I have returned....

Sorry for the long lapse in posting. These are some sketches from my trip to Florence this past month. I have more that I will post soon once they are scanned.

BOOK!

A special limited edition book on the process of the Art of Disney Stamps was released recently and I will be signing copies of it tomorrow, April 16th at the New Yorker Hotel on 34th St and 8th Ave from 1-3 PM, I feel very honored to have been part of this process and the book is really beautiful.

Oscar

Consistency is the last refuge of the unimaginative.
- Oscar Wilde

I am not sure I agree with Oscar completely on this one but it was fairly appropriate for this post. I used to struggle with the fact that I feel I have no definitive "style" but now I am OK with not feeling tied down to one particular way to work. I suppose I will spend the rest of my creative life figuring out which way to draw what is in my head.

Ricardo Lopez Ortiz

Ricardo is one of the best people I know. I had the privilege of traveling to Florence, Italy with this kind, thoughtful, and extremely talented young man. We spent a month working together on art and simply having a great time. A tremendous young talent with work that is totally worth visiting. The brightest of futures is in store for him and he is the epitome of what a diligent student should be.

His Website

His Blog

Portrait of a Lady

Jared-redux

OK, So last week I had posted this portrait I was doing of Jared in progress but I was having trouble loading some of the images and some people told me they couldn't see some of them so I took down the post. Here it is again (sans the progress) with the final image as well as the original drawing. I have to admit the scan of it is not the best and for some reason it looks very different than this. You will just have to take my word for it. Thanks to everybody who commented on the original post.

Richard Ely: 1928-2009

My dear friend and colleague Richard Ely passed away this week. He was a brilliant artist and illustrator. This was the most recent drawing I did of him in December 2008 (which he loved!). Below you will find a variety of his work demonstrating his unique ability to be versatile with styles and always with a level of utmost quality and grace.

He would often regale me with stories of Marlene Dietrich cooking for him in Berlin or getting into a squabble with Katharine Hepburn because she tore his pad out of his hands to inspect his drawing of her, or how when Lotte Lenya was in "Cabaret" on Broadway she would call him up at 1 AM to go get a hamburger. He loved to tell these stories and he knew I loved to hear them. He drew anyone who was ANYONE and the most chic and famous sought him out to get a portrait done. His portrait of Tallulah Bankhead is in the permanent collection of the Smithsonian National Portrait Gallery in Washington D.C.

Always at the top of his game, I never saw him make a bad drawing. He would come to my open drawing sessions at FIT and would make incredible pictures filled with life and energy and was constantly complimenting me and filling me encouragement that I am not sure I always deserved. Attached at the bottom of this post is an interview Richard gave to the school magazine last spring. On it he wrote a letter to me filled with his unending words of praise and kindness. He would do these sorts of things without notice and he understood the value of talent in another person. I shall miss him dearly.

Elly

This portrait of Elly is the sister image (literally!) to the portrait of Sean that I posted recently. I have to ask Jared's Sister to take photos of the images in the BEAUTIFUL frames Jared handmade for them.