CRS and Lupe!

So I had another quick turn around on these two illustrations...a little over 1 day to complete both. The top image is a caricature image of the new super-group CRS. The members are Kanye West, Pharrell Williams, and Lupe Fiasco. Hirschfeld was obviously heavily referenced for the drawing.....man that guy is good!!!! I hope to one day do work for VIBE so I created the images in that format. I put up the piece with the Vibe text and a raw version. The bottom image is the portrait I did of Lupe. Unfortunately he looks 20 years older in this version but I did learn alot from messing with different media!

take care,

-francis

whew!! 3 posts in one night....haha

Gorilla Artfare blog!

Hey guys! I've recently had the honor of joining a super talented group of artists at the newly formed Gorilla Artfare blog. It has been extremely active since it launched a couple of days ago and I am sure it will be a blog to look for (shameless plug...haha).

click here------> Gorilla Artfare Blog

The image above is just some of the great work posted in the last day or two! I hope to post semi-regularly there.

take care,

-francis

finally....Revelations photos!

As promised here are some images from the Revelations workshop. I didn't actually take any of these pictures though (not much of a picture taker). I just arranged images I collected from ca.org and other places to give an idea of the general experience. If there are any problems with the use of any of these photos, please let me know and I will remove them promptly. Can't wait till the next one!

links to other photos:

http://www.conceptart.org/forums/showthread.php?t=115419

http://www.canphoto.se/ (click photos then go to Revelations)

http://www.artbyphil.com/cgi-bin/phfxgv.cgi?link=http://www.artbyphil.com/phfx/photography/2008_RevelationsMain

take care,

-francis

Ideas Being Born, Black Frogs and figures!

Yo! I've been pretty pumped lately after attending Revelations and seeing the great work the seniors are doing here at Ringling. The top image is a image I made for Spectrum. I ended up submitting three images but last year I did an image specifically for Spectrum so I though it would be good luck to do one just for that purpose again...I feel my work lately has been very literal so I wanted to do something "out there." I composed the image as I went and really tried to experiment. The overall theme has to do with the "Birth of an Idea" and it all has some sort of significance to me. I guess you could say it is a personal piece. I worked on it straight for little over a day so that will be good experience for quick turn-arounds in the future...haha. The second image is from a figure drawing session I attended today. I haven't rendered in pencil for the longest time so it was good to get back to the basics. The last image was drawn at Revelations and I recently threw some watercolor on that beast. That is actually the Black Frog, artist extraordinaire posing...haha.

take care,

-francis

Last Man Standing and a mug!

Hey guys and gals! So this illustration is for the "Last Man Standing" competition over at Conceptart.org. 360 artists from amateur to industry pros face off in brackets eventually facing off in a final round with 3 or so artists battling for ultimate artistic supremacy!! Previous winners are heavyweights Jason Chan and Shelly Wan (who are competing this year again). This round's theme was "Underneath it All." Here's some linkage:

Matches 1-24
Matches 25-48 (I'm in match #35, great piece Matt! best of luck)
Matches 49-72


So these are the final inks. Mostly ballpoint, and a little brush, on illustration board. I'd also like to mention that I have the original inks available for purchase. I've never did this before so I am trying to set up a system to put my originals up for purchase. I hope to have a store up in the future. Please email me if interested. Thanks!

This proved to be the hardest time I've ever had coloring a piece. I was all over, having most of the problems maintaining the narrative with so many characters. I was getting all design-ee with arrows and such but ended up ditching them in the end. This image is just a view midway of the image with some of the crazy options I was trying out...haha...it's wild to look at now right? Does everyone digg the final colors or should I have maintained some of the elements in this piece?

....a shot of some of the reference I used. I got my mom, dad, girlfriend (again), dog, and neighbor to pose for this piece. I thought what would Norman (Rockwell) do? And if you try taking pictures of dog have a good camera, not a Cybershot. Blurry pictures for everyone! I ended up having him sit next to me and holding his paws out for the pose...haha

This was the first time I used flatting for my colors. I had seen James Jean and Frank Stockton use it before, so I thought I'd give it a shot. DAAAANG!! is it helpful. Especially for flat graphic colored work, it helps in selection soooo much. No more erasing.

And here is a 3 hr figure painting. I think theres something here that I'd like to pursue in future paintings.

I still need to load up the Revelations photos...next post I promise!

take care,

-francis

Figure

I feel bad for not posting as much as I used to, so here is some recent figure drawing from the moleskine. Take care!

-francis

Revelations!

Hey guys! Hope everyone is having a great '08! Heres a pic of me painting at conceptart.org's Revelation's workshop. Great time. Highly recommended! Geez I just used a lot of exclamation marks....haha. I had someone (I see you Misael) hold onto the paintings in Seattle until they dry and then I'll get them in the mail to scan properly. A million projects in the works. A giant post is on the way. Take care,

-francis

edit* I really apologize to Daniel Zetterström for not crediting him with these photos. He is an awesome photographer and you can check out more of his work at: his site.