Hard to believe it’s been months since I last posted something here… I’ve been keeping busy all summer, but instead of doing projects for publishers, I’ve been publishing my own versions of classic books for sale on Amazon. Here are a few of the covers…
This is a logo for the Center for European Renewal. My preferred design was the circle/leaf ornament, but that was rejected for looking ‘neopagan.’ Well, I do have those leanings…. The classical door image was suggested by the organization.
Update: And the winner is . . . a tree!
This is a portrait of one of ISI’s vice presidents, the late John Lulves—one of my former bosses, and a great person. Apparently he was shy about getting his photo taken, so there were only a couple snapshots to work from. The photo I used is on the left, and the final portrait is on the right (click thumbnail for larger view). As a reminder, I would like to make more of these—so drop me a note if you have a photo you’d like turned into a painting.
Here’s a view of an entire book jacket I’m finishing up (as always, click thumbnail for larger file). For this cover, I took a photo of mine and layered it over a sheet of old paper. I love working with antique fonts like these.
I couldn’t post pictures of these presents till after Christmas. First, a painting of a bride made from a low-resolution digital photo. I was happy to rescue a photo that captured a great pose but wasn’t high enough in quality to display.
This is my favorite picture of my grandparents, circa 1940. The only problem with the original photo was my grandmother’s expression (it doesn’t look quite like her, as my mom says), so I switched out her head from another portrait.
And here are my parents, circa 1960. My mom wanted to combine their high-school senior pictures. My dad only had a small yearbook photo, so the challenge was to make the two fit together.
(click all images for larger views)
This is something I’ve been doing a lot of lately: “photopaintings.” These are hybrids of photographs and oil paintings. The final image is printed on a stretched canvas, replicating the look of a full-scale oil painting with much less time and expense. For example, on the left is the 3 x 5 inch photo I was given to work from; on the right is the 16 x 20 inch photopainting (I cleaned up the muddy lake):
Here are some more samples (I took the photo for the portrait of my cousin on the left; the other pictures were provided by the clients):
If you’re interested in having a painting made from your favorite photo, just send me a note. My process enables me to start from a small or damaged photo and produce a much larger final image. I also colorize black & white photos.
Next, I’m going to post some that I created for Christmas presents…
This is a personal collection of essays & cartoons created between 1999 and 2004. I love designing book covers using scans of antique books; this one is a combination of two leather-bound volumes.
Amazon has a new program called CreateSpace that allows you to make books for free using print-on-demand technology. (It’s the same as Lulu, except you can sell your book on Amazon at no extra charge.) This is really going to fuel my publishing addiction.
These two paintings are up for sale at Twist Art Gallery in downtown Nashville. I borrowed the drawings from other artists (“Lovers” is copied from Eric Gill; “Muse” is based on a French Art Noveau drawing).
