My Favorite Children's Books 1

Recently, I've thought about children's books that I had vague memories of. I couldn't remember the titles, authors, or illustrators. The only thing I could remember were certain illustrations that stuck with me these 30 plus years (give or take). These illustrations had made an impression on me as a kid and probably were a gateway into my interests in artwork and other things.

I challenged myself to try to hunt these books down and identify them. Remember, I was only going on vague memories of illustrations. That's it. No names or titles. My first step was to go to the public library I frequented as a kid. I went through their entire Easy-Reader and Juvenile sections. I didn't find any of the books but I did come across one book that featured illustrations of a similar style to one of the books I was searching for. I took down the illustrators name and did a search online and came up with the following book.

One Monster After Another by Mercer Mayer

As a kid I was interested in anything that involved monsters. That's still true today. Below are some of the images that have stayed in my mind all of these years.

Check out these pages that feature a Lovecraftian horror.This image is from the stuff of nightmares. I love it!

Grad Caricature 4

This is the final graduate caricature. It was also my most difficult to complete. I really struggled pinning down the likeness while trying to achieve some sort of exaggeration. In order to create a successful caricature I really need to experience a person's attitude and personality. This girl was always subdued in my presence but I knew well enough that she was quite fun-loving and mischievous around her friends outside of the classroom. That left me drawing solely from photo reference, which bore no fruit. After days and many sketches later I came up with the above drawing to my joy. I think that I balanced the likeness with exaggeration pretty well. When I finished the image it felt like I just gave birth.

Grad Caricature 3

Here's the third caricature I did of our school's 2010 graduates. After I finished this one I realized that it kind of looks like Tracy Morgan.

Grad Caricature 2

Here's the second graduate I drew using pencil and Photoshop.

Grad Caricature 1

The senior class asked me to create caricatures of them for the graduation day program that was handed out for the ceremony. Here's the first one I did using pencil and Photoshop.

Crayon X-Men Caricatures

I know the end of the school year is upon me when I start doing caricatures of students. I don't start projects during the last week of classes because we probably won't finish them. So, as a form of classroom management I will pick a student in class and draw a fast caricature. The three knuckleheads in the image are from a class I refer to as the "Sweat Hogs." I've drawn these three many times before because they have faces and personalities that lend themselves to exaggerated caricature. The boy represented as Wolverine has recently become obsessed with the X-Men so I decided to represent these three as such. All three caricatures are on an 11"x17" copy paper. They were penciled and colored with some crappy crayons. All finished in a 45 minute period. From left to right: Nightcrawler, Beast, Wolverine.

Deer Under Stars 3 - Final

Here's the final composition for the deer illustration. Hopefully, they'll figure out where to go out to eat.

Deer Under Stars 2

Here is the final inked image.

Deer Under Stars 1

Here is a sketch of three deer getting together to plan the night's events. This sketch is for a new book illustration.

The Hangover - Zach Galifianakis

The Hangover - Ed Helms

Martin Luther King Jr. Day

Here's the work of my students.

Dr. Martin Luther King Exemplar

Here is an exemplar I made for a lesson on Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. that I will be doing with on of my elementary classes. His birthday is coming up.

Nutcracker Suite

Here's the finished image colored with Photoshop.

Nutcracker black & white

This is a simple illustration of a nutcracker done with pencil, brush, and ink on paper. This was done as a visual aid for a project I'm doing with some of my classes.

British Bulldog

Bassett Hound

Cocker Spaniel

Here's a black & white cocker spaniel I made as part of a teacher exemplar for a portrait painting lesson that I'm doing with one of my elementary classes. More dogs to come!

Cardboard Train

One of the teachers at my school came to me with a request for a visual aid of a train she needed for a presentation. I didn't get much more of a description than that. I had a couple of free periods that day so I got an old stock image illustration of a train for reference and hacked this out quick. It's black tempera paint on about 3'x5' cardboard. It took me about 30 minutes and I have to say it felt good. Almost like relieving yourself.

Where the Wild Things Are Toilet Paper Rolls

These are exemplars I made for a lesson I will do with one of my classes in the future. The idea for this came from one of the great craft blogs that I follow. Check it out.Max is a cardboard tube from a toilet paper roll while the monster is a cardboard tube from a roll of wrapping paper. Both are painted with acrylics. Think about that next time you use toilet paper!

Royal Pain 2

Here are a couple of tighter head shots. I like a more sallow pallor. He shouldn't look too healthy. I think that I'm going to go into a slightly different direction with the coat. I inadvertently found out through my research that the coat I'm trying to make for Royal Pain is actually considered a "pimp coat."

Royal Pain I

The following is one of a few characters I've been obsessing over and fleshing out. These characters are a comic book villains that are inspired by actual friends of mine, who shall remain nameless.

You may notice the atrocious digital coloring. I've recently borrowed a small WACOM tablet from my friend Andy. I've always wanted to try one of these things. As you can see I'm just trying to get the hang of it.

So without further adieu I give you the Royal Pain.

River Otter Final

Put a fork in this one 'cause it's done, man. Notice the expression change on the otter in the 2nd panel. He need to look more optimistic and hopeful.

UFO Sighting 7

OMG! We've finally come to a concensus and I'm actually happy with it. Here is the final version.

UFO Sighting 5&6

The author preferred to see all the individual trees. Luckily, my experimentation with the cloning tool saved me a lot of time with that major change. I still am not happy with the decision to not have the mountainside in stark silhouette. So I proposed meeting the author half way. I kept the spotlight on the action but halved the opacity of the black mountainside. Now you can see the trees and you still get the sense of nighttime.

Non-shaded mountainside.
Shaded mountainside.

UFO Sighting 4

I've redesigned the "cigar shaped" U.F.O. I kind of like this version better. Also, I really like the stark black quality of the mountainside. Oh! Check out the happy accident I had experimenting with Photoshop brushes trying to create a light reflection on the water.

Adirondack U.F.O. Sighting 3

Apparently, the '73 Olds was exited the area from a different direction according to the author. It did not cross the bridge. In actuality it's a pedestrian bridge. Note the tiny Photoshopped car in lower right of the image.

Adirondack U.F.O. Sighting 2

The blank mountain side will be filled in black with Photoshop. I think it'll look more stark and striking rather than overload the details of drawing each individual tree. The author's description doesn't specify where the '73 Olds sedan is supposed to be. I only know that the driver was trying to flee the area. I think it looks kind of nice coming towards the viewer. Plus, it's a nice view of the car.

Bear Scare 7: You Choose

Which one is better?

Version 1.Version 2.

Adirondack U.F.O. Sighting 1

Here are some sketches of a "cigar shaped" UFO. I did these at another staff meeting at work. Love those staff meetings.

Bear Scare 6 Final

I fooled around with Photoshop to get the tonal pattern sky and I had to redraw the 1st hunter's head because his dialogue would not work with him looking directly at the bear (see ealier Bear Scare posts to understand what I'm talking about).

Thanks, Easter Bunny!

Here are three Easter Bunnies that I made as an exemplar for an art lesson I'm doing with one of my classes. These are made from Sculpey and painted with acrylics. They started out as Easter eggs with individualized bunny faces. I tried going for the extreme. Happy Easter!

Interlude

I think that it's officially Spring. This image captured at my girlfriend's house.

Bear Scare 5

Black bear.

Bear Scare 4

Sketch inverted in Photoshop.Inked.

Bear Scare 3

Bear Scare 2

Bear Scare 1

To the left is the concept sketch I was given by the author of the book I'm doing these illustrations for. I thought that it'd be interesting to see that and compare it to the final image.



Here's the pencil version of the uprooted tree. I stuck to my original concept but ironed out a few things with a some Google Image searching.

Uprooted Tree

Here's a sketch I did on the back of a handout I received at our teacher inservice day today. The meeting was boring but I was kind of amazed I could do the sketch below from imagination.