eklektos on Workbook.com

Lately life has been very full with teaching, making plans for a school, working, hanging out with my family, and working with some folks to help me build a bigger client base. Part of growing the business now includes several portfolios on Workbook.com. So far I've been really pleased with their customer service... no taking your credit card number and then forgetting who you are. Let's see what comes of it...

Waiting for the J train

In November of 2009, while in NYC for my MFA, I grabbed a photo of this young lady waiting for the train. Tired and cold, she looked like an Ellis Island immigrant.


I'm enjoying working in this loose/tight style. I'm open to any suggestions or any photos you want to toss my way for portraits. I've got a lot of ground to cover these next 50 weeks.

Creation of Adam

OK... So I said I'd be posting a portrait a week. And hopefully I'll finish the piece I'm working on by tomorrow. 


So there you are, rolling your eyes, saying to yourself,"He's slacking already!" But before you jump too quickly, the reason I'm late with this week's portrait is that I've been given an invitation to hang and sell my work in a gallery here in Connecticut. Other than my thesis presentation, I've never had a gallery show. I'll be posting more details about it later. Here's a link to the gallery.


In lieu of a new portrait, allow me to share an image I created for a book cover. The challenge was to portray God seeing Himself in His own creation. While taking a drive to get some coffee, clear my head, and find some inspiration, the thought occurred to me that Genesis tells us Adam was created in God's image, and that he was fashioned from the dust of the ground. I bought my coffee (priorities!) and headed off to the nearest Home Depot to buy a couple bags of potting soil.


Layering the floor of my studio with cardboard and newspaper, I emptied the bags, moistened the soil and began to sculpt.

I photographed the final sculpture and began to play in Photoshop. The final portrait below illustrates the creation story with the shoulder being formed out of the ground, the face taking shape and then turning to flesh after God breathed His Spirit into him. 

I hope you find this portrait inspiring. And I promise to have my next image up soon.

A year of portraits...

It's been 6 months since I graduated with my MFA. And sadly it's been at least that long that I've failed to pick up my pencils or watercolors. I've never been one of those artists who just draws all day long... I need a project with deadlines and some accountability. So I either go for years of counseling to dig into my past and find out why, or I just give myself a project and give myself a reason to keep my feet to the fire. Call me a coward, but I chose the project.


We were visiting friends last week, and I was talking about this with their daughter, Rachel– a lovely, gifted young lady who has the makings of fine photographer. She was pouring out the same lament to me, that working full time has kept her from challenging herself more. So, right there at the dinner table we committed to posting a piece a week on our respective blogs. She will post a photograph, I will post a portrait. If you ask me, she got the sweet end of the deal, but if keeping my commitment makes her better at her craft, then I'm up to the challenge.


Since I've never done a portrait of my youngest daughter, Emma, I decided that would be a great start. For those of you who may not know, you can click on the image for a larger version.

So here's my first of 52 portraits. I ask you, dear reader, to prod and push me as well. And please encourage Rachel as she endeavors to grow creatively.

Create elaborate patterns from a single flower

Here's an easy way to create some beautiful patterns that could be used for fabrics, scarves, or just plain fun... all from a single image of a flower and some Photoshop magic. 

For this demonstration I chose a photo I have of a pansy, one of my wife's favorite flowers.

Isolate the image of the flower and place it on a separate layer in a new document. Drag guides from the top and bottom to mark the center of the document.

Fill the background with a color. I happened to choose green because... just because. You don't have to get deep and technical about this. You can play with and change colors to your heart's content. Then change the blending mode of the flower layer to Difference. 

Duplicate the flower layer 4 times, creating 5 identical layers. Select the four top layers,  select Edit => Free Transform, and drag the center point of the selection to the center of the document, at the intersection of the guides. Rotate the selection 72 degrees.

Repeat this process with the 3 top layers, then the top 2 and finally the remaining top layer. Create a group from all the flower layers. 

Duplicate the group. With the new group selected, select Edit => Free Transform, rotate the group 36 degrees, and scale and move the selection until it covers the background area.

Now for some fun. Add a Hue/Saturation adjustment layer above the background and play with the hue.

To take it a step further, experiment by changing the blending mode of the groups. You can see the variations by just changing the blending mode of the top group.

Each flower you use yields a unique image. Here's a sample of a pattern I created using an image of a snapdragon.

Have fun!  If anyone decides to use this tutorial I'd love to know how and where you applied it.

Balsa Gliders at Barnes and Noble

There's never a bad time for some shameless promotion. If you visit your local Barnes and Noble (or if you want to drive to visit one far away) and visit the bargain section, you will find a display of kits on sale for Christmas (or "the holidays" for those who are easily offended). 
















Amongst the piles of boxes you should find kits for making balsa gliders. Not those cheesy, styrofoam, poor-excuse-for-a-glider kind that most kids today have played with.


And here comes the promotion part... ready... I designed and illustrated the box cover! Honestly, I've been a designer/illustrator for over 30 years and I still get jazzed when I see my stuff in print.




So buy one or two or three for the kids in your life and tell them, "I know the guy who did this!" I don't get any royalties, but you'll have the audacious pleasure of boasting to your friends that you know someone minimally famous.

The Miracle Worker

In July 2008, Vin DiFate gave a presentation on several genres of illustration, including science fiction, movie posters and pulp fiction book covers. Guided by DiFate, we were directed to create a poster in our own style for one of our favorite movies. I created a poster for the 1962 classic, The Miracle Worker. I studied a number of screen shots of the film and created a 3D model of Anne Bancroft, who played the role of Annie Sullivan, instructor and companion of Helen Keller. I photographed my daughter, Emma, to represent Patty Duke, who played the part of young Ms. Keller. Bancroft’s large scale represents the enormous influence she had on Keller. The field in the foreground was created with several Photoshop brushes made from grass stalks drawn in Illustrator.

Portrait Portfolio

Two years ago I taught an evening illustration class at Paier College of Art. One of my students, Magge Gagliardi, is a very talented young illustrator. I am pleased to say she is planning on getting her MFA from University of Hartford. Last night, while having dinner with our family, she offered to take samples of my portraits to a gallery where she is showing some of her work. I decided to put together a flash presentation of portraits... a single place where I can direct people who want to see the work.

Gertrude Ederle, America's Girl

After each of our sessions together in the MFA program, we are given an illustration assignment. Normally the theme of the assignment is based on the location we have just visited. However, with our summer sessions in Hartford, the assignments take on a whole new flavor.

Murray Tinkelman gave an excellent presentation of American illustration in the 20th century. During one of his lectures, he told us we needed to pick an illustrator from 1900 to 1950 who was included in his presentations. He told us to choose a publication from that era as well as a person who was famous at the time. We then had to create a cover featuring that person in the style of the illustrator of our choosing.



I chose to emulate C. Coles Phillips. He created a style called the "fadeaway girl" that was more than a gimmick. He used the Gestalt principle of reification, also known as closure, where the eye will perceive a whole shape in an incomplete space by filling in the missing information.

The more I read about Getrude Ederle, the more I became fascinated with this strong, independent young woman (much like my wife and 4 daughters!) who was bound to not only swim the English Channel, but to also break all previous records in the attempt.



I took some liberties with the English and French coast lines in order to create the watercolor portrait of Ederle in the Phillips style. I then ran the scanned image through the color halftone filter in Photoshop to simulate the screening and muted palette that would have been used in publishing in the 1920s.

Pasadena Project

After an extremely busy fall and winter with work and focus on my thesis project, I'm finally making my first 2010 post. In November of last year the Hartford MFA team traveled to Pasadena for another memorable trip. Our assignment was to create an illustration that “screamed” of Southern California.

After nixing a number of ideas, and getting inspired by looking at Doug Johnson's incredible airbrush album cover art, I did some poking around the web for images of an art deco theater. I found a number of wonderful images of the Regency Lido in Newport Beach. My thanks to Dangerghost and Bugcer on Flickr for these two images, among many others, that I used to recreate a 3D model of the theater in Strata.

I got the idea to change the name of the theater to reflect the illustration program, calling it the Hartford MFA. No rocket science inspiration there, but it worked well. Once I rendered my original idea, I decided to see what it would look like rendering it at different times of day. I ended up creating dawn, midday, dusk and evening versions.

I got so excited about the way the 4 images turned out I decided to go a step further and create an album cover, down to the dust sleeve and record label. The final was very well received during the critiques of our work in Fort Worth.

Breaking Free

With each trip we take as part of the MFA program, we are required to create an image based on the place we last visited. Our March trip to San Francisco was especially important to me. It inspired me to start this blog, to create and experiment, to develop a new portrait style, and most of all freed me to return to watercolor and graphite.

The first lecture in SF was given by Kazu Sano, an extremely talented and prolific illustrator. When I saw the portrait that is pinned to the wall above the cage in my image, I was inspired and challenged to push my portraiture. He also talked about creating an image a day, which spurred me on to do the same.

The left half of the image is entirely digital. While the likeness of me is accurate, it is stiff and without expression. The chain morphing into butterflies is an obvious metaphor for this newfound, or rather re-found communication. I look forward to what is ahead.

Maple Man

What a great week it has been here in Hartford. First of all, getting back together with so many creative folks is electrifying. Second, to be under the tutelage of two illustration greats like C.F. Payne and Gary Kelley has been such a privilege. And third, I feel like I've really hit my stride. So much has seemed to come together in these past four days. It has also encouraged me to put this style to work for the Lady Who Swallowed a Fly book that I comped up last year. And best of all, I'm having a ball. What's better than that?

While we're revisiting...

Took Q's input about pulling back the color in the background on the image of Riley.

Liyah One More Time

Your comments are truly helpful and welcome. Taking one more shot at the image of Liyah, I desaturated the color, darkened the background a bit so that the face stood out more, and added a little color to her lips and cheeks. Still a moody piece, but a far cry from the murderous first attempt from a couple weeks ago.

Riley

Since deciding to work together with Ken and Lois Wilder I feel that rush like when I used to be a bike rider... when you come downhill and keep your cadence as you go up another. Having their photography, and the heart that comes with it, available to me has been a blessing and a half.

So ends my third week at this blog. I am so pleased with the progress from that first lip-biting shot with the lupe on my desk. So much more to learn...

More Color Adjusting

While I'm in this color scheme frame of mind, I thought I'd play with the image of the Thai farmer. Unlimited possibilities.

Liyah Revisited

Now that I've done a few of these images, I'm understanding more and more the impact of color. I know that sounds like a "duh" moment, but I was so caught up with working the new style that I didn't think so much about what a slap to the eye that red can be. I've had a number of comments about the image of Liyah. Sure, if I was illustrating an article about someone who had been murdered or their heart broken, the original color scheme would work well.

Thank God for Photoshop. Since each of the images is built in layers (pencil drawing, watercolor, photo) I can go back in and play with the hues. What a huge difference.

Keep the comments coming. Like I said, I can get a bit myopic (a sophisticated way to say "blind"). Your feedback has been helpful.

Thai Rice Farmer

Yesterday I visited Ken and Lois Wilder and we discussed how we might work together. They shared some of their photos with me, especially portraits.

Last year, Ken went to Thailand and shot some wonderful images of people working in rice paddies. I fell in love with this image.

First collaboration

One of the joys of being in a creative field is the friendships that grow with other gifted folks. One of these friends is Ken Wilder. Ken is a great photographer who works in concert with his wife, Lois, who is a fine artist.

Ken and I have breakfast every Thursday morning, and this past Thursday we decided to try a joint effort combining his photography and my portrait experiments. So, this is the first of hopefully many Wilder/Tuttle images. This is a portrait of one of Ken and Lois' granddaughters.

Dandelions

Okay... enough with the portraits. Playing with watercolor, photos and 3D. Click on it to see more detail.