Tiny Wizard Drawings

-By Justin Gerard

 Rough Sketches

Digital (CS5) and Traditional Pencil

Study of Sugar Glider 

Pencil

Tight Drawing 

Pencil

Chris Riquinha Wins Accolade Award for "Uptown"

One Way or Another Productions congratulates Chris Riquinha on winning the Best Leading Actor Accolade award of 2012. Chris won this award for his role as Ben in One Way or Another’s production of Uptown, which was directed by Brian Ackley. Uptown was praised by critics and audiences during its festival tour from Fall 2009 to Summer of 2010, after-which it was picked up for domestic distribution and released on DVD and VOD.

Chris previously worked with One Way on "Cookies & Cream" and "Abandoned," which is currently in production. He returns to work with One Way this spring on their major project, The Butterfly Chasers, written & directed by Princeton Holt.

Brian Ackley commented:

“For the amount of time, energy and love Chris put into 'Uptown,' he deserves this kind of recognition in a big way.”

For full details of all the winners of the 2012 Accolade Awards click here.

- Lena

Posters and learning a trade

by Petar Meseldzija

In 1993, I started to
work for Verkerke Reproducties, a Dutch company that was one of the biggest
poster and art print companies in the world. The poster business was a booming
business in those days and the successful poster artists were getting rich.
Unfortunately I was not one of them, but I had a friend who was a leading
Verkerke artist and he was a rich man! At that time I was a starving artist who
just came to the Netherlands and was struggling to survive. Any opportunity to
earn some money was most welcome. In the subsequent 6 years I produced
(designed and painted) about 120 posters, prints and greetings cards, most of
them for Verkerke. I never got rich, but thanks to the jobs that I got from
this company on the regular basis, I was able to earn my living. Also during
this period, which I consider to be a period of my apprenticeship, I learned a
lot and experienced all sorts of things that provided me with important
knowledge and insights. 

The first few posters
that I did for Verkerke were the posters of clowns, who were always playing an
instrument, mostly a violin, and were accompanied by little dogs and boy clowns.
The art director would explain to me what kind of paintings they needed, and
because it was a highly commercial work, I obeyed all their wishes and, if
necessary, I did all the requested changes and corrections. Typically the
clowns had to be depicted as latently sad, melancholic people. The compositions
and colors had to be sweet and appealing, 
and they had to answer to the somewhat cheap aesthetic needs of the
public who was buying the posters. The sentimentality was one of the main
ingredients and a key to the commercial success of the poster.

 

This was my first
clown painting. The initial expression on the clown’s face was sadness. I can’t
remember whether the art director has  requested
such an expression, but the painting was accepted and published as an oversized
greetings card. After that the art director asked me to repaint the clown’s
face and to make him smile, which I apparently did. However, this painting was
never printed as a poster.



Back than the
headquarters of Verkerke Reproducties were far from the place where I lived. In
fact they were at the opposite side of the country. Although  the Netherlands is not very big, it took me a few
hours to get there by several  trains.
Once, I brought one of my clown paintings to the art director (see below). She
was at first very pleased with the painting, but after a while she started to
doubt. At the end she told me that she wants me to bring the painting back home
and to paint a red rose on the ground next to the plate ( this was before the
internet and Photoshop). Why, I asked. Because, she said, they have found out that,
regardless the main subject, the posters that have a red rose included in the
composition sell better than the posters without it! Also, a red rose was selling
better than, for instance white or yellow rose. So, I brought the painting back
home. A week later I was again sitting in the train with the same clown
painting next to me, but this time with a red rose in it.



There were many
situations of a similar kind during that period. I never complained about not
having enough artistic freedom while doing this kind of job. I guess I did not
need the artistic freedom at that time. Instead I needed enough work in order
to survive physically and mentally, and I needed a challenge that would help me
to develop my artistic skills. Most of these 120 paintings were not very good,
some of them were really bad. There were only a few of them that I was
completely satisfied with.  And although
I now don’t like to look at most of them, these works were extremely helpful
and important to me. I have had my share of ultra commercial art which
does not deal with the terms like artistic freedom, or free self-expression. I
have tasted the humility and the obedience, 
which are the indispensable elements in the illustrator’s arsenal of
qualities.

Nowadays the things
are different. I guess I have earned my artistic freedom. I know now what I
want, and what I don’t want, and when to insist on my own freedom of artistic
expression.  But I also know when to put
the thoughts about this freedom aside; I know when to shut up and do as the
client requires, in order to refill my piggy bank.



This is one of the few
paintings which I did for Verkerke posters that I am pleased with.

All creatures great and small, 1994, oil on
wooden board, 100 X 70 cm,  39 ¼ X 27 ½
inch

This Weekend...

-Dan dos Santos



When attending S.V.A., I studied under Max Ginsburg for several semesters. Much of my foundation in painting came from his lessons. Using a very simple approach, Max has a way of really clarifying the basics of solid figurative painting in a way that makes it easy for beginners to understand. I highly recommend this lecture to anyone looking to better their life-painting skills.

Max Ginsburg Painting From Life

Saturday, March 10, 2012   1:00 - 4:00pm

Join us at the Society of Illustrators for a live demonstration by the highly accomplished painter and illustrator Max Ginsburg.  Learn from Ginsburg's masterful brushstrokes as he paints a portrait study from life in oil.

A book signing and lecture will follow the demonstration. Max Ginsburg - Retrospective will be available for purchase at the Society of Illustrators Museum Shop.

Refreshments will also be available for purchase during the event.

Tickets: $20 members, $25 non-members, $15 students 

Click HERE to purchase tickets

Goblins for "Rift: Planes of Telara"

-Justin Sweet



Here's some Goblins for the pile. Always fun to do.

Apologies for my -lean- contributions. I'll have something more substantial here shortly...

Kent Sutton's "Abandoned"

Teaser to new drama...

ABANDONED

From award-winning director Kent Sutton comes the story of a social worker's first day on the job, which could prove to be her toughest. The story is told through multiple storylines, employing a veteran, ensemble cast - many of them from our frequently-used pool of actors!



Cast: Gabrielle Archer, Shelly Christian, Michael Gentile, Jason Loesch, Marbel Melendez, Christopher Pollard, Chris Riquinha, Diana Sanchez, Shake O Smith, Lori Summer, Naloni Ferguson, Malcolm Cox and more.
Director of Photography: Nathaniel Kramer
Make Up: Natasha Renee
Assistant Director: Shilda Albert
2nd Assistant Director: Qumiko Archer
Script Supervisor: Maylin Castro
Still Photographer: David Francis
Arthur Lamour: Security
Sound/Boom: Dalton Miller
Promo Art Director: J. L. Menzel
Promo Editor: Matthew Slamowitz
Producers: Mike Porter, Kent Sutton, Princeton Holt
Written by Diana Sanchez and Kent Sutton
Directed by Kent Sutton

Abandoned is currently in production. Check our main site for updates.

- Lena

Astronauts

Gregory Manchess



We’re coming up on fifty years of space program accomplishments. I was a kid when we were reaching for the moon. What many people seem to forget is the reality of the situation. We were not sure we were going to make it happen.



It’s taken for granted so much today, but back then, it was a gigantic risk. NASA made it look almost easy, going from one successful launch to another and making great strides toward success. I didn’t get to see all the footage of the launch failures leading up to those milestones until decades later. Tragically, we lost some explorers along the way, and it was always a hard reminder that, indeed, there was no guarantee.



As a kid, I followed the program as much as I could. My daydreams were full of spacemen bouncing across moonscapes. (The coolest thing in my short life then was watching the LEM blast-off from the moon’s surface, bound for home.)



Sure, I was interested in other things besides astronauts. Spies. Fighter pilots. Code-breakers. Scientists. Artists were powerful heroes because they could give all of those subjects the impact to make you feel their struggles in your gut. I suppose the artists made me realize that I could dream all sorts of things with a brush, without having to risk life and limb. That and motion sickness put me behind the easel and not the cockpit.



I’ve started a new series of paintings, just for me. Astronauts, past, present, or future, doesn’t matter. I was intrigued by Scott Carpenter’s face looking out from behind bright reflections bouncing off his face mask. And below, a shuttle crewman stares with that timeless look.



As a kid, I was always looking skyward, staring out into interstellar space from behind the atmospheric face mask of Earth. I feel a kinship with these explorers. Perhaps it’s the promise of all that discovery.



There’s just something so fascinating about people in space suits.