Merry Christmas!

Wishing you and yours a Merry and joyful Christmas and a peaceful, prosperous New Year!

My contribution to "Hats Off!"

My wife, the lovely and gracious Janice, works at a local museum; "The Works, Ohio Center for History, Art & Technology." It's essentially a children's museum that has much in the way of interactive science activities, a fully functioning glass studio, art classes and celebrates local Ohio history as well. They also have a small galley where the works of local artists are featured. Several of our friends take advantage of the facilities and the many year round events to educate and entertain their kids. As a non-profit organization they rely on fundraising for their operations and this year they are having their black tie event "Hats Off! 2012" on September 22nd. Please check out their website: The Works for more information about them and the event. There are several items and packages donated to the event by local business and artisans for auction. This one is mine. It was inspired by the vintage illustrations of artist Vernon Grant (the guy who created the characters of Snap, Crackle and Pop for Kellogg's back in 1933) but with my own twist. The Museum building itself used to house a factory that built steam engines in 1861. The Works logo features gears and Newark Ohio has a storied manufacturing history so the idea of a kid with overalls, work gloves and a giant sledge hammer just sort of competed the picture for me! I confess my mind works in strange ways but I'm really happy with the result and I hope the event guests will like it too. The illustration was drawn by hand and painted digitally with a combination of Photoshop CS6, Painter 12 and Art Rage Pro. It measures 16 x 20 and will be printed on canvas with archival inks.

Reverend Janice

Done on my iPad at a church meeting of the unsuspecting pastor. :)

Jeff K.

Jeff K had a red day!

iPad sketch done with Sketchbook Pro.

Old stuff.

These are some sketches that I did for Hasbro a couple of years back for a project that I don't even remember what it was! I ran across these things when I was going through some drawing piles and I always liked the way they felt probably because I got to play a lot with the design aspects.
I seem to do a bunch of stuff that never sees the light of day!
Well, as long as the checks don't bounce......

Busytown Stuff.

A few days ago my friend, and former boss at Disney, Vince posted a piece of Busytown Halloween artwork that I helped work on for AAA. With his kind permission I am posting a few of the other Busytown pieces that I have worked on for Vince.
I remember these characters from when I was in elementary school. It's a complete joy to draw them now in my adulthood!

Fox

Littlest Pet Shop style exploration done for Hasbro with a bit of a Japanese spin.
Inking was done in Adobe Illustrator with coloring and paper texture done in Photoshop.

Christmas time is here...

Another year has almost come and gone. But this year I actually got the Christmas card done and out on time, fancy that! This years card drew a little bit of inspiration from "How the Grinch Stole Christmas." But instead of the Grinch flying the sleigh we have two young elves, who look remarkably like my kids, piloting the carriage with their trusty, overachieving dachshund steed leading the charge. Although looking at this now I can't be sure if the elves are helping deliver presents or whether they're coming home with they're holiday haul!

As always, from our family to yours; may you have a blessed Christmas and a Happy and prosperous New Year!