And Now For Something Completely Different...

Last year I had the pleasure of working for Facility Management World Magazine. The brief was to create an illustration made up of 13 reasons to look forward to 2013 if you work in the facilities sector such as, award winning developments, the momentum of the Olympics and renewable energies. Each reason had to be illustrated and then group together on a (nearly) isometric platform. I had a lot of fun with a pencil working out how to group everything together into a coherent composition and by the time I had a suitable drawing the Art Director decided he wanted it to go on the cover. Smiles all around and then the thought, I hope I can pull this off!  

I powered up Adobe Illustrator on my laptop and got to work tracing out the platform, painstakingly trying to keep the perspective tight. After that it was into Photoshop to add colour on separate layers so I could adjust the colour schemes easily. I ended up with orange (above) and green (below, just in case you're colourblind).

Next came the figures which I sketched out in pencil then finished off in Photoshop and then arranged with the appropriately coloured shadows in the illustration. In the end I had four versions to show the magazine, orange, green, orange with sparkly bulbs on '2013' and green with (you guessed it) sparkly bulbs on '2013'.

In the end FM World went with the orange illustration with bulbs on and I think they made 2013 black. I now know if I get asked to do something similar again I won't have any problems.

Competition Deadlines

January seems to be a very popular month for competition deadlines. Here are a few that might be of interest:

Spectrum 20, deadline 25th Jan. For Sci-fi, Fantasy and Imaginative Realism artists

Royal Watercolour Society Competition, deadline 18th Jan. Anything type of water-based painting, the finalists are exhibited at the Bankside Gallery in London.

House Of Illustration/Folio Society Book Illustration Competition, deadline 22nd Jan. You may have seen previews of my entries for this competition to illustrate 'Brave New World' by Aldous Huxley. I wish I had known about the previous two competitions.

Art Renewal Center Salon, 21st Jan . Multiple categories and huge exposure. The finalists are a who's who of contemporary realism artists.

International Artist Magazine 'People & Figures', 16th Jan. There is a different competition every other month, finalists receive editorial exposure in the magazine.

There And Back Again

Happy New Year!

Put simply, the main reason I work in watercolour is John Howe.

Merry Christmas Everybody!

More Brave New World Progress

I have finished my second illustration for Brave New World but it's probably best not to release the completed artwork until after the competition. However to appease everybody's curiosity, below is a photo of the second illustration in progress which I took last week.

The next image is my tonal study for the final interior illustration. If you have read the book you'll know what is going on here, if you don't know - read the book!

It's time to start painting...

Spectrum 19...

And I'm in it!!!! It's such an honour to be featured in a book alongside artists like Sam Weber, Michael Whelan, Jean Baptiste Monge, James Gurney and Dan Dos Santos, I could keep going. I have a strange mixture of emotions right now but the overriding one has to be excitement.

I picked up my copy of 'the best in contemporary fantastic art' annual from the post office yesterday after I missed the initial delivery - sorry Mr & Mrs Fenner, I really do want the book.

Can you spot 'Jacques' Rest'? It's on page 264 if you happen to have a copy yourself.

HOW Magazine Cover

Out of the blue I received an email from the Art Director at HOW design after she had seen one of my blueprint illustrations on 'Pinterest.' Thank goodness for social media or else I might never have got the commission to do the next cover. Below you can see the fruits of my labour, however this time I'm not going to tell you how I turn a drawing into a blueprint because it's a trade secret!

Progress...

Here are a couple of photos just to show you what's on my drawing board at the moment.

The above image is the finished watercolour for my first entry into the Folio Society competition (see previous post)

In the last half an hour I have just prepared the paper for another Brave New World illustration. I'm experimenting with toned paper for this one, achieved with a crimson acrylic wash.

Tonal Study For Brave New World

I used to do tonal studies in charcoal but recently I've been experimenting in photoshop to get the same results, sometimes better.

First off I work up a detailed rough in pencil as normal and then scan it in. Once I have the image in Photoshop I turn up the levels and ghost the pencil layer. Ghost is a filter effect I found on flaming pear and it has been so useful over the years that I don't know how I managed without it. The Ghost filter means I can paint underneath the pencil image as if it is on a piece of tracing paper. This makes it incredibly easy to fill the image with a mid grey and then add highlights and shadows just like a charcoal drawing on toned paper and as an extra bonus the original line-work is always available on a separate layer.

 

The end result is so useful when it comes to keeping control of values on the final painting. However I can't take all the credit because I got the idea for this process after viewing this post by Dan Dos Santos.

The Alchemist

 The Alchemist

Watercolour & Gouache

31 x 24cm

Completed this morning, and I'm reasonably happy with the final product, especially the lighting. To help me along I created a very simple set with elaborate lighting (a lamp minus the shade) in my living room, put the camera on a timer, threw a blanket over my shoulders and posed inside ten seconds. Going the extra mile for reference can make a huge difference and save time in the long run because you can be confident throughout the painting process.