Family Affairs

Last week I took a break from the sketch covers to finish up some projects for my family.

My brother Robert and his wife Stacia have a hive on their property that produces really delicious honey. These are logos I designed for when their budding bee business takes off.

(They live in Tehachapi, CA- hence the pun.)

Also, my Dad's 73rd Birthday is coming up in a few days, so I've taken a favorite photograph of ours and converted it into a pencil sketch.

I'm seriously considering adding a Portrait category to my website, because I tend to do a lot of these simple graphite photo-to-sketch portraits. Gathering them all up is going to be rather time consuming, unfortunately, because almost all of those were created to be gifts.

UPCOMING ART SHOWS:

Collingswood's Second Saturday on August 14th has been cancelled, due to scheduling conflicts with a craft fair of some kind. However, I'm hoping to be in Collingswood, NJ on September 10th. Updates as they become available.

Spinning The Widow's Web

I'm VERY excited about this image! Much more so than the first, although I plan on finishing that one too. I've done a basic value study and have been playing around with the background to figure out what direction to go into. I like the bottom three thumbnails the best, but I'm not completely tied to either one of them just yet.

Scarlett Johansson, pt. 2

An update on the Scarlett/Black Widow image I've been working on:

I've been tweaking the face and working on getting it reattached to the

rest of her body. I haven't transferred it to the sketch cover yet, so here's hoping that the details don't change all that much when I copy it over.

I've also started laying out an image for another Black Widow sketch cover.

Although it's also based off of a reference photo of Miss Johansson, I'm not going to worry about capturing her likeness this time around. I just enjoy the pose she's in. Here's a preview of that one before I get to work on it.

The Trouble with Likeness

I'm finally back from California and I'm getting back into the swing of things with a portrait of Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow.

And I'm discovering that capturing the undefinable Johansson-ness of her face is incredibly difficult. I've drawn her face over and over and

only a few have turned out even remotely successful.

Now I have dozens of images of lovely women who look nothing like Scarlett Johansson...

...and a handful of sloppy looking heads that somehow resemble Ms. Johansson far more than the more carefully modeled sketches do.

Picking out the minute differences is careful and tedious work. For example, here's one face in particular that I like very much, but which looks like someone else. And here's the reference picture I'm working from.

Some careful observations and a little more shading improves things slightly, but it still isn't quite there.

A little bit more work gets us closer, but I'm still not sure it's really recognizable as Scarlett. Try as I might, the lips still need work.

I want to make sure that someone how doesn't know who it's supposed

to be can look at it and recognize it without being told. I'll post updated sketches as the project progresses.

Elektra Evolution

The black & white version of the Elektra pin-up was ready in time for Wizard World, but I didn't have a chance to render it in color until now. Here's a look at steps it took to finish this piece:

Starting with the inked version, I transferred the image onto colored paper. I prefer to use Canson Mi-Teintes and Prismacolor pencils. I start by putting on some of the most extreme highlights and lowlights. This early in the game, I need to be careful to keep my pencil work light, so I can map out the important shapes without really committing to anything.

After the values have been mapped out lightly, I can go in and pull out some of the highlights. At this point I'll usually revisit my reference photos and use them to figure out where the brightest lights and darkest darks are located.

Now that I've pushed the values on the figure just about as far as they'll go, I use photoshop to figure out what I should do with the background. After I've found something that looks good with the foreground, it's just a few more minutes of colored pencil work and it's ready to sign!

2nd Annual Gloucester City Art Festival

This year's Gloucester City show was a wonderful success!

Tom and I sat out in the sun all day (and got rather burnt), but it was worth it! In addition to making a very encouraging amount of sales, I found out about two upcoming art shows and a gallery opportunity.

I really enjoy selling my work at community art shows like this one, so I'm going to make it a more regular event. I've been looking into the Harvest Festival in Barrington, as well as the Manayunk Arts Festival- so keep your eyes peeled if you live in either of those areas, because I may be making an appearance there in the future! Updates as they become available.

Comic Book Pin-ups

In order to make my booth more enticing to the comic crowd, I churned out a few last minute super heroine pin-ups before the show. I plan on making color versions of both of them eventually.

I didn't found out that I was going to have my own table at Wizard World until the last minute, but I am still quite pleased with how they came out. I'm hoping these two lovely ladies will be the first of many.

Another pre-convention project was the Julie Newmar portrait.

I'd heard that she was going to be one of Wizard's special guests, so I made sure to turn out a headshot of her to sell at the show. Some friends of Julie's who were traveling with her came by the booth and were really excited about it. I'd wanted to give her the original at the end of the day, but unfortunately,

she had to leave early and

I missed her. I will simply

have to wait until the

next time Ms. Newmar

comes around.

Finally, I used Wizard World as an excuse to cash in on an idea I've had for sometime now. I've got five words for all you Joss Wheaton fans out there:

Felicia Day Adult Novelty Cards

I won't hide the fact that I have a HUGE girl crush on Felicia Day and since a good handful of my friends feel the same way about her, I figured it was time to give the world what they wanted. To receive Miss Felicia Day as a present, sent by a thoughtful friend, through the mail.

But since actually sending that package is rife with legal and medical complications (there's nothing more worse than receiving a Box-o-Felicia that has gone bad, damaged in transit by careless postal workers) sending one of your Felicia-loving-friends one of these adult novelty cards is a much better option for all parties involved.

By the way, if you're interested in prints of any of these images,

all of the items I've described here are also available for sale on Etsy.

CORRECTION: After receiving a Cease & Desist letter from Felicia Day's lawyers, I will no longer be selling the Adult Greeting cards.