A while back I was asked to paint a home, to be given as a remembrance gift to the owners who were downsizing to another residence. The client sent me many good photos of the neat-as-a-pin cottage-style home, so I started with two pencil sketches from slightly different angles.
They picked the second sketch, which I then scanned and roughed in the color with acrylic paint and prisma pencils.
I had originally cropped the picture on these sketches to keep the image suited for an 11″ x 14″ frame, which I usually do to make it easy to frame. The client was not concerned about getting a custom frame made so she asked I zoom in a bit more to focus on the house and gardens.
I painted the finished piece in acrylic washes on illustration board, shown below.
Once a year I remind my readers that I have drawn some popular greeting cards for Scouts, in case you know someone who is earning a special honor through the organization. My son is an Eagle Scout and he had such a great experience with the Boy Scouts, learning great practical skills and making good friends, while reinforcing responsibility and good morals, and I am happy to share in celebrating current Scouts’ achievements.
All of my Scout cards are available in my Etsy shop. I drew the whimsical Eagle Salute Congratulations card below first, when a friend achieved the Eagle rank a year before my son. When my son made Eagle and had his Court of Honor alongside his best friend, I painted the Eagle Scout on a hilltop scene.
The journey to Eagle is guided by Scoutmasters, parents, friends and others who inspire and encourage the Scout to accomplish the challenges needed to achieve Eagle rank. Several customers asked me to produce smaller thank-you notecards for Eagles to send to their mentors, and they too are on my Etsy shop at this link. If the buyer wishes a special message printed inside these notecards, I can customize the card message after we chat through email.
I’ve also drawn Congratulations on Crossing Over cards for young children making the ceremony from Webelo to Scout rank, since my two grandsons have become Scouts. That ceremony is often in February, so the time is coming up!
And I drew these ‘Trustworthy’ boxed notecards with the Scout Law on them, which are very popular as gifts for Scout leaders and Eagles.
I have many 5-star reviews and nice comments about my cards and service, which are listed in the review section of my shop. All of my cards are printed on sturdy card stock – the congratulations cards are greeting-card-size, and the thank-you notecards are smaller, invitation-size. Envelopes are included with each order, and all the cards take standard first-class postage. The cardstock is made from partially recycled paper and my cards are printed in the USA – in fact, they are printed in my hometown! By the way, let me give a shoutout to all the wonderful people at Cortineo Creative LLC – who print all my cards with outstanding efficiency and keep the colors stunning!
I’ll mention, if you are in my area of central Bucks County, PA, you can email me before you order on Etsy, if you’d like to pick up your cards in person to save some postage. And for special orders of quantity, size or message just send your questions by clicking HERE to go to my Contact page to drop me a line. And I have some other cards on my Etsy shop for musicians and special occasions, you can see them all HERE.
I was asked to paint an old farmhouse, dating to the 1800s, using an old photo provided, since the house, while still existing and lived in, is much changed and renovated over the years. My client asked for the painting to be in sepia tone, to give it that nostalgic feel.
I used the photo reference exactly since there was no other information about the structure, and the photo was fairly good – a farmhouse along a horizon, with distinctive trees, a few outbuildings (we think they are an outhouse and springhouse) and a field in the foreground, giving it the feeling of a hand-built home plopped in the middle of a vast rural America – which this most likely was at the time. I started with a pencil drawing.
I did a rough tonal sketch by painting over a scan of this sketch in grays, then made it sepia with a click of a computer key, and the client approved it –
I took one photo while I was working on painting it on illustration board with acrylic paint washes –
And finished and delivered it yesterday for the client to frame. The only real change I made from the original photo was to add two birds flying low on the horizon – I think it’s always nice to show some life and movement in a landscape.
Over the last year or so my son Tom and I have been collaborating on a big batch of gag cartoons – Tom wrote the ideas in New York City, between working at NYU and doing frequent standup in clubs and bars, and sent them over to me here in Bucks County, where I drew them up when I had time. I’m happy to announce that we’ve finally assembled them into a book titled Zeitgeist Meetup, and we’ll be signing copies at The Mercantile, 444 N. Main Street, Doylestown, on Sunday, December 11 from 1:00 p.m. to 3:30 p.m.
Tom’s humor has a young, New York-type viewpoint, with some ideas coming from his everyday experiences in the city doing improv comedy, some reflecting his standup style of wordplay and visual puns, and a few short-story cartoons like “Bushwick Self-Defense,” “The In-Convenience Store,” and “The Kool Aid Spectrum.” Our book riffs on lots of topics that are in the ‘zeitgeist’ right now— from food trucks to Bigfoot to crickets to Elvis – all just for fun. We want people to laugh!
Tom has been involved in comedy for over 15 years, leading an improv comedy group when he attended Holicong Middle School and CB East, continuing through college at American University and comedy clubs around Washington DC, and now in NYC.
I’ll also mention that two of my latest New Yorker magazine cartoons have been chosen to be in the “2023 New Yorker Day-to-Day Calendar,” which I’ll have there at the Mercantile on display, and I’ll have some of my humorous holiday greeting cards for sale too, so I hope you can come and say hello!
There is plenty of convenient parking at the Mercantile since it’s right in the Doylestown Shopping Center, in the space where BonTon used to be. The Mercantile is a collaborative store that showcases creative small businesses, so there is a ton of great gift items to browse after you’ve chatted with Tom and me – they have beautiful housewares, accessories, vintage items, baked goods, furniture, jewelry, gifts for men and adorable stuffed animals for kids. There are even places to sit down and have a snack when you’re tired of shopping – you can’t beat that!
Zeitgeist Meetup sells for $12.95, and if you can’t make it on December 11 but you want a copy, just let me know. And if you went to CB East with Tom or were in his improv group, please just stop by to say hi, we’d love to see you!
My illustration can be seen at the Central Bucks Chamber of Commerce Bucks Fever Art Exhibition which opens Thursday, November 10 from 5 to 7 pm at the Mercantile in Doylestown, PA.
There’s a building in the middle of Doylestown, at the corner of Main St. and Shewell Ave., that’s been scaffolded for months – it’s being renovated into lavish condos, with a craft brewery on the bottom floor. But if you’d walked down Main Street in 1900 you’d have noted the latest women’s fashions in the elegant semi-circular second floor window of that same building, because that floor was home to Mrs.Ivins’ millinery shop.
The Doylestown Historical Society asked me to envision a typical day in Mrs. Ivins’ shop, with hats, customers and that lovely Victorian arched window. I had a wonderful time researching and creating this scene and I’m pleased to say that my original illustration will be in the Central Bucks Chamber of Commerce Bucks Fever Art Exhibit, which opens to the public tomorrow, Thursday, November 10 with a reception from 5 to 7 pm at the Mercantile in the Doylestown Shopping Center.
Kurt Spence of the DHS sent me excellent photo references, courtesy of the Doylestown Historical Society, to begin sketching for the scene. Some were photos of the outside of the building from the turn of the century, some of ladies’ dress and hat fashions, and some from the interiors of Victorian hat shops.
I boiled down my process of creating this historical scene to three steps: research, distillation, and reintroducing selected detail. The research came in studying these photos, pictures from costume books I have, and information on the internet. I started sketching by creating the empty shop room with little detail, just to get the space correct. I sketched some figures separately, to drop into the scene. This was par0r of the ‘distillation’ – simplifying the elements to get a clear composition
Here is the room with the figures dropped in –
At this point I showed the sketch to Kurt, who, as a retired contractor, knows a lot about architecture and buildings, and he gave me suggestions which I was happy to revise. I next did a tonal sketch next to help with simplifying the light and dark areas. This would be a fairly complex drawing when finished, so thinking tonally helped organize shapes so the viewer could ‘read’ the picture more easily.
The DHS asked for this picture to be in color, but of course all the photo reference I had from the urn of the century was black/white, so I had to look at painters of the era to get a feel for the colors. I found this lovely piece of an interior by William Merritt Chase, painted in 1895. I liked the teal, rose and muted yellows and creams, and saw those colors repeated in other paintings of the era, and felt I’d found a good palette.
I did a rough color sketch, using colored pencils over a scan of my line sketch –
At this point I could start adding ‘selective detail’ – detail that would give the flavor of the era but not confuse the viewer’s eye too much. I could add pattern – the Victorians loved patterns of course – to the the carpet and the wallpaper, as long as it was low contrast. I added the bold wallpaper border near the ceiling because there was not much going on in the top third of the scene, and used my chosen teal, rose and yellow in that border.
I wanted to make this scene tied specifically to my hometown, so out the window one can see the Civil War Monument and the Intelligencer building, two landmarks that can be seen from this corner in Doylestown.
After this stage I transferred the drawing to illustration board, outlined using prisma pencil, and painted it in using acrylic paint washes. The finished piece –
The public is welcome to attend the Central Bucks Chamber show to see my piece and many other works of art. The opening reception is Thursday Nov. 10 from 5 to 7 pm at the Mercantile in Doylestown, with light refreshments and music on tap. The exhibit continues until November 20.
I organized another Art+Faith Life Drawing session through my church and this time we had two wonderful models, husband and wife, who posed in our makeshift Biblical costumes so artists could imagine and draw scenes from our shared religious heritage, bringing our faith into our art.
We started with warm-up sketches of 5 to 10 minutes in length. I sketched on charcoal paper with prisma pencil..
Our models took a poignant pose of Mary Magdalen receiving counsel from Jesus. I drew this longer pose in pencil on charcoal paper –
While the models often posed together in a scene, time restrictions made it hard for me to get developed drawings of two figures, so I concentrated more on one or the other. Here is our model posing with ‘tablets’ as Moses below. It was really striking to see him standing in front of us – there is a grace in the draping of ancient clothing styles that does make you stop and contemplate: the gravity of their lives so long ago, the convictions they held that carried them through devastation. Drawing these faithful figures has an effect that goes beyond simple rendering.
I drew this car parade birthday illustration for Furia Rubel Communications last year. They originated the idea and needed me to make it into an image for them to send out with their best wishes to their clients. I think it’s a great way to make a touchpoint with each client – a beneficial marketing strategy – and remind their clients of the whole team of people working for their interests. I have often drawn the FRC team for projects in the past.
I started with a pencil sketch of the whole train of cars and caricatures of each FRC member.
When that was ok’d I printed out a copy and did a rough color sketch with markers and colored pencils. The great thing about sending out ecards is, there is no more expense in doing full color over black and white. On computer screens, color is free!
I decided to colorize this illustration using digital color, so the colors would match those in the FRC logo and other hues on their website. I drew each carload in black line, then filled it in with digital color.
After drawing and colorizing each piece of the picture this way I assembled them onto one page and added the banner, balloons and honking horns.
Another advantage of assembling this piece digitally is that if employees change from year to year, I can adjust the picture accordingly. And in fact, this year I was asked to add new team members and remove some who have moved on; so with some tweaks Furia Rubel will have an updated ecard showing their full team for 2022.
A friend commissioned me to paint her daughter’s adorable first home, as a gift and celebration of this milestone. I waited for a while so they could send me some photos of full trees and flowers blooming around the house – Vermont’s spring comes quite a bit later than it does here!
I started with a pencil sketch. My client also sent photos of her daughter’s cat, so I pencilled him in on the front porch.
After some more recent photos were sent I was able to add newly-planted flowers to the color sketch.
And after approval from my client I transferred the drawing to illustration board and painted it using a combination of prisma pencils and acrylic paint washes.
I’ve had Gilbert & Sullivan companies in the UK request my G&S illustrations for their production posters, a woman in France purchased my ‘fox playing the cello’ notecards for her cello-playing daughter, and a music school in Switzerland used my sketch of a flutist for a concert program.
Last week I received an email from the Kelvin Grove Wind Orchestra in Brisbane, Australia – my first request from the southern hemisphere! They have a concert next month and will perform music to lift people’s spirits, so they’ve chosen some from the Gilbert & Sullivan operetta The Pirates of Penzance. They asked if they could project my artwork from the Bucks County Gilbert & Sullivan Society’s production on a screen while the orchestra plays.
It’s gratifying to know my art will be seen by audiences in Australia! My illustration is below – and if you want to enjoy the magnificent buoyancy that’s the hallmark of Gilbert & Sullivan music, listen to the Academy of St. Martin in the Fields play the Pirates overture here.
The Doylestown Symphonic Winds is a wonderful conglomeration of terrific musicians who perform annually to benefit a music scholarship for talented young musicians. I go to their concert every year and love the music – so much brass!
I’ve done a number of posters for them, and this year their conductor Gina Lenox asked for something graphic. There isn’t anything much more graphic and easily recognizable than silhouettes of various horns, drums and pipes, so I had fun playing with instruments, blocks of color and hearts in this one. I felt a nice contrast would be to hand-letter the title in brush and ink.
I highly recommend this concert, they do a mix of traditional and contemporary composers but it’s always punchy music with a lot of personality – just like the brass section!
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