Even White Trash Zombies Get The Blues

-Dan dos SantosHere's a painting I just finished up. It's for the book 'Even White Trash Zombies Get the Blues'. Which, in case you couldn't tell, is the sequel to 'My Life As A White Trash Zombie'.You may remember me mentioning in a while back that I was referencing Norman Rockwell for a piece I was working on, particularly to examine the way in which he flattened space to create a more graphic effect. Well, this is the painting that I was attempting...

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Eiko Ishioka

by Arnie FennerPart of creating memorable fantastic art has to do with designing costumes for the characters that will seem both "right" for the story and unique. A shirt is a shirt, armor is armor, a crown is a crown, without the artist's contribution, without their vision.So it's with sadness that I note the passing January 21 of Eiko Ishioka at the age of 73 from pancreatic cancer. A designer of everything from album covers to set designs for...

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Stephen Colbert interviews Maurice Sendak

This brilliant interview has been making the rounds, and rightfully so. I think it is hilarious, though perhaps not appropriate for everyone's tast...

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Uroš Predić (Orlovat 1857 – Belgrade 1953)

by Petar MeseldzijaUroš Predić, one of the greatest Serbian painters, was born in 1857 in Orlovat , a village in the region of Banat, to the family of Petar Predić, who was a priest, and his wife Marija.  After finishing the grammar school in Pančevo, in 1876 he enrolled in the Academy of Arts in Vienna. Once settled in this magnificent capital city of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire, Predić devoted himself to his studies very seriously. He studied...

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Comics Out Loud

This Saturday at the Society of Illustrators, NYC....In a manner similar to the Society's acclaimed ART OUT LOUD events, COMICS OUT LOUD will feature top comic book creators - one from each discipline of the medium - demonstrating and discussing their work processes as attendees circulate around the room and watch the process of "sequential art" (as the great Will Eisner dubbed it) being made. You'll get to watch writer LOUISE SIMONSON, penciler...

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Appreciating Rembrandt

-Justin SweetHere's a couple of my favorite Rembrandt's. Great pictorially in every way......

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The Future of Painting

Gregory ManchessThe principles of physics, as far as I can see, do not speak against the possibility of maneuvering things atom by atom.--Richard Feynman, Nobel LaureateIt’s entirely important for us to paint with our minds focused on today, as in-tune with our generation as possible, not ‘ahead of our time’ as the favorite saying goes.The intelligent painter reasons that it would be a good thing for their work to look as fresh in the future as when...

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Appreciating Rockwell, Pt. 4

-By Dan dos SantosNorman Rockwell has undoubtedly had a great influence on the illustration world, but rarely do we consider those who influenced him.James Gurney recently blogged about some similarities between Rockwell's work and some European painters, and I thought it would be nice to explore this notion further. Norman Rockwell has had many different styles throughout his long career (4000 paintings long, to be exact), and some of...

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The Forest Troll: Digital Trickery

By Justin GerardI am working in Adobe Photoshop CS5 for the digital final for this painting. (You don't always need the latest and greatest in software, but CS5 is amazingly stable by comparison to CS4 or CS3, both of which would crash regularly based on alignment of certain stars and lunar cycles. And on Tuesdays. And really just any time that they felt like crashing.)  Up until the halfway point I work in only multiply layers.  I...

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