I'm coming for you 2010!!!

Here's a recent commission. Fun little piece. Wanted to put some of my work up to end the year. Been posting a lot of inspiration..haha.

2010 is going to be bananas. I can feel it.

take care and be safe on this New Years,
-fv

Famous Artist Course DOWNLOAD *update*

I learned some things at art school. I learned more things at the Illustration Academy. The third source of much of my art education comes from the "Famous Artist Course" books. They were published in the 1960's and will make you a better artist upon reading them. Serious, serious. And because of the information superhighway, you can now download them.

These come at my highest recommendation. Irene Gallo's blog notified me that Daniel Caylor has honorably scanned the whole set and posted them to download at his blog. If you are a student of illustration, you owe it to yourself, and your loans, to read these guys over. I'm fortunate to own the original binders, and I re-read them at least once a year.

Now the scans Mr. Caylor put up are from the original 1960 binders. FAS put out additional volumes. These are also available.

FAS Cartooning Course
FAS updated volume with Bernie Fuchs
FAS updated volume with Bob Peak (pending)

On a side note, I have little pile of things to post. But if I don't get to it before the New Year, have a rocking 2010.

take care,
-fv

**edit: In an effort to be fair towards possible copyright issues always involved with situations such as this, consider purchasing the materials that the modern day Famous Artist Course company offers.**

**edit pt.2: This post seems to have generated some traffic to Mr. Caylor's site, which has now taken down the scans. It seems the FAS does in fact own the copyright's giving them the right to claim theft when these are put up. If you do a little searching, you can find a few conversations going on about this. I can't speak for Mr. Caylor, but the intentions behind my post, and other links to the downloads were scholarly and made in the interest of community. But sometimes the excitement over such information overshadows the reality of situations. I'm a big advocate for the spreading of knowledge, especially concerning art, but as Mr. Leif Peng said, in this digital age it is "an ongoing process for all of us to learn how to play by the rules." Many authorities in the field have commented on this, and have educated this young artist's eyes on this sort of situation. I hope everyone has the courtesy to consider both side of this situation and act accordingly."

Speaking of Christmas, here is a female nude....kidding..haha. Actually, these are some better pics of that painting I did for the Nucleus 5 year show. Big ups to the California connection Kendra for the photos. To be 100%, I'm not very pleased with how it turned out, but it was a therapeutic process. It changed drastically, and I should have let it go, waaaay earlier than I did. Similar to this piece. Complicated does not equal better..hah. A lesson I'm still trying to learn!

On a side not, my pops made a top notch custom frame for this piece. Thanks dad!! The first of many from the Vallejo men I'm sure.

may your holidays be merry,
-fv

Something must be in the air, because I've been discovering some world class artists lately. I'll let these pictures speak for themselves. If you're not familiar, meet Gonzalo Carcamo.

take care,
-fv

ps. Special props to Mr. Carcamo for the tribute to this Repin painting!

*EDIT* Big news. The very considerate Ricardo Antunes informed me that Gonzalo has a step-by-step feature in the terrific online illustration magazine: Revista Ilustrar. Gonzalo is in issue #5, and another artist I recently posted, Sergio Martinez has a great feature in issue #10.

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Crazy project. I was given a week to do these three pages, and some branding work, for an Australian financial newspaper. The AD provided the titles and the script. The stories consist of epic tales of 2 financial advisers who are turned into superheroes, and one story of a helplessly addicted gambler. .. I tried to have as much fun with it as possible.

I enjoyed the challenge of having the whole story take place on one page. I found using all the comic elements - narration, speech bubbles, sound effects, etc - were all needed to condense the action to fit. And since it is for a newspaper, I colored it as such.

I also posted the super rough layout sketches I did at the onset. I stayed pretty loyal to them, with some minor changes. All in all, I had a blast! Expect to see much more comic work.

happy holidays once again!
-fv

**ps...I noticed Blogger is compressing these images funny, leaving some artifacts in them. Sorry guys! Can't seem to fix it. They look a little better here.

Oh Snap!

Sergio Martinez ^^^

Paul Gillon ^^^

Jose Luis Salinas ^^^

Pablo Auladell ^^^

(thanks Kyle)

Hey ladies and gents. Lately, I've really been cranking long hours on a project, so to keep the mojo fresh I look to inspiration periodically. Here's four incredibly masterful artists I've been scoping. If my research is correct they are all still alive, and most still working.

It's interesting to consider their influences. Of course this is all speculative, but it seems Sergio is very influenced by Mark English, and Pablo with Brad Holland. I'm not sure how their careers overlap, but I see a lot of Fawcett in Jose's work.

Hope these provide some inspiration with the end of the year deadlines. Happy Holidays!

cheers

-fv