The assignment is to create an illustration based on your experiences/influences of the area. I used one of my friends and fellow graduate Paul to model for me, thanks Paul. One of the illustrators that visited with us commented that in Pasadena the higher the hedge surrounding a property, the more prestigious the occupants are. Looks like Paul needs to work on his prestige, the hedge isn't high enough.

Here's a sample of what I've been doing, but only a peek. Can't let the cat out of the bag yet.

© Suzy Gerhart 2012. All rights reserved.

Sam Weber made a visit to BYU this last week. Really a terrific illustrator and humble guy. If you lined up a room of illustrative work and then had the artists line up on the opposite side, I dare say most of us would never connect the work with the artist. Based on Sam's work, I was expecting a tattoo, cropped hair, goatee sporting chap. Well you can see the picture of Sam, far from it.

Sam began his stay with us by doing a demo of his process. Sam's work is 70% hand work (ie sketch, acrylic, watercolor) and 30% digital (photoshop). He starts with a tightly rendered sketch, full values, to determine the value patterns. Sam lightly transfers some of the information to his paper. Then using friskit paper that's overlayed onto his Fabriano heavy watercolor paper (didn't catch the weight but probably a 300 lbs cold press) he carefully cuts out of the friskit the general shape of the image. Sam likes to keep clean edges and this is how he does it. Once he has prepared his paper, he mixes the liquid acrylic to get a neutral grey green paint. At this stage Sam said he's simply looking for texture and likes to use natural sponges and really anything available to get that underlying texture.

Once he has some nice textures then he starts to build up his dark values. He dries the acrylic layer and mixes watercolors that are similar in neutral tones. Sam uses the watercolors to build up his values and dry brushes in any details.

Once he feels that he has lifted out and pushed the paint as far as he can then Sam heads to the scanner and at 750 dpi scans his image in. Using Adobe Photoshop, Sam continues to adjust his layers using the multiply layer mode at various opacities and the dodge and burn tools to strengthen the values. Sam did take the time to show the digital process to those remaining to see it, but alas I had to head back to work and was unable to catch that. But below is a slightly skewed view of the painting, pre-digitization.

I love Sam's soft washes and the textures he manages to work in. Really lovely work despite the sometimes macabre subjects, but he enjoys the work and has plenty of it coming in. It was terrific to see Sam and his process, all in all an inspiring few hours.

To view more of Sam's work, here's the link to his site http://sampaints.com/

I was up to my eyeballs in research for my MFA project and looking for some inspiration. I reached back into the recesses of my memory, about 40 years worth, and recalled what inspired me visually as a child. Easy answer, Golden Books. For those my age or older you'll remember them, the thin books about 8" x 10" with a gold foil spine. These were my early readers as well as my visual inspiration. Why? Because they were beautifully illustrated books, for cheap. You could get them at the grocery store, a trip to the bookstore was not required for these beauties. But the artwork was not cut rate, it was beautifully done by illustrators such as Gustaf Tenggren, Leonard Weisgard, Richard Scarry, J.P. Miller and more.

I came across two great resources for those interested in revisiting these classics. One is a blog http://goldengems.blogspot.com/ by Freckled Derelict and another is a link to a traveling show http://www.nccil.org/experience/artists/goldenbooks/ that the NCCIL (National Center for Children's Illustrated Literature) has put together. I'm hoping that maybe the show can make it's way to Utah in the near future, cross your fingers.

Take a minute and check out these sites, and enjoy a trip down memory lane and some really terrific children's illustration from the 40's, 50's and 60's.

I counsel my students to never start an artistic blog unless they plan on putting in the time. Who likes to go to a blog that has thick digital dust covering it from lack of good housekeeping, aka lazy bloggers. Which is why up until now I've refused to start one, I have enough housekeeping to do without adding to the load.

But times have changed and I need to start posting my renumerations, latest work, and any other tidbit I can throw to ya'll.

So we begin at the beginning.