"It Came from the Farthest Planet"

This peice was for my final illustration studio assignment. The assignment was to illustrate a poster for a 1950 sci-fi movie fest. Durring the planning and labor for this assignment, I felt that this peice became a peice that pays homage to a dead art. The 1950's sci-fi movies were a somewhat, well, weird time in history, but one to be rememberen nonetheless. This dedicated to every fan of science fiction.

"Blown Away"

"Blown Away" oil on canvas board

This is my favorite peice to date. I really dove into this project head first, and loved every minute i spent on it.
I think as far as technique is concerned, this peice reflects more on my growth as an artist. This peice was one I
sat down and planned out right from the beginning.

And here is the finish for the L.L. Bean assignment.

The underpainting of my LL bean cover......yea this assignment is alot of fun......nevermind

Robin at Roswell

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This is the second figure drawing I did with Robin dressed up as an amish man. This time the ufo landing is in Roswell.

"this is my monica face"

Heh, this is Bill Clinton. We had to do a portrait from photo reference, so he was the best one i could find. The facial expression that I found was kind of funny because the whole class said that this was what he looked like when monica was, well for lack of a better term, "performing", on him. a good chuckle comes out of this peice, especially considering my sense of humor.

the new yorker

The assignment was to make a basic mock up of "The New Yorker" magazine cover. The cover usually has a subtle joke concererning the season, politics, time, etc. The assignment given was to illustrate New York at halloween time.
I chose to do a taxi being driven by a skeleton in the "witching hour" of Halloween night. I really liked the idea and decided to use ink, watercolor and guache. I am verry happy with the results, i think this is a decent peice, it turned out extremely well, and the joke is well played. I had a great critique on this peice and the majority of the class seemed to like it. pretty sweet.

The Bush Twins

Well, here it is. I put about 13 hours overall, research included, in this peice. I am reletivly happy with the outcome. On first glimpse i can see that there is a HUGE anatomical difference, but i honestly dont think it takes away from the peice enough to screw it up. Now keeping in mind that Jack Martin is my favorite teacher, i thought that he did knit-pick a couple of things in my peice that may have been better off not said. I realize that as an instructor of a diffucult feild you have to be honest of inspiring students work, but at the same time there are issues that are better left alone until a later date. I felt that he gave me GREAT criticism, i agreed about almost everything except his fire comment (those of you there will understand). I dont think i missed the assignment, as a matter of fact i think i adressed the concept pretty much spot on. I answered the assignment "beauty vs. Beast". I think that yes there are some anatomical details that need to be adressed, that i still conveyed, if not a narration, than at least a likeness and concistency between the two peices. Maybe the composition is a few inches off, and I should have rendered out some more spotes (like the ear), the flag in the first peice should be a bit cooler in the color. but that stuff is minor, upon first glance i do get the feel of whats going on, and i can admit that some parts arent rendered out completely but those parts do not completly take away from a peice.

That is my own criticism on my own work. I am still pleased with my crit. in class today. Jack gave me some really good advice that i want to put into future assignments.
I am still having trouble with some mediums, I feel like i am, however, getting a feel for pastel. I have become comfortable with oils in a strictly abstract, fine art sense, but for illustration (which is what i ultimately want to do) i havent found a definate style and medium that completley dominates my work. I generally try to experiment with every medium, but have found recently charcoal, sanguine, pastel, or, oil paints, are my strongest mediums.

Since i am still a junior at pcad, i feel that i have a good amount of time to work on either low-income spot illustrations, or cheep magazine covers until i find a syle or medium that can launch me to the next level of my own art, i plan to just practice it all.

I look forward to the day i break away and start getting my peices to a point where i am in high demand. Besides, time will take its time, if we take time out of time

finished jihad

Hey, sorry it took so long to put the finish of our president as a terrorist as a post on here.
but I took a couple days off of working on it, so it wouldnt run stale on me, and this here is the finish.
I think it turned out all right, but ill critique the overall project in the next post.

the past meets the present

dubya jihad

this is about 60 percent finished, but i am pleased with the progress

dubya

I am about 90 percent finished on this half of the assignment, i cant wait to start on the second half

black and white sketch for class tomorrow

Nuclear Santa

tribute to tomatoes

tomatoes are such an underrated food item very rarely getting the recognition they deserve. The can make any salad, burger, sub have a whole new dimension of flavor. its an explosion

mural concept

over the summer i took a mural class. This was a concept drawing for a mural that would go on a contemporary upscale italian restaurant.

dreams are made of

another experiment with water color that i have stumbled upon in recent days
i really like this one, not so much for actual rendering, but it creates an image that is visually interesting.

JFK presidential portrait master copy for techniques class last year. I really like the way this one turned out, especially for one of my first serious attempts at oils

quick figure studies

Lil Eric

this is a peice i had to do for an illustration assignment last year that turned out very successful. I had to illustrate what i thought about my home. Well a big part of what makes my neighborhood fun to live in are the kids that live around there. The kid in the foreground is Little Eric, quite possibly the coolest little kid of all time. He was nice enough to pretend to hit a baseball through my window. (its only a matter of time until a ball actually goes through my window.)

Wilford Brimmley and his Pet Walrus

This was done for a caricature assignment last year. Wilford Brimmley, the man on the diabetis commercial. (yes i know he is an actor by fame, but his commercial was hillarious).
you know, not to defend the cartoon family guy (recently the seasons have gone extremely downhill) but that cartoon did the funniest bit poking fun at Wil Brimmley. Maybe that was what made me pick him for this assignment....who knows

faces

This peice is an experiment with watercolor, guache, and ink. No real rhyme or reason other than that it is visually interesting. I appologize about the flash shine over the one area, but i will replace the picture as soon as i get a better photo.

work in progress

to be honest with you, i have no real political knowledge. I am not really that politically motivated but the assignment calls for a beauty vs. beast type of thing. Once the assignment became more open, i wanted to take a different approach to beauty vs. beast. Our beloved president George Bush in all of his infinite wisdom, is portrayed in a glorified presidential view, showing him at a podium leading our nation. For the beast side of this project (which i am still currently working on the under drawing) will show our president as the fear that he has dangled over our heads. He will be portrayed as the enemy, a terrorist. It seems as though ever since 9/11 the word terrorist has been used as a sort of population control. Not population control in the way of numbers, but in the way to keep people afraid of an unseen enemy. Im not saying that the threat of terror isnt real or even somewhat frightning, i just think that we have lost sight of our origional goal as a nation. It seems to me that there is more to the story than just the fact that we are being threatened by "terrorists". Even having the enemy being called a general term "terrorist" is kind of decieving, its a generic name that has a way of instilling fear. There can be many groups of radical people living in our homeland that can be called terrorists that are allowed to exsist. The enemy has been automatically portrayed as an arab man with a beard and turban. If you look at our retaliation to the terror attacks of 9/11 and our origional goal of getting the group that did it, we have only completed a third of our goal. We made sure that nothing has happened since. That is our only victory. We started out invading Afganistan to get that rat bastard Osama Bin Laden, but we ended up getting Saddam Hussein, and havent left Iraq. But we did it with the fact that the "Terror Alert" is high, the terrorists are winning we must defeat them. The fact of the matter is we were not wrong to invade Afganistan, and there is some sort of good that came around from getting Saddam, the problem is that in our efforts to put in place a stable form of government in Iraq falls short of the goal of retaliation for 9/11. I am ranting now, so to get to the point of the beast side of the project, i am showing Bush in the eyes that the people in the countries we are "trying to save" as a man with two faces. President of the free world vs International Terrorist.

...he means business

the mad hatter

Syd the Kid

this peice dedicated to Sydney Crosby from the Pittsburgh Penguins, SYD THE KID!

after visiting my parents on labor day, i found my moms garden fascinating this is one of her flowers

lately i have been experimenting with different watercolor techniques and ideas. These next few photos are the results of such experimentation.

The Wes is here

Hi my name is Wes Morris, you can call me The Wes