Thumbnails on a piano Written on January 19, 2010, by Zack.

I few days ago, the image of a man riding atop a piano across the ocean flashed in my mind. I had been thinking about solo piano music I enjoy, and about the possibility of visually expressing the music’s sentiment. So, I got to work: Howard Pyle, the great Golden Age children’s book illustrator, would [...]

Intelligent Plant Written on September 21, 2009, by Zack.

After the ink and paint dries, the tape is removed, the piece is scanned into the computer and is adjusted in Photoshop to match vividness of the original, there is still one secret and oft forgotten step in the illustration-creation process: the ruthless criticism. I step back from the piece, take a good long look [...]

Intelligent Plant, part 3: Color Me Bad…ly. Written on September 15, 2009, by Zack.

With the inking complete, I move on to the final stage in the operation: the heavy drinking. NO! Drinking and drawing don’t mix, and is evidenced by the “Progress Report” banner image. No, the third and final stage is watercoloring. In the discounted watercoloring books I procured from my local art store, I learned that [...]

Intelligent Plant, part 2: The Inkning Written on September 1, 2009, by Zack.

After creating a detailed sketch of the illustration (see part 1: The Pencilning), I confound and frustrate my wife by busting out the lightbox, placing a high quality watercolor sheet over the lead-heavy sketchbook page, and tracing another version of the illustration. This serves two purposes: One, transferring the image onto better-quality paper that hasn’t [...]

Intelligent Plant Written on August 5, 2009, by Zack.

Hey everyone, time for a progress report! Today, we’ll look at a project I’ve been working on for the past few weeks, an illustration for an art challenge held amongst the artists at my office. The theme for this month’s challenge is “Intelligent Plant.” With nothing other than that to go on, I decided to [...]