Poseidon Illustration

This was another one in a series of 3 images. Mercury, Poseidon, and Atlas. Done for Overnite shipping through Wilson West Livesay Advertising. This one was also done with Acrylic, Airbrush, and Colored Pencil.

2013 Biltmore Estate Annual Ornament

This was a rendering of an 2013 annual ornament concept for the Biltmore Estate. It initially started out as a pencil sketching on vellum and then I brought it into the computer and completed the rendering in photoshop. This rendering process has evolved over 13 years and continues to be refined. The challenge is always to give the closest impression to the final product, whatever the material may be. If you happen to be visiting or staying on the grounds, this ornament as well as the current years annual ornament can be purchased in their gift shops. They also can be purchased online at shop.biltmore.com.

Hubbell Lighting Inc. Architectural Line Illustrations

During the Pencil Pushers days, we would tackle some projects together. In this case, Pep Freeman and I worked on a large grouping of lighting illustrations for Hubbell Lighting Inc. This is a cover from a brochure folder that showed a collage of a few of the illustrations. At first we established a sort of assembly line process. Pep would start the pencil line drawings and I would add forming color with airbrush acrylic paints. We both worked on refining the illustrations with colored pencil, brushed acrylic paints, custom rub on transfers and additional airbrushing if needed. Challenges included pre-mixing paints that would match the across all products, maintaining a similar style, and time frame. This series also led to some additional work involving lighting products.

Richmond Braves Multi Game Ticket Stub Illustration

I found this digging around for some printed samples of my earlier illustration work. This was another quick baseball illustration I knocked out for the 1996 Richmond Braves through Taylor Weirup Marketing. They had worked up the concept and I finalized it. It was another small size piece in order to make make sure that I didn't spend too much time getting caught up in the details. Acrylic, Colored Pencil, and Airbrush.

This was another rough illustration concept for a White House Ornament. It was done with a combination of traditional and digital illustration. Certain liberties were taken for the sake of creating an image that would work within a specific form. Decor was based upon a lot  of historic research. The fake mat framing was purely for presentation purposes. These type of roughs are enjoyable to work on. Even more so if and when they go to final. Even in digital illustration, the process can take quite a time. The ability to go tweak, move and adjust perpetually is one of the biggest advantages of working in the computer. 

Executive Education June 1998 Cover Illustration

This was an illustration for a cover done in May of 1998 for a June Issue. Straightfoward airbrush, colored pencil, and acrylic. I can guarantee that this was pretty much done on a cold press illustration board, frisket and a huge cloud of acrylic from airbrush in the studio.

Club Commons Wyndham Pocket Watch Illustration

This illustration was done sometime in the late 90's. I am not positive who this was through, but I believe it was Taylor Weirup Marketing. The only portion I did was the illustration of the pocket watch. It's use in a marketing brochure is also shown above. Going through my earlier work I often come across examples of the tools that were primarily used during that time. For instance, the pocket watch was primarily done in pencil. The face of the watch was a custom rub on transfer. I also remember the dread of using a bone burnisher to transfer this using enough pressure to transfer the art while not denting the illustration underneath. Then came the moment of pulling back the transfer carrier and hoping that small pieces did not stick or edges did not rip or tear. Still at that time, it was our go to method for adding typographic or logo elements to our illustrations. I used this same method for adding logos to bowling balls for the Dragon Bowling Ball and Warhawk Bowling Ball poster illustrations.

George Washington's Fan Chair Ornament

This is one of the first packaging illustrations and packaging layouts I did for Design Masters. The ornament was a 24kt Gold Finish representation of George Washington's Fan Chair. This started out on vellum. For George and the chair I used ink. Coloring was all done in the computer. This was around the very early 2000s and I remember being amazed at construction of the ornament. At that point I had no knowledge of how to make one of these. Making these type of ornaments present their own set of challenges but really shine when done right.

White House · Warren Harding and Laddie Boy

This was a rough digital illustration concept for one of the ornament designs we submitted. Partially sketched in pieces, scanned in, and digitally finished. If it had been chosen it would have been worked on to completion. Still at this stage, it had begun to take a on a nice feeling and I was starting to map out how I was going to finalize it.

Discovering The West • The Expedition Of Lewis And Clark

Thanks to the blog posts, I was contacted about a previous piece being used for an educational book cover. I took the opportunity to update the picture digitally for this purpose. I added a different hat and a better version of the pistol. I have only had a few pieces be repurposed but it is always interesting to see how they are used differently. Additionally, it was fun to get the book delivery months after I had forgotten about it. My sons were the most excited though. 

The books can be picked up at Capstone Publishing and Barnes And Noble.

Hampton Jazz Fest Poster

At one point I was called about doing a poster for the Hampton Jazz Fest. At first I was super excited about doing the piece. I was going to be illustrating several jazz greats on one piece. Then reality set in. Keep in mind this was during the days when you couldn't just punch up Google and find 500 pictures of the coliseum at night. For one, I had never been there and the art director sent me a black and white xerox of the place during the day. I wasn't extremely happy with it, but then a change came in. We had to replace the previous trumpeter with Chet Atkins. I can't really remember the reasoning, but it had to be done. Again, no problem current day, but this was paint on board. I ended up taking the top layer of a Strathmore Illustration board and illustrating Chet Atkins' face. I then cut it out and placed it on the painting. Well enough to fix it for reproduction purposes. Years later after I started working on the computer, I decided to pull it in and rough up how I thought it should have been. Of course, then I was able to find reference online. That made a huge difference. The original piece is on the top and the reworked piece is on the bottom. Even now, I still have mixed feelings about it and have the urge to keep tinkering with it.

College Work - Jazz Musician - Gouache Technique

This was a piece done during College. Using the gouache pick off technique and colored pencil. The image was from some photos taken during a jazz performance that one of my friends did at the 6th marketplace. This was prior to them tearing it down and revamping that area. Sounded great and it was a really good opportunity to get some great reference shots.

From the Sketch Book - Mermaid Vignette 1

This was another sketch of a Mermaid concept. I was mainly trying to capture my thoughts on types and scene locations for the stories. Time to sketch them was usually during long movies at PBS, and usually when the idea struck, I had no real drawing pencils. In this case, I used the blue ink pen from the log book that we used to take signal readings from the Charlottesville Tower.

From the Sketch Book - Merman

Around the late 90s I was really into this idea of a book based around Mermaids and Merman. Sort of a underwater culture that mimicked our own. I started to sketch different vignettes and types while working at PBS. The sketch book filled up with about 7 or 8 vignettes while I was there.This was a Silver Tip Shark Merman concept.

From the Sketch Book - New Style - Girl

This was around the same time as the Sugar Ray Robinson Sketch. Just wanted to try another picture in that style. I think when I started this style, I was thinking of diagrams and technical drawings for typography or icons. This was pencil this time. Fun to do and it was therapeutic drawing all the circles and angles.

From the Sketch Book - Sugar Ray Robinson

During my stint with PBS working Master Control, I had a lot of time in between movies and shows. I would sketch every now and then. This was also after a time where I was feeling burned out on illustration as a career. At this point, I felt like maybe if I developed a new style I would get that passion back. This was one of my sketch book attempts to develop a new style. I chose to use a picture of Sugar Ray Robinson. All I had on my was a black colored pencil, pencil and the blue ink pen from the log book. I found this picture in a envelope full of pages that I ripped from my sketch book. They were squirreled away for future possible final paintings. The top piece was the whole sketch. The bottom is a close up detail section.

AMF Wind Surfer Illustration from Poster Concept

This was another vignette from the AMF poster piece I had worked on. It went along with the archer that I previously showed. I show this piece, because it is one of those things that I learned from. It serves as a constant reminder to flesh out ideas before tackling them in final form. Also that small rough thumbnails do not necessarily translate to large final formats. The red triangle in the corner is what was supposed to be a part of the AMF symbol. While in my head and on a small thumbnail form, the idea seemed great, it really did not translate well at larger size. Not to mention the amount of work I inadvertently carved out for myself by creating all these vignettes. I don't think it ever made it to print and frankly I am glad.

Bullets Cowboy Drive Thru Concept Illustration

During our down time in the freelance days of Pencil Pushers, we would try to come up with pieces that we could drum up work with. This was right around the time of the burger joint, "Bullets" opening and being kind of big. I wanted to do a tie in with this guy going through the drive-thru. I got this far and was side tracked with actual work. By the time I got back to it, I wasn't to much in to the idea anymore. The piece remains unfinished and lacks enough board to finish it traditionally. Was done with Payne's Grey and White Acrylic. White and Black Colored pencil for some detailing.

Detective Recorded Books Cover

Another Recorded Books Cover found in my old Portfolio. I cannot remember the series that I worked on. Only that the Detective's initials are B B. I do not remember too much about this one, except for that with this one, I was trying to work in reverse. I made everything really dark and started working the highlights out with colored pencil. Some quick airbrushing and it was done.

SMA Annual Scientific Assembly Pop Up Illustration

Testing out sending from my phone using the Blogger app. I was hired by Wilson West Livesay to produce the Jazz musician.This was pretty early on in my freelance days. All airbrush and colored pencil. The previous jazz trombonist illustration in my portfolio was what helped me get this job. Will post the actual flat piece when I track it down and scan it in. The distortion and lighting in the picture make it harder to see. It was cool to see this piece when it first got made.