Illustration – Natural & Digital Media
Click any image to enlarge/access gallery
When I was young, some of my favorite painters were illustrators like Norman Rockwell and especially N. C. Wyeth and, who brought imaginary people and their actions to life. But I was really fascinated by reconstructed views of ancient Rome in National Geographic and in Alma-Tadema’s paintings. Quite mechanically inclined, I loved cutaway views of engines and other technological marvels. At TI Group in the eighties, I directed airbrush illustrators, but later learned to do my own, both natural-media and computer-based.
There are two galleries on this page. While I really like every image, I am most proud of my latest, a poster for Iolanthe, using elements from two favorite designers, Alphonse Mucha and Auguste Pugin. My only scratchboard drawing is the two-page visual exposition of the complex amphibious cargo operations to Pacific islands on Coast Guard Cutter Kukui, 1971.
The lower half of this section displays several scrolls made for friends in the Society for Creative Anachronism.
Our tradition was to create these elaborate scrolls gratis, based – anachronistically – mostly based on medieval and Renaissance book pages. They were usually awarded by the reigning monarch of the kingdom (in this case, Midrealm).
My later scrolls atempted to imitate actual period award scrolls, which were usually far simpler in design,
while using the royal arms and the award emblem to dress them up a bit.
