Finished up the "Summer" Piece. I'm really happy with this one. It was more of a challenge than I was anticipating. I had to try to maintain a certain level of visual consistency while illustrating a season that could be described as the opposite of the first one. So among other things I had to reinterpret the stark but vibrant palette from the "Winter" into something more lush and warm. (You can see the two pieces together here) I think it is pretty successful, can't wait to get started on the other two.

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Tags: childrens, Finished Illustration, Unpublished, Stock

Here's a new sketch I'm working on for the ongoing seasons project. This one, Summer, will go under the earlier Winter Illustration in the final. Each one is designed to work as a standalone piece but also integrate into the set of four.

(Click to enlarge)

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Tags: Sketch, childrens

Very happy with this one. I went for a brighter palette and more chromatic shading than I usually work with to give it a more fun, juvenile look. I like the results, I may even experiment with more hi-chroma shading in my "adult" work.

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Tags: childrens, Finished Illustration, Unpublished

So I've been thinking a lot about illustrating for children lately. As a father of two wonderful kids under seven years old, I read a lot of children's picture books. I think it's a lifetime goal of most illustrators to do a children's book at some point in their career. As I dreamed about what it would take to make that happen for myself, I realized that I didn't have any work currently in my portfolio that demonstrated an ability to illustrate for kids. So while a lot of people see my work and say "you should do children's books", I don't think I have anything that would appeal to an art director looking to find a match for a children's author. I think they'd want to see an ability to illustrate children and animals, and consistently illustrate characters across multiple pieces. So I decided to do a series of illustrations for the four seasons, with the same boy, girl, and dog in each.

In honor of the 100+ degree temperatures we've been having over the last couple of weeks, here is my sketch for "Winter":

I'm pretty happy with it. For the snow being kicked up around the sled, I was going for a mashup between classic hot rod painted flames and traditional Japanese woodblock-print styled water. It's coming off a bit harsh in the sketch but I already have a newly-created fluffy soft texture made up for the snow that I know will soften the effect and hopefully provide an interesting contrast.

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Tags: Sketch, childrens