Friday, August 6, 2010

Style Upgrade/Young Adult Book Preview Page


click images to enlarge


After having lots of awesome portfolio reviews with great criticism, from illustrators, Art Directors/Creative Directors, teachers, and friends, I decided to take on the next step in my career and ask some hard questions. How does my work differ from others in the market place? Where do I want to see my work in 1 year, 5 years, ect? How can I get there? What are my strengths and weakness'? Sounds like "Once in a lifetime" by the Talking Heads.

After much debate, I decided that I needed to change the way I made images. After 8 months of playing around with traditional materials, I figured out how to do what I already do, but enhance it in a way that has the look and feel of a painting/linocut/silkscreen. The result turns my hard edge images into softer organic images, more in step with many of my influences.

Along with taking some steps outside of my comfort zone, I took on another challenge. Writing, and illustrating a narrative young adult book for my SVA MFA Illustration class for Marshall Arisman and Carl Nicholas Titolo . I am not going to talk about the story line or show more images just yet, but the image here is the last page in the book. All I will say is, the book is about punk rock, New Jersey, Anarchy, apathy and......acceptance.

Look for a new portfolio of works in September. A few clients I proposed this style went with it, so why not you? (I'll show their works soooooon)


3 comments:

pete ryan said...

i think you've got a lot to be proud of here. im excited to see more!!

Kristin Leigh Koefoed said...

Omgrz you're going to be the next Cristy Road before I get the chance to be! I really like where your experimentation has taken you. The color scheme is great, and I'm envious, as always, of the textures.

P.s. great post, personal experience in relation to art is always wonderful to read.

P.s.s. heck yeah talking heads!

Randall Nichols said...

Color on this is great. Love the idea to focus on the car, but having the girl in the second one... just really brilliant stuff.