2012 speaks !

Happy New Year !

I hope that the new year brings you happiness and good fortune ! Thanks for checking out my blog.

Happy Holidays everyone !

3 paperback covers from the 1960's

In the 1960's I painted a few paperback book covers, mostly science fiction subjects. It was more fun than doing advertising illustrations. However, my main source of income was from advertising work and the deadline demands usually were brutal enough that I had to limit my branching out in other fields. I think that I managed to do about 20 book cover illustrations. The 3 posted here were recently found on line at an internet book store. I lucked out with Dr. Futurity as it was an Ace double with The Unteleported Man on the reverse side. I now wish that I had pursued this field more as I really enjoyed doing these illustrations.

An old hero passes away

Joe Simon, creator of Captain America, died last Wednesday, December 14. He was 98 years old. When I was 17 or 18 years old, my good friend Herb Schiebold and I took a trip to New York City and were determined to meet the great team of comic book artists Joe Simon and Jack Kirby, the creators of many great comic book superheros. We went to the offices of Timely Comics and were told that the team works out of their homes in Mineola, Long Island, so the next morning we boarded the train and were on our way. When we arrived at the street where Simon and Kirby lived we saw a guy walking down the street carrying a batch of comic strips. We asked him if he were Joe Simon, he responded " No, but I could be Jack Kirby". He was on his way over to Joe Simon's house and invited us along. They were under the usual deadline pressure but were very gracious and spent a lot of time with us, showing us all of the work that they were doing. It was a great experience that I'll never forget. Many years later, in the mid 1960's, one of my students, Bob Taylor, sold a cover to Simon who was the creator of Sick Magazine. Bob and I went to New York and met with Joe who remembered me from my earlier visit. Bob and I began to do a lot of artwork for Sick Magazine and I signed my work "The Professor" as I had been submitting ideas to Mad Magazine. I sold a few ideas to Mad but never any artwork. I did work for Sick for about 2 years and it was fun, but my advertising deadline pressures prevented me from continuing. Though I only knew Joe for a brief period, he was a great friend and was fun to work with. Below are a couple of things that I drew for Sick.

A third holiday gift idea

I wrote a book called SURREALITIES which is filled with many of my photomontages. The computer is the perfect medium for creating surreal photomontages. It's a 72 page book and is available from Xlibris.com. Below are several pages from the book.

Another holiday gift idea

DIGITAL DREAMS is a book I wrote about exploring the computer as an art medium. It has many examples of the various art techniques that can be used to create interesting images from realism to total abstractions. Shown below are just a few examples from the 80 page book which is available from Xlibris.com. A good book for beginners as well as established artists.

Paintings selected for TV show

One of my favorite TV shows is THE GOOD WIFE and a couple of weeks ago I got a call from one of the producers. She said that they were very interested in using some of my new paintings in the sets of an upcoming episode. She had seen my new abstract nude paintings on my blog and thought that they would work well in the scene backgrounds. I said "WOW, yes!". A day or so later she contacted me again and said that they had made their choices, which I have posted below. Very exciting ! It was great to see the paintings displayed the way they were.


ALMOST RELAXED NUDE


MUSE


NUDE ON THE BEACH


DECONSTRUCTED NUDE


DANCERS


NEW IMAGE 1


THE DREAM


NEW IMAGE 2

A gift idea

Christmas is fast approaching and if you are looking for gifts, you might consider my book ART THERAPY, which is full of cartoons about the fine art business. The book is available from Xlibris.com. Below are a few examples from the book.

New digital experiments

For my new painting series I have been doing all of my preliminary ideas and sketches on the computer. It adds a whole new dimension to creating color studies for paintings as it enables me to quickly create several different versions of the same composition. I will also print these studies up as limited edition prints to sell in the gallery.


Dancers


Dancers 2


Deconstructed Nude


The Dream
I am especially pleased with the color and composition of the above image. The computer is a great medium for experimenting with color and design.

Craig Smith Gallery hosts benefit

The art gallery that I am associated with hosted a fine benefit dinner last Saturday night. It was a fun evening and Gloria and I met some interesting people that came in from the Chicago area. Below is the poster that I designed for the event.

Having fun with type

Over the years I have always been involved with graphic design projects as well as illustration. I actually started out as a graphic designer, so it was my entry into the commercial art business. I was working on a graphic design promotional brochure and developed these typographic designs during the process.

My blog's birthday!

Portrait of an artist

These are some of the traits that many successful commercial and fine artists possess. Another quality is the ability to not get too discouraged by criticism, some art critics and art directors can be brutal. Actually, an artist must be his or her own worst critic as art is a never ending growing and learning experience.