Barber Shop.

Here is another little preview of a hidden picture sketch I am working on. 

Sketchbook.

As I have said before, I often sketch while in church and sometimes while watching movies at home. Occasionally these two themes collide like in the last three images here, which is kind of fun.

Ads.

Bunny Village

It's good to look through some old files every once in a while! 

I just found these scans of the Philadelphia Zoo's children's book called, Bunny Village. I have the original art but I was never able to scan them in since they were such a large size. This was the first real rush job I had ever done. It's a long story but they needed 16 illustrations completed in 7 days (basically a full children's book that a publisher would give at least 6 months to do). I remember I wanted to have a nice texture to the painting so I choose a cold press rough Arches watercolor paper to do the finishes, which is fine and good for watercolor but when it came time for inking it was very difficult. The inking pens quickly wore down and after each page I had to soak my hand/arm in hot water since it hurt so much. Thankfully I was completed in 6 days but the downside was that I dreamt about bunnies for about a month.

I wish the scans were larger but I'll take what I can get.

Zoo Signs.

These are some signs I did the illustrations for at the Philadelphia Zoo back in 2001. The last time I checked they were still up in the Rare Mammal House. I miss working for the Zoo, I did a lot of fun stuff with them. It always challenged me as an artist and I always had something to learn. I thought I had lost these files but they thankfully resurfaced. 

Dressing up.

Here's another part of a sketch I recently finished for Highlights Hidden Pictures. It's pretty hard to make clothes look like they don't fit.

Corner Store.

I'm currently working on a bunch of Hidden Pictures for Highlights. I don't want to show the full sketches until they're approved, but here's a piece of one. 

I've never drawn a Deli before so this was a lot of fun. Growing up in the city we had what we called, "corner stores," which were stores at the end of the block that had all the essentials, including all the typical Deli stuff. I wasted a lot of money in those, I remember stupidly spending a rare two dollar bill to buy a couple of water ices for my friends and I.

I finally replaced that two dollar bill. I found one in Israel of all places, in the valley of the Dead Sea, next to Masada.

Gifts.

Here are some illustrations I did for some friends of mine over the years. The descriptions are above the images.

This was done for a friend's wedding. Joe is a big fan of DC Comics and he introduced me to comics many years ago.

My friend Ramsie always joked that the only man she would ever marry was, well, just read the end.

As a wedding gift to my friend Michael I created his wedding cake topper which had a motorized back that I had made out of an old clock.

Sometimes I get requests. Dianna and Paul asked me to do a caricature of their entire wedding party so they could give it out as a gift.

This one was done for Jeff's birthday I think. At the time he was a security guard at a Movie Theater, so my secret caption for this one was, "Step away from the butter! You're using entirely too much!" Because what the heck is a movie security guard securing?

Tracie asked me to make this for her birthday. She didn't know what she wanted exactly, just a drawing of herself, so I made her rollerblading, since she often did so in the church parking lot on Sunday afternoons.

I honestly can't remember if this was done as a birthday gift for Rich Kirk or his daughter Brittany. I did the Monsters, Inc. parody simply because Brittany laughed just like the character Boo.

I still take requests by the way.

Seek and Find Finishes

I have finally finished these seek and finds for the Maiden Creek Watershed Association. These will be used to educate children on conservation and the environment. As I said before, these were harder than the Hidden Pictures I do for Highlights simply because I had to hide specific objects and illustrate specific flora and fawna as well having a cross section of the creek included in the illustrations. I also had to design the look of the page as well "extract" the hidden objects, something I am not entirely used to.

Philadelphia Christmas Card.

Last card, I promise. I meant to put this up sooner, but I got swamped with other stuff.

Back in 1995 my good friend Ramsie and I entered a contest for the city of Philadelphia's official Christmas Card. Students from all of the art schools in the Philadelphia area entered and Ramsie and I were chosen. We both developed the concept of using the Love statue but I have to be honest and tell you that Ramsie did most of the work. She did the bottom half since she was very good at drawing "small" people and I did the top half because I was more familiar with the buildings of the city. The funny part is that we never meant for this to be the finished art but Mayor Rendell (now the Governor of Pennsylvania) was so pleased with it that they ran with it as is. The print house that was sponsoring the contest (CR Waldmen) loved the card because they got to show off their new 5 color press since we had used Doc Marten's dyes which contain some fluorescents (they run into the fifth color area). Although you can't see it, they also put a UV coating over the Love statue which gave it a glossy look adding to the beauty of the card.

Unfortunately, Ramsie moved to Texas before she had the opportunity to meet the Mayor and have some promotional photos taken so I went alone. Below is one of those photos. Not everyone can say that they got be the Mayor for 52 seconds...