These quick pastel studies were done to work out color and composition for a series of large oil paintings. They are scenes from boatyards and marshes around Harkers Island, North Carolina. My plan was to use these very small 5″x7″ studies to really push the color so that when I enlarged them to a 4′ canvas size they would take on an abstract quality, concentrating on loose brushstrokes of color as opposed to realistic images. We’ll see what happens.

While waiting to start the paintings, these studies were sold to hang as a group in a Hilton Head condo. Maybe I’ll keep doing studies and delay the paintings.

Once the sketch was approved, I did two color comps, one in a pastel style and one indicating a colored scratchboard style.

The editor chose the scratchboard. After a few modifications to the sketch, the final black and white scratchboard art was hand colored with watercolor washes.

Here is the initial pencil sketch.

This is the finished cover. Watercolor wash over pencil on Crescent watercolor board.

Proof that I really can catch something –Alabama 1959

I first did pencil sketches for size and placement.

Once approved, I did some rough marker comps to work out blacks and whites.

After the marker roughs, I did the finished black and white scratchboard art. I use white scratchboard and ink in the areas I want to scratch away –  this is much easier than using black scratchboard.

Next, I made good quality copies of the black and white art, mounted them on a sturdy board and hand colored them with watercolor. The finished art was then scanned for production.

Here are the spreads that appeared in the magazine.

We started with a series of pencil sketches depicting the various amenities that will be part of the development. Below are a few of the sketches.

Next, we selected a few and went to a color comp stage, trying to roughly convey the WPA poster style. These were basically Xerox copies with watercolor washes for color. Below are several examples of the color comps.

The pavilion was chosen as the first poster to produce so I did several color comps with different perspectives.

After the client picked the view, the finished art (14×22) was produced using pastel on colored paper and printed on a dull coated heavy stock.

The Caring House provides adult cancer patients and accompanying caregivers with a comfortable, supportive and affordable place to stay during outpatient treatment at the Duke Cancer Institute in Durham, NC.

I became aware of the Caring House after a close friend, there for 5 weeks of outpatient care, told me what a great place it was and how fortunate they were to stay there. I was asked if I would be interested in donating a piece of art for their t-shirt.  Rather than adapting an existing image, I thought it would be better to come up with something specific to The Caring House and what they wanted to portray.

These are the initial pencil sketches I submitted, trying to visually combine the concept of caring with the physical aspect of the house. The client had expressed an interest in something simple and symbolic that could be colorfully rendered and have the appearance of being hand drawn or painted. The image they selected (bottom right) was chosen because they felt it showed the caring hands providing comfort and care within the house itself.

The challenge was trying to figure out how to colorfully render it since it is basically a single flat plane. After fooling around with different ways to add color, I thought why not just treat the background image of the house as a loosely painted block of color. I sent them two these two color comps, one in a fluid watercolor style and one in a loose acrylic painterly style.

They chose the loose painterly style and wanted to keep the hand lettered type on the finished art. The image at the top is the finished art. I also did a black and white version to use as the new Caring House logo.

You can find out more about The Caring House at caringhouse.org.