The Way I Work

I have just returned from a brief trip to NYC. While there I met up with friends from Ringling and the Academy to hit up the James Jean show! It was fantastic to say the least. It was soooo much more than I expected. His use of color, value, layering, edges, etc. really blew me away. I am still looking at the Toymaker in my mind. In person it glows with life.
I also hit up The Met for the first time. We only had time to see one section so the majority of us chose the American Painting wing. You can not beat "Madame X". The Degas were amazing (as expected) as well as the Vuillard's. I am still mulling over the so many "light bulb" moments that occurred at The Met and Jean show.
Feeling rejuvenated, I will make the post I promised to make oo so long ago.
This is a brief look at how I start my process of image making. There is a lot more that goes into the final but these are the ones I take to get to that point.

To start, I usually pull out my sketchbook to get the juices flowing. Most of the time the drawings have nothing to do with the project at hand. It is just a way for me to loosen up. Throughout the whole process I do this. It keeps me from getting bored with an image.





After reading over the manuscript multiple times, I do some research, looking up facts, places, reference, words, while doing thumbnails along the way. My thumbs are just glimpses of ideas not meant to be understood by anyone but me. A rough value plan is worked out as well in the thumbnail stage. This tends to save me a lot of time.

After I feel I have three strong ideas I shoot reference for each. Most people do not do this (I think). The reason I do is because the ideas that I end up picking are ones that I want to bring to finish. So even if the AD only picks one I will most likely complete the other two. (In this case I only had to shoot reference for one image. The other two involved landscapes and wildlife, which you will see.)

From the reference I do rough drawings on tracing paper then scan them in to PS and compile them into a composition.

Once a composition is to a point that I like, a more detailed value plan is laid out. These are the sketches that I send to the AD for review.

Hopefully the AD likes an idea and sends me to final. Sometimes revisions are needed though. In this case the AD preferred two of them.
From this point on the steps I take can vary. It all depends on the type of finish that is wanted. If it is a pen&ink or monotype, I will jump right into the final with out further work on the drawing. These two process are more of an intuitive thing for me so to do any more of a refined drawing can hurt the finish. If the final is to be a linoleum cut, then a more refined drawing is complete and transferred onto linoleum, cut, and printed respectively.
In this case, a monotype look was wanted for both images. These particular images have yet to be printed, so out of respect to the magazine I will not show you the full images.


I hope all is well with everyone and the New Year is treating you just fine!