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I am participating in the Art's a Ball Public Art Project to benefit the Frederick Arts Council and hopefully the piece will be selected as one of the 250 out of a possible 1,000 to be sold.

Here is a nice top view of the ball I designed and produced. The decals on the wings were custom made using decal paper. Once I printed them out, I had to cut them by hand using an xacto knife before wetting and applying them.

Process

You can see the whole process in my Flickr Set: Art's a Ball.


So ... what is it for?

The Frederick Arts Council in collaboration with the Frederick Keys is sponsoring a public art project entitled “Art’s a Ball!”, which will feature 1,000 artist-decorated baseballs on display throughout the community. The baseballs will be put on public display at various locations in Frederick County from July 1 to August 15, 2008. “Art’s a Ball!” will culminate at the 2nd annual Art in the Park night, scheduled for August 29th at Harry Grove Stadium in Frederick, Md. The baseballs will then be auctioned off or sold outright, with proceeds going to benefit the arts in Frederick County. Professional, amateur, student, and celebrity artists are being engaged in this community-wide initiative.

Let My Spirit Soar


I thought it appropriate for this time of year to represent the resurrection of Jesus Christ through the use of a dove and to also remind us of the miracles of renewal we see all around us in everyday life.

Medium: rough draft ink jet print, colored pencil, photoshop treatments.

Oh Eve ...



I'm experimenting with ink jet prints printed as drafts so they come out rough and illustrating on top of them with markers and colored pencil. Then scanning and adjusting in photoshop using texture layers and experimenting with color treatments.

Enjoy

The Mechanics of Drawing



Hey all! It has been awhile.

This is a 2007 holiday card that I designed and sent out to my clients. I illustrated the reindeer in Freehand using various sized dots. The snow flakes were also created in Freehand. I then added the type (Chopin Script) to make up the antlers then tweaked the whole thing in photoshop to give it some flavor.



The inside reads:
Great Teams Make Great Things Happen.
Thanks for Allowing Me to be a Part of Yours.
Happy Holidays!

Enjoy!

This is a painting commemorating the USAF Thunderbirds. Here we see the command bird, #1 solo, doing a practice run over the desert mountains just north of Nellis AFB, Las Vegas, Nevada, the Thunderbirds home base. The aircraft is a General Dynamics (now Lockheed Martin), F-16A fighter jet.

Enjoy!

Canvas size; 18"x24"
Medium: Acrylic

The cards have arrived!

I recently participated in a competitive project called Custom 52. My card designs were selected for cycle 1 which have been printed and now on sale here.

The ojective of this exercise was to participate in an online design community using playing cards as the canvas. Entries were graded by peers. The top design for each playing card of each suit were selected to go to print and a deck of the top submissions was produced.

The cards turned out awesome and I am really happy with the printing results. A very special thanks goes out to all who voted.

This is an illustration I composed to support my pages for the HOWiezine 10 - Robots submission.

My design processes can be seen HERE

Medium: Acrylic
Canvas size: 14" x 18"

Enjoy!

Steph D.

Since I have been working on my submission for the HOWiezine, theme is robots, I decided to do a robot illustration for this SFG: Chocolate challenge.


Here he is in all his glory, Choco-bot 2000.

Enjoy.

FYI - I have started a fun quiz on Wednesdays over in the SFG Forum titled: "Steph's Wednesday Gray Matter Exercise."

Check it out and try to solve the quiz: Steph's WGME

This another sign illustration I produced in Freehand as a vector, then imported into Photoshop, and then added multiple texture layers to make the sign and bricks appear to be weathered.

I first created the vector illustration of the sign.


I then imported sections of the vector into photoshop and applied textures to give the sign a weathered feel.


I did a similar sign illustration for a previous SFG exercise where the subject was texture. Click here to view the post. I think I'm going to do a series of these signs. They are a lot of fun to produce.

Enjoy!

Steph D.

For this weeks challenge I chose an old neon sign that has a dead president's name on it as the subject of my composition.

I first created the vector illustration in freehand. See below.


I then imported sections of the vector into photoshop and applied textures to give the sign a weathered "dead presidential" feel.


I think I'm going to do a series of these signs. They have been a lot of fun to produce.

Enjoy!

Steph D.

King Me

I had to make a matching card to go with the Queen.

Enjoy!

My Lovely Queen of Hearts

I incorporated a vector portrait of my wife into this composition. I thought I would have some fun with the file and turn her into my Lovely Queen of hearts.

Enjoy!

I recently participated in the Custom 52 project.

My submission is titled, "Seven Deadly Diamonds" illustrated above, and I thought it fit nicely with this weeks theme of "red."

By clicking on the card illustration below, it will take you to my card site for voting.



Happy voting and wish me luck!

Steph D.

For this weeks challenge I chose an old neon sign as the subject of my composition. I first created the vector illustration in freehand. See below.



After importing the vector illustration into photoshop, I applied three texture layers to the piece to give the sign the appearance of being weathered and a wood grain to the building.



Enjoy!

Today while I was outside of my building eating my lunch, I spotted a chipmunk on the sidewalk enjoying the shade. He didn't notice me at first, but then became very cautious once our eyes met. I gently tossed him a bit of my lunch and he didn't seem to be interested until he caught a whiff of the bread. Once he began eating, I quickly took out my colored pencils, being careful not to startle the little fellow, and began to sketch our lunchtime meeting on a piece of cardboard.

Enjoy!

Steph D.

I have always thought about a robot smashing a pie into another robot's face whenever I would see PYBOT posted.

Whie cleaning out my office, I found this old piece of brown paper. I decided it would be a great backdrop for my PYBOT sketch done with Sharpie markers. I also accented the pie using a white pencil. I have been really enjoying the freedom of spontaneous sketching this past few weeks.

Enjoy!

Steph D.

This is my intial interpretation of Jeff for the SFG Challenge - Draw me. I used Sharpie markers. No editing or erasing.



This is the digital version. I also added some textures to the illustration.

More about this portrait on my BLOG

Enjoy!

Steph D.

Atlanta, Georgia, June 13th, 2:30 p.m.
After the attending the HOW design conference, I found myself waiting for a flight, full of inspiration and feeling refreshed. While sitting in the gate waiting area, I broke out my sketchbook and marker and started to observe my surrounds. Looking down at my feet, I discovered a small boy pushing a toy car on the floor and making engine sounds with his voice. I immediately was taken back by it and reflected on my childhood. I thought to myself, "what boy hasn't done this?" I started to sketch my feet and the surrounding area. I only wanted to show the boy's hand pushing the car. Below is the sketch.


Seated comfortably on the aircraft and headed back home, I sat quietly thinking about that boy and his toy car. I wondered where he might be traveling and how many people like myself were touched by his innocence.

Charlotte, North Carolina, June 13th, 5:20 p.m.
I had a connecting flight to Baltimore through Charlotte that was scheduled to leave at 5:10 p.m. My wife had called earlier informing me of expected thunderstorms in the area and my flight was delayed by 2 hours. As soon as I reached the gate, I was pleasantly surprised to see the flight was actually leaving early to beat the storm. No such luck. We had to sit in the aircraft at the gate for an additional 30 minutes to allow the storm to pass. Ramp operations ceased due to the possibility of a lightning strike. I grabbed my marker and skethbook and tried my best to capture the moment.



See my Blog entry HERE

62 years ago, on todays date, The US along with allied forces invaded Europe to bring an end to WWII in the European theatre of operations. That day is famously known as D-Day!

I was commissioned a few years ago to produce this piece to support a feature article covering the Army Air Corp's mission to support Operation Overlord. In this illustration a B-26 named the Missouri Mule, joins a swarm over the beaches of Normandy during the D-Day invasion, June 6, 1945.

I posted this piece today to honor and recognize all our fine servicemen and women, past and present, for making the sacrifice neccessary to keep our nation free.

Size: 16" x 20" acrylic on masonite

I was commisioned to do this illustration for a magazine cover to commemorate the 50th anniversary of the US Air Force. The planes flying away from you are B-50s, being the first aircraft designated as Air Force in September of 1947. The wing-like aircraft flying toward you is of course, the well recognized B-2 Spirit, the Air Force's first operational stealth bomber.

Enjoy!

Canvas size; 18"x24"
Medium: Oil

The latest Design Inspiration interview is with my friend and fellow SFG'er Steph Doyle. It's a wonderful interview with a lot of great insight, be sure to check it out.

Read it, Love it, Comment it!

-Jeff

http://www.diinterviews.com

Got my SFG tee shirt and here I am proudly modeling the shirt while surfing the SFG site.

There are times I find myself really straying from the beaten path and producing a composition that comes out by mistake. During these mini discovery expeditions I take in my studio, I find myself over working the concept to the point of no return.

There are times when the results come out, to my surprise, successful. In this piece I tried to convey a message of mystery by merging three elements together. The dramatic line down the middle was not what I initially had in mind. I was going for more of a merge between the cat and the woman. But after messing around with it and over painting this transition about half-a-dozen times, I went back to a solid line.

This is my presentation of "Illusions."

Canvas size: 20"x24"
Medium: Acrylic

This is a cartoon I did a while back depicting fighter jets. This F-16 really packs a whallop against most of it's foes!

Enjoy!