Look Into My Big Brown Eyes

Christmas is over, so I want to move on beyond Santa to close out the year. Today is New Year's Eve, the last day of 2009. The winter is just begun, even though it always seems to be well established by this time each year!

This is an illustration that I did a few years ago as a piece of licensed art. For those who don't know, licensed art is designed to appeal to companies who need images to enhance or complete a product which they wish to bring to the market place. They pay a fee, or royalties or both, in exchange for the right to use the image in a prescribed manner on specific products and for a set period of time, usually three years. I do a fair amount of this type of work and I sometimes also license my more traditional paintings as well.

I call this piece "Look Into My Big Brown Eyes". It is a whimsical rendering of a polar bear character, especially appealing because of the "Elton John" sized glasses that he is sporting. This type of light-hearted image can be attractive to companies that produce such products as greeting cards or stitched products.

The illustration was done on illustration board using acrylic paint with a few touches of pencil crayons. The size of the original is 7 inches by 10.25 inches. You can find a complete selection of my licensed art images at www.porterfieldsfineart.com/RichardDeWolfe/richarddewolfemainpage.htm.

Jolly Old Saint Nick

It's Christmas Eve and I just realized I haven't posted anything for Christmas! I decided to go with this one, an illustration I did some years ago, of the Jolly Old Elf himself. At one time, I worked full time as a freelance illustrator, creating realistic images like this for advertising, editorial, posters, etc.

It is painted on hot press illustration board using acrylic paint, applied with relatively fine sable brushes. The speckles of 'snow' on the wreath were created using a stiff tooth brush to splatter the paint with a flick of my thumb. The ribbon and some of the finishing highlights are done with airbrush, something I used often in illustration during the 1970's and 1980's. The lettering is hand done in acrylic, predating computer fonts.

500 Years of Female Portraits

This clever video by Philip Scott Johnson is titled ‘500 Years of Female Portraits in Western Art’. The music which accompanies the captivating faces as they continuously change and evolve from one to the next, is Bach’s Sarabande from Suite for Solo Cello No. 1 in G Major, BWV 1007 performed beautifully by Yo-Yo Ma. The video was nominated as Most Creative Video, 2^nd Annual You Tube Awards.

Posemaniacs

If you are an artist who paints figurative pictures, you know how difficult it can be to work out poses at various angles. There are a number of aides that have been available and these have proven useful over the years. The old tried and true wooden mannequin has served artists for centuries and in more recent times, photography has been used to freeze an action or difficult to maintain pose, which a model just could not hold for any length of time.

One of the latest tools to assist artists in rendering life-like figures, is available on the internet, at www.posemaniacs.com. The site contains every conceivable pose from every possible angle, both in male and female forms. I find one feature of this site to be truly amazing. When you select a pose, you can then drag it with your cursor, and rotate it a full 360 degrees on the horizontal axis! There is no charge for the use of this material, but donations are accepted to finance the production of additional material.

Check out the site at www.posemaniacs.com, and prepare to be amazed by the quality and wealth of information available to artists interested in the human form.

Pleine Aire Painting - The Farm Next Door

Here is the finished painting of the farm next door. It measures 12 inches by 16 inches, which is a great size to work on when using a portable easel or paint box in an outdoor setting. Small enough to manage easily, yet large enough to paint freely in a fairly short period of time.