The shop across the street

While waiting for my children to finish their dentist appointment, I made sure to make time to do some drawing. This is the small bookstore across the street from our dentist's office. It had always struck me as a delightful little store. I particularly loved the snow cover and how it effected the overall quaintness. It gave it the quintessential Vermont look.

Bow Tie Guy of the Week: The Questing Beast

Questing Beast (kwest-iNG bēst)

A mythological creature originating from Arthurian Legend. This beast has the head and neck of a snake, the body of a leopard, and the feet of a hart (I included the haunches of a hart and a snake like tail as well). The name questing is based on the sound the beast makes, which is the sound of barking that comes form the belly. It is said to sound like a pack of hounds questing.

More Sketches

Here are a few more recent sketches from my sketch book. One from the December graduation at Northern Vermont University-Lyndon and the others from a restaurant.

Some thoughts on illustration

A few months ago as I was teaching the Introduction to Illustration at Northern Vermont University, I realized that the use of design principles plus how one composes an image equals the feeling and story. In essence Principle + Composition = Feeling/Narrative.

I am sure I read it somewhere, but it finally hit me in a way that it never has before. It seems simple and yet there is so much in it.

The image is the randomness of my writing on the board during class.

Various Sketches

I am pretty good about bringing my sketch book everywhere I go. I have also started doing random sketch book checks with my students. I don't think they appreciate it when I see them at a movie theater and ask if they have their sketch book.

It is still a challenge for me to draw people from life, but as I do it daily it gets easier. I find that when I stop for a given amount of time my ability to draw and capture likenesses diminishes faster than it takes to build it up again.

Lately, I have been making a conscious effort to draw where ever I am. These are mostly random people from restaurants and community events. My daughter is in the bottom left corner.

The Final 5 Plus 1 of my 100 Blue Logos

Here is the last of my 100 Blue Logos Plus 1. This has been another incredible project. I am learning more and more about the vast number of possibilities. Since I have finished, I have thought of even more options. 

I started to do more abstract marks with two of these and some other variations. The 101st was what ended up being a delightful mashing of the letters together.

My next 100 somethings is 100 different grilled cheese sandwiches. I am posting those on my Instagram page on a regular basis. I do not have a deadline for this. The premise is that it needs to have cheese, bread and be grilled. Everything else is up in the air as to variations. It has been wonderfully delicious. I might post some of them here.

94 and 95 of 100 Blue Logos

These are a continuation of unique juxtapositioning of things with blue.

89-93 of 100 Blue Logos

Here is the last variation of the bowler hat blue logo. I then started looking at options with an elephant icon and finally created odd juxtapositions of ideas like a pineapple with blue.

84-88 of 100 Blue Logos

Playing with the blue sky a bit more and then hats and mountains.

Bow Tie Guy of the Week: The Barclayic Spider-Man!

Over the past few years, I have been working on re-imagining popular characters as if I had designed them. I have struggled with Spiderman and Bat Man a bit. After watching Into the Spiderverse last month, I was inspired to re-approach Spiderman again. I found a great solution in keeping his identity with the scarf. Now I need to tackle Bat Man again.

79-83 of 100 Blue Logos

Here are a few more variations. I am realizing that I could go well beyond 100 as ideas come to me faster. AS I am looking at them now, I am seeing even more possibilities.

At 82, I thought of switching from the idea of feeling blue to the positive idea of a bright blue sky. The shift to a warmer blue helped.

74-78 of 100 Blue Logos

Here I tried something different with the diamond. I was not happy with it. I then started playing with spacing between the letters (tracking) and then coming up with the idea of spelling blue backwards.

While working on these 100 something projects, I am constantly amazed at how long it takes me to come up with a simple variation like spelling the word backwards.

69-73 of the 100 Blue Logos

Working of the idea of a bow tie I started exploring blue diamonds and flames.

64-68 of 100 Blue Logos

More playing with the bow tie. At some point it becomes just a bow.

#59-63 of 100 Blue Logos and an announcement.

It took over half of the 100 logos before I submitted to putting a bow tie on the logo. I took inspiration from Number 58 to create a face with the “L.”

Also, over the past few months, I have been working on marketing for my illustration business. My work can now be seen on the Directory of Illustration. Over the next year there will be more to come.