Island Hopper

Here's another pulp inspired illustration. No big story behind it other I like adventure related illustrations.

Santa and Friends

Here's a nice illustration in a different style showing Santa getting some special help. Again, using Painter.

Twisted Triple Self Portrait

My world outlook was pretty much altered when I started reading Mad in the 70's. And I fell in love with Norman Rockwell's work very early in my life. Even before art school, I had a nice library of Rockwell art books. Not sure the other kids were jealous but, they should have been. Here I combined the two into one of Rockwell's famous pieces: Triple Self Portrait

Colorful Fish

I was in a tropical fish thing for a while and came up with some nice art. Probably easier to illustration them then take care of the real things.

Toucan

I created this in the winter of 2010 when it was 15 below. All I wanted was green and warmth.

Nice profile in the Shakopee Vally News

I had a very nice profile in the Shakopee Valley News this week with a shorter version on line (http://shakopeenews.com/view/full_story/15650187/article-Illustrator-creates-in-the-digital-world-?). The article highlights my history in art and that I'm strictly a digital illustrator and features Deep Friends, which won 1st prize in a juried show this summer. It was fun to be interviewed but, it's very odd to read about yourself. Not sure how Brad Pitt does it.

The article also highlights the Scott County Art Crawl (http://www.scottcountyartcrawl.org/) which is taking place Sept. 30th and Oct. 1st. I'll be on the second floor of the Shakopee library offering about 17 new pieces and if I can get it printed on time, Horrible Horribles, which I illustrated a few years back. It's being produced by Createspace.com.

Orange Horizen

This photo was taken just down the block from my house after a large storm passed just west of town at sun down. Turned out nice.

Here's Deep Friends on display in the Savage MN City Hall. I want to thank Lisa who works in the office area for taking the shot for me.

Deep Friends

I was honored with a First Place finish in a juried art show help by The Savage Art Counsel on June 12th.

The piece I entered is called Deep Friends and as was created in Corel Painter.

The talent in this area is a amazing. The quality and creativity of the other entries is a delight to see. This a yearly event and if you are in the area and you love great art, you should make plans to attend.

And if you're out and about, please stop at the Savage Art Studios. Again, some wonderful artist rent space there and the art displayed is breath taking. http://www.savageartstudios.com/

This started out as a practice piece about Martian space ships attacking this ship but, I thought it would be a cool illustration of a 'freshly' sunken destroyer. I'm not sure I've ever seen an illustration like this before. That's oil floating on the surface, I might go back and make it darker or something. It's not really working for me.

Shakopee in fog-2011

There was a heavy fog in Shakopee last Saturday morning. Visibility was about an 8th of a mile and it was half an hour after sun rise. Perfect time to take pictures. I grabbed the only functioning camera I own (a reconditioned Kodak point and shoot) and ran down to Huber Park that's next to the Minnesota River and a 3 minute walk from my house. The annual spring flood was underway so, there was plenty of water to help my compositions. In my younger days, I spent most of my time taking shots from behind a manual Minolta SLR but, as money grew tight, I had to cut back on my photography. Processing rolls of film was lower on the list that included rent, gas and food... Still have that Minolta and I still take it out and work it once in a while. I look at all the dents and scratches on it's body and remember the great times I had with it. Alaska, Duluth, Split Rock, Florida and Death Valley where I lost a lens cap. I started to back track hoping to find it but, my buddy said, "Ya' know Franklin, this place is called DEATH Valley for a reason. If you're going to keep looking, give me the keys to the car". That camera took a beating but it never let me down. It's one of my most prized processions.

An example of a the old quick-drawing-with-as-few-colors-as-possible trick. Took about 15 minutes not including research on what bunnys looked like. That, took an hour.

Steven Colbert

I'm a big fan of Steven Colbert and he had an art contest to see who could take his portrait and use it as a base for a new piece. I never heard back but, I think it rocks. Again in Painter.

A Painter note: I bought Painter 11 recently for $139 and it's not worth it. At least with Adobe products, you normally get something in return. Corel Painter actually came with LESS functionality. It did improve/add a couple of pencil tools but, where's the rotate art on a layer that Photoshop has? I could go on but, I won't. next time I update, it'll be for Painter 13, then only after I read more reviews.

Taggy Ann

Another Painter piece. It's an illustration of the B-24 'Taggy Anne' on the raid on the Ploiesti Romania oil fields in 1943. The raid was a mess from the start and it went down hill from there. Here's the Wiki page on it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Tidal_Wave

I enjoyed this because I was able to have fun with the shadows and reflections. There's been many works of art based on the raid but, none from this angle and it has a very personal feel to it.

Turtle

This is a portfolio filler created in Painter and Photoshop. I wanted to play around with water and reflections. The pebbles were created in Painter by making a new brush for the Image Hole which with randomly distribute shapes made in painter. I made a bunch of gray, brown and black 'pebbles' and went to town.