I guess!

Leprechaun

Happy St. Patrick's day, everyone!

Illustration Ale

Last year, local brewery East End Brewing teamed up with the Toonseum to create a new beer called "Illustration Ale," and six different artists were selected to design a label for it. I was one of them, and here's what my label looked like: