Greeting Cards

When the world didn't end at Y2K, I created two Mother's Day cards, one for my mom, and the other for my grandma. I had recently discovered Windsor Newton inks and they 20+ colors they offered. I especially liked the nut brown. These cards were created with a crow-quill pen, nut brown ink, and gold ink, which is really hard to use with a crow-quill pen. I had scanned them and stored a copy on a zip disk while I was in college, then mailed the originals off.


Eight years later, I decided to pull my files off of the zip disk and see what was there. After college, I never needed to use a zip disk again, so it just sat in a drawer at my parents house collecting dust. I was happy to find these two images and a short story I had written for Creative Writing that I thought was lost. (I even found a paper copy of it around the same time.)

I love creating greeting cards. Every year I design a Christmas card with an original illustration and poem based on a Christmas Carol. I send it to family, friends, and co-workers. This year will mark the ninth year I've done it. I have the good ones on my website, SkyFitsJeff.com. Just click on More Illustrations, then Christmas Cards to see them.

German Expressionism

I love old German Expressionist films like The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari and Metropolis. (If you haven't seen these classics, run to the video store NOW!) The style, the use of tone, the wacky characters--it's all great!

I tried to apply a few of these design ideas to a comic book page. I really liked the penciled version, but I'm not sure if I dig the finished page.

What do you think?

And are you on your way to the video store?

The dream of the naive...

I created this two-page spread last year and was really happy with how it turned out. Ironically, the message is even more fitting now than when I created it.

I drew it with a Pitt Brush Marker and colored it in Painter. I love Painter! What a great program. And unlike Photoshop, a person can actually afford to buy it. And they make actual improvements with each version.

The story starts out with the Marxist ideal--the workers win, the evil bourgeoisie has lost. But as the story progresses, you see that unions aren't the saviors they promise to be, and socialism just won't work. It's very appropriate given the socialist agendas of both presidential candidates.

Crosstalk

Four years ago I finally moved back to Phoenix, Arizona. I started to apply for jobs, and everyone wanted to give me a test. This technical illustration was done for such a test. They wanted someone that could create high quality technical illustrations like you see in Scientific American. The assignment was to illustrate "crosstalk". For those of you who've never heard of that, crosstalk is basically when you put a bunch of cords from several electronic devices next to each other, and the signal from one interferes with the others.

I did this illustration and sent it off. I didn't hear anything for a few weeks. When they finally did get back to me and wanted me to come in for an interview, I had already accepted another job elsewhere. You snooze, you lose. Although this isn't the kind of thing I usually do, it is actually a pretty good illustration, done completely in Photoshop, and I do really like it.

The Sacrifices We Make for TV

I've always loved comic books, and have wanted to make one of my own. I've had many failed attempts; none of them really looked like me or captured what I was going for.

Here's my latest attempt. It's probably the closest, but still not there. The story, however, is near and dear to my heart.

I've noticed a lot of similarities between this and Golden Age comics, especiall Joe Shuster and Bob Kane comics, which are some of my favorites. Maybe I'm spending too much time reading stuff from the 30's?

Spinal Surgery

So I have this client that wanted a new logo for their chiropractic buisiness with a cartoon character in it. I drew up several proposals. They didn't choose this one, but it was my favorite. I originally had a wrench in his hand to show they fix bad backs, but the client thought a spine would be better to show they focused on spines. I think it makes his grin look almost menacing.

This was drawn with a brush marker I haven't used since college. I can see why I haven't used it since college.

Let's Begin

So, why am I creating a blog? I already have a website. Isn't a blog superfluous?

No.

My website is a presentation of my finished, professional work. But I do more than just finished art. I sketch. A lot. And there's no place to put all of these sketches. I would feel very selfish and greedy if I didn't share them with the rest of the world.

But what is the best way to share them? An additional page on my website? A special section on the home page? 

Those would work, but a new blog seemed to be a better way. It's informal and journal-like. It will allow me to post work and make comments on them in a chronological, archived manner.

But I have another reason for doing this: I love reading the artist's comments on his work almost more than just looking at the work, so this will give me a chance to create what I love.

I hope you enjoy my posts. I'm going to try to add several each week. You can get a sneak peak at my latest projects and my sketchbook. And boy do I fill a lot of them.

And feel free to link this blog to any and every place. Again, I don't want to be selfish; I want to share.

The two ladies gracing my blog are a couple of sketches I did inspired by the brilliant art of Joe Shuster.