The Ward-O-Matic: A How-to on Black & White (drawing process with Photoshop)

"As promised, I thought I'd show you guys a little 'how-to' on the thought processes for my recent Illustration Friday piece, Black & White. You can add this to your Special Edition Ward-O-Matic files, I guess. Since I did not record my progress when I initially worked on this piece, I tried to replicate the steps here the best I could. First, the concept. I immediately thought of a film noir scene when I first read of the week's theme, black & white, and so, being that I had recently wrote about Frank Miller's Sin City, I wanted to get real dark and gritty. I wanted to go to both extremes with the tone, from bright whites to jet blacks, from bright lights to sunken shadows. So, what a better setting to convey this type of scene, than in a bar? I sketched this guy out with my red Col-Erase pencil on animation paper on the second try, and then scanned him in at 150 dpi (300 dpi is normal for print and such, but since I knew this would be on the web, I figured there's no need for him to take up too much space in my computer), and tweaked levels to darken the subtle lines. I need as much of the pencil lines as possible before my next stage. (Full tutorial at link)"

Charles Glaubitz - painter

Bio=Charles Glaubitz
Location: "La Linea/ The border" inside the paradox of Tijuana,
Baja California, and San Diego, California.
Duration: I have been illustrating on and off since I started
going to school, about three or four years now.
I've recently graduated from CCAC, so it's been a year-and-a-half non stop.
Education: Associate degree from San Diego City College graphic design 1998;
certificate Rafael López illustration
Work Shop 1997; B.F.A. illustration California or Arts and Craft, San Francisco 2001;
Cultural Influences: Hybridity, father German American from Nebraska/ mother
from los Mochis Sinaloa, Mexico. It's reflected in the hybridity between the two
cities that l live in (San Diego/Tijuana). My work is also a hybrid or the reflection
of the cultural duality that utilizes and combines iconography, symbols, metaphors
, allegories, stealing, discarding, experimenting with images from "La línea".
Also lowbrow art, the subculture, comic books, art anime, manga.
Philosophy: Visual narrative... intuition, honesty, imagination, observation are the
secrets for creativity...hybridity is the result of the sun of two differences...duality
is as simple as night and day...do everything you do in life for the righteous cause,
or love, that's the secret for life.

Ink drawings by John Casey - Low Gallery | San Francisco

John Casey will be showing approximately 50 or so of his small personal exorcisms in the form of pen and ink drawings.

John Casey is a former Bostonian. He has shown in a wide array of venues in the New England area, most recently at the DeCordova Museum in Lincoln, MA. John relocated to Oakland a few years ago, where he has recently shown at the Cricket Engine Gallery. Low is his second solo exhibition in the Bay Area. www.bunnywax.com

(ink'd from Fecal News, Yo!)

LeUyen Pham Illustration

Great illustrative style and range, children's book illustrator, did work for Disney illustrating and for Dreamworks as a layout artist. I like the layout of her Flash site, if you use Firefox you'll have to enable popups to see her main site (Don't sweat it, no ads pop up, ha ha).

More on the web about her and her books:

joypop LeUyen Pham is the featured artist on the PaperTigers.org online gallery. The San Francisco-based illustrator has a number of children’s books to her credit ...
webesteem art & design magazine : Case Study : LeUyen Pham LeUyen Pham. I have always considered myself to be a traditional illustrator with roots grounded in the classic Golden Age of Illustration. ...
Barnes & Noble.com - Book Search: LeUyen Pham ...

(drawn from bibi's box)

Graffiti Jam celebrates art

"(July 10, 2005) — In the '80s, people saw it as gang-member vandalism.

In the '90s, it was seen as rebellious teenage acts.

Today, it's in Sprite commercials.

Graffiti art, or 'tagging', evolved slowly, but now has burst into the mainstream. More than 60 artists are at a two-day Graffiti Jam in Rochester this weekend.

Taggers are painting walls on the east side of Village Gate Square on North Goodman Street as well as a few businesses on North Clinton and Clifford avenues.

'We started this as an alternative to fighting, sort of like assassins with aerosol cans,' said Dave Ratigan, 35, of Silver Springs, Wyoming County, event organizer and founder of From Up Above, an association of graffiti artists based in Rochester." (more at link)

Tim McCormick - illustrator, self-taught artist

Title: "Pitfalls of Modern Romance", acrylic on wood, 48" x 144" , 2004
(click for larger image)

"About Tim McCormick (www.timmccormickart.com)

After 10yrs honing his abilities as an illustrator, self-taught artist Tim McCormick, a Southern California native, began exhibiting in 2001. Since 2001 Tim has shown extensively in galleries on the west coast and around the country, owned 2 galleries in San Diego, and has become a standout in the burgeoning Los Angeles/SoCAl art scene. Originality, skill, and wit coupled with one of the most prolific outputs of any artist anywhere Tim McCormick's reputation is moving swiftly throughout the new modern art world. In 2005, Tim is scheduled for gallery showings all over The U.S.

Statement:

'My work is in a constant state of evolution and experimentation. In spirit I've combine a type of figurative expressionism and surrealism in which every piece is improvised from a very loose plan or no plan at all. The true meanings remain totally personal, a kind of riddle I am telling myself, a riddle that often I don't even understand until I've had a chance to reflect on it. I've learned that my most successful work is painted with my heart and not my head, this is an approach I have worked endlessly to refine in my over 5000 paintings. Therefore my work conveys a certain state of consciousness in which I let myself do the painting with no guidelines or goals. only the experience I have at being in this state allows me to create a successful painting. I continue to elaborate and refine this approach driven by the desire to see just how far I can take it. I truly look forward to the paintings I will do in 10yrs - 20yrs and the rest of my life.'

My paintings explained: My newest work deals with the precarious nature of human relationships, especially those romantic ones. The Symbolism and pictorial content of the paintings are specific to my life and are not intended for literal interpretation, rather my goal is the viewer will relate the work to there own lives, through this understanding the universal them"

NYC Animation Block - independent animation festival and DVDs

Some call it punk rock, some call it grass roots, but labels aside - NYC based Animation Block is dedicated to exhibiting the world's best independent, professional and student animation. Our mode of broadcast is always evolving, be it through internet streaming on our website, smaller free screenings for the public, official Animation Block Party festivals or DVD distribution.

Our website home page offers three web selects every month for your mass consumption. As web selects are updated monthly, the old films will be archived on our site's history page for future playback.

Animation Block Party's are constantly renovated to exhibit all-genres of animation in new and interesting ways. Go to our history page for information about past festivals and after-parties. We are currently accepting entries for our 2005 End of Summer ABP. Go to our submit page for details.

The program of our NYC Valentine festival attracted distributors such as Atom Films to pick up festival winners, major studios like Disney called and asked for Valentine show DVD’s to review, large scale animation festivals such as Annecy (France) exhibited some of ABP’s world premieres at their 2005 festival while independent regional festivals such as Fitzroy Shorts (Australia) focused on Animation Block’s V-Day films. Many ABP festival films have been included on Animation Block’s first official DVD release, now available on our merchandise page.

Block Party festival sponsors have included Pabst Blue Ribbon, Krispy Kreme, Crumpler Bags, The Village Voice, Animation Magazine, withoutabox.com, Boinx Software, NY Central Art Supply and RES.