Holiday art

Backgrounds for some holiday cards done for unvelope.com in the same technique as the leaves 2 posts ago.  Sorry about the gigantic watermarks smack across the middle... I'm required either to do that, or make it so that the images can't be saved. Does anyone know if blogger can do that?

Happy holidays!

Cast drawing finale

A short break from unvelope posting (but not linking!). Saturday was my final cast drawing class, sadly. I still can't quite believe I spent 6 weeks on this ear... and it's "finished," but I could easily have put two more weeks of work into it at least.  I got the overall picture but I never got the hang of shading as smoothly as some of the other students.

As skeptical as I was about it at first, the coolest thing I learned was to avoid falling for optical illusions by giving everything a pre-determined value based on what direction the plane is facing, rather than based on how the cast looks. It seems weird while you're doing it but it all comes together in the end.

It was a great and very different experience, compared to most of my drawing training (especially figure drawing) that has emphasized speed.  I really wish I could fit more things like this into my life.  If I had unlimited time I would definitely take their core program (once again, it's the Grand Central Academy of Art). At least, I'm hoping for a cast for Christmas so I can continue on my own, in a variety of media.

Nicholas Hiltner was my instructor, by the way.  Pretty amazing work!

A whole lotta leaves

This was one of my first forays into digital illustration early on in my time with unvelope.com.  The first one of these sort of happened by accident while I was trying to achieve a specific look based on something that had inspired my creative director, and simultaneously trying to become better friends with Photoshop.  It ended up being a hit with the rest of the team, and I've since done a whole bunch of them.  It's a really simple technique, and I was pleased to find that I could crank them out really quickly.

A few people have asked me about prints. I can't distribute any prints of images watermarked "unvelope," but I have been told that prints will be made available through the unvelope site in the not too distant future.  I would, however, be DELIGHTED to do custom commissions of any subject in any style you see that you like.  Email me if you would like more info about that. In the meantime, you can send these unvelope images to all of your friends in the form of e-cards!

Unvelope watercolors, part 2

A few more watercolors I did for new e-card site unvelope.com (go there!)

Watercolors, part 1

Here are a few watercolors I did over the past year and a half for unvelope.com (which is a totally awesome brand new e-card website that you should definitely check out.)

Leaving room for text smack in the middle of my paintings (like in the one above) took some getting used to, especially because what I initially thought was enough room often wasn't.

More to come!

What I've been doing for the past year and a half

Looking through this thing, it's pretty evident that I've had a depressing lack of blog-worthy work in my life since my 2008 Christmas card.  Well, with great relief, I can finally discuss the reason for that.

Two years ago, I was hired to do illustration work for startup ecard company unvelope.com. Since then, what I initially suspected might be a short freelance gig became an all-consuming project (or, as one might call it, an actual job). They put me through Flash training, and after taking some time to acquaint myself with working as a designer/animator as opposed to just an illustrator, I started making cards somewhere around March/April 2009. And I haven't stopped. If someone asked me after I got home from the Illustration Academy what I saw myself doing, this wouldn't have been my answer... but I'm glad it worked out this way.  Overall, it has been a really good experience, and I'm working with some truly wonderful people.

It's been a tremendous challenge in a lot of ways.  I think the hardest thing was I basically had to re-train my brain to work completely differently than I ever had before, and the hardest part of that was probably having to think in terms of movement and the flow of time in addition to composition. Also, I've been the only illustrator working for the company thus far, so I've had to bounce between lots of different styles, and get more comfortable working digitally.  While all that was frustrating at times, I found that I liked a lot of the new things I had to do, and I'm eager to try some different things in my personal work (if I ever have time to do any again).

I'm going to have to break this up, or it would be the longest post ever. I guess a good place to start would be the site design:

Anyway, please check it out! We're a very small team and we worked very hard to get it up and running. All the illustration is done by me, and I also had a hand in everything visual. Tell all your friends and relatives who like ecards. The site is still brand new (just launched this week), so if you run into any bugs or have any suggestions, please let us know!

Lots more to come.  Thanks for looking!