Hampton Jazz Fest Poster

At one point I was called about doing a poster for the Hampton Jazz Fest. At first I was super excited about doing the piece. I was going to be illustrating several jazz greats on one piece. Then reality set in. Keep in mind this was during the days when you couldn't just punch up Google and find 500 pictures of the coliseum at night. For one, I had never been there and the art director sent me a black and white xerox of the place during the day. I wasn't extremely happy with it, but then a change came in. We had to replace the previous trumpeter with Chet Atkins. I can't really remember the reasoning, but it had to be done. Again, no problem current day, but this was paint on board. I ended up taking the top layer of a Strathmore Illustration board and illustrating Chet Atkins' face. I then cut it out and placed it on the painting. Well enough to fix it for reproduction purposes. Years later after I started working on the computer, I decided to pull it in and rough up how I thought it should have been. Of course, then I was able to find reference online. That made a huge difference. The original piece is on the top and the reworked piece is on the bottom. Even now, I still have mixed feelings about it and have the urge to keep tinkering with it.

College Work - Jazz Musician - Gouache Technique

This was a piece done during College. Using the gouache pick off technique and colored pencil. The image was from some photos taken during a jazz performance that one of my friends did at the 6th marketplace. This was prior to them tearing it down and revamping that area. Sounded great and it was a really good opportunity to get some great reference shots.

From the Sketch Book - Mermaid Vignette 1

 This was another sketch of a Mermaid concept. I was mainly trying to capture my thoughts on types and scene locations for the stories. Time to sketch them was usually during long movies at PBS, and usually when the idea struck, I had no real drawing pencils. In this case, I used the blue ink pen from the log book that we used to take signal readings from the Charlottesville Tower.

From the Sketch Book - Merman

 Around the late 90s I was really into this idea of a book based around Mermaids and Merman. Sort of a underwater culture that mimicked our own. I started to sketch different vignettes and types while working at PBS. The sketch book filled up with about 7 or 8 vignettes while I was there.This was a Silver Tip Shark Merman concept.

From the Sketch Book - New Style - Girl

This was around the same time as the Sugar Ray Robinson Sketch. Just wanted to try another picture in that style. I think when I started this style, I was thinking of diagrams and technical drawings for typography or icons. This was pencil this time. Fun to do and it was therapeutic drawing all the circles and angles.

From the Sketch Book - Sugar Ray Robinson

During my stint with PBS working Master Control, I had a lot of time in between movies and shows. I would sketch every now and then. This was also after a time where I was feeling burned out on illustration as a career. At this point, I felt like maybe if I developed a new style I would get that passion back. This was one of my sketch book attempts to develop a new style. I chose to use a picture of Sugar Ray Robinson. All I had on my was a black colored pencil, pencil and the blue ink pen from the log book. I found this picture in a envelope full of pages that I ripped from my sketch book. They were squirreled away for future possible final paintings. The top piece was the whole sketch. The bottom is a close up detail section.

AMF Wind Surfer Illustration from Poster Concept

This was another vignette from the AMF poster piece I had worked on. It went along with the archer that I previously showed. I show this piece, because it is one of those things that I learned from. It serves as a constant reminder to flesh out ideas before tackling them in final form. Also that small rough thumbnails do not necessarily translate to large final formats. The red triangle in the corner is what was supposed to be a part of the AMF symbol. While in my head and on a small thumbnail form, the idea seemed great, it really did not translate well at larger size. Not to mention the amount of work I inadvertently carved out for myself by creating all these vignettes. I don't think it ever made it to print and frankly I am glad.