"Horseplay" Digital Illustration for Bits and Pieces Puzzle Company

     Lately I've been having a great time painting digitally in photoshop.   Based on requests from one of the artist reps I work with,  I've been creating traditional scenes of birds, animals, and holiday themes.   Painting on canvas with a brush is something I used to do many years ago and I've missed it.   Now, in Photoshop, I'm finding that same freedom I enjoyed on canvas, only with an "undo" feature that acrylics and oils never offered me.  Plus there are all sorts of tricks and enhancements that can be added that would have been a huge challenge with a real paint brush.   It's really nice to have a  computer counterpart that paints along with me and is ready to make some hi-tech corrections when my feeble human skills veer off in the wrong direction.  It's also come in due time since my late-40s eyes are starting to give in.  (Thank you magnifying tool!)
     In spite of my many attempts to do "cool" art over the years,  my inner gravitational pull seems to always steer me back to happy and cute scenes.  It's just who I am and I've decided to start owning it!

Bill-Blip's ship

25 years ago I wrote and illustrated a children's book thinking it was going to be my ticket into the big-time. Instead it turned out to be a ticket to receive lots of rejection letters. Anyway, last week I decided to re-paint one of the main spreads just for fun. It was a story about a little boy who wanted to stand out by doing outrageous things, only to venture to a planet where it was so wacky, the only one who stood out was a very humble little girl.

Vector birthday card and plate

Rendering vector illustrations in Adobe Illustrator was once, for me, a great source of angst.   Pen tools are tricky little buggers for novice users.  If you're trying to tame one yourself, I promise you, just breathe and relax...  you'll get it.  I actually love working in vector now.  The clean, crisp lines and deliberate choosing of shapes for shadows brought out a whole new happy style and feel that I was unable to attain in other mediums.  All of them have their place though.  For bright happy birthday graphics, vector is magical.

1993 illustration: Grannysmith Gets Sweet With McIntosh.

1993 illustration: The Banana That Ate Baltimore!

1993 illustration: Metro Wins Baltimore's Best Buns Contest

One of my first long-term freelance jobs was around 1993,  getting a weekly gig drawing cartoons for the covers of the local Metro Food Market's circulars.   For a little over a year, I had a blast illustrating tabloid-esqe covers of animated food in unusual situations.  For a young illustrator, the $400 per piece was a rare source of steady income and had me honing and crafting a cartoon style that ended up feeding into all sorts of jobs down the road.  I can't believe I'm forgetting the Art Director's name right now, but if you're out there,  please remind me and THANKS!!!

So here's how it began...

Upon graduating from VCU in 1987, everything was done off-line.  My illustrations were all created on board with ink, water color, or acrylic.  Then they were packed up and sent to my clients via Fed X or local courier.    At the time, people liked having a local artist so wearing many illustrator's hats came in handy.  To some I was known as storyboard artist, to some a painter, others a cartoonist.   It worked well and I was grateful to have a slew of work in my studio from the very beginning.   There wasn't the competition of the entire planet back then and I knew nothing of even turning a computer on let alone living and breathing through one...   how things have changed.

Still haven't hopped on the blogging wagon but want to at least attempt a post here.  Let's see if this thing still works. Here's a recent Santa painting in photoshop...

larryjonesillustration.com

Here we go a blogging...