Victor Ambrus and Project X

So I was checking up on what Justin Gerard had been up to and discovered a new illustrator!  Mr. Gerard is headed to Washington at the end of March for a workshop that I am highly desirous to participate in - if Amazon would stop stealing my money by tempting me with their capacious amounts of fantastic art books.  And books in general.  Anyway, where was I?  Ah!  New illustrator!

Well, actually, he's not "new" he's been around for a while - and I'm still trying to figure out if I should have known who he is . . . But that's beside the point.  He's awesome.  Watercolors, pen and ink, AND he recreates ancient civilizations on site for some BBC program!  And has books on how to do that.  I'm telling you angels are singing here, right now.

His name is Victor Ambrus; he was born in Hungary and fled to England after the failed Hungarian Uprising against the Soviets.  If you look him up on Wikipedia, it has a very extensive list of books that he's illustrated or contributed to.

As might be suspected, I have now given Amazon more money - money that I told myself I would not being giving them again.  At this rate I might as well just sign over my first child - second, too, maybe.  But I have 4 new(ish) books by this guy coming my way! So excited!

Part of the reason that I am excited is that my mind has been infected (again) by an idea of epic proportions similar to the other two ideas that my mind is still under the effects of (which you can see here and here).  It has the potential of being significantly more epic than either Silkwood and Co. or The Robin Hood Project (if you can believe that).  It involves being able to illustrate life from several different periods of history, and so you can see why Ambrus' books Drawing on Archaeology and Recreating the Past are such a cool find for me!

I'm not going to tell you what my idea for the new project is - I really want to jump right into it but it involves a lot of planning and research and I need to finish the first two before I start on a new project.  But you can see some of the character ideas here (as well as a kind of hint about what this project is about on the page):

I can't help myself - they started talking to me and telling me their stories and then I got a download of ideas . . . I just couldn't help myself!  I had to do some drawings for them!

Pulp Art Tribute

For those of you who are interested, there is a open call for submissions for a "Pulp Art" Tribute show that will take place sometime this summer. Details are below with the link to the gallery's site.

http://www.galleryprovocateur.org/upcomingexhibition.html

Pulp Art Tribute show opening Summer 2012
Open Call

Artists will reinterpret and pay homage to Pulp Art. 

Characteristics of Pulp Art 

Pulp illustrations traditionally had an action/adventure theme and are often set in the 1930s and 40s. Submissions can be a modern day interpretation or pay homage to the vintage classics. The background usually tells a story. Most often, Pulp art places the character in action or indicates he or she is on an adventure.

The artists who created the cover images eventually got it down to a simple formula: one or two figures, usually a hero and a damsel in distress in bright colors. The cover paintings were the entire advertising campaign and sales pitch. There was tremendous competition and only several seconds to catch the reader’s eye. 

Reference links for inspiration:
http://www.thepulp.net/
http://home.comcast.net/~pulpgallery/welcome.html

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Requirements:
Create a piece that is evocative of Pulp Artwork but not a carbon copy or literal rendition of any one piece. It must convey the essence of this distinctive work. Pulp compositions were thematically based on energy and color. Images must be more than just a repaint of a reference image. Size and media are unlimited. Multiple submissions are allowed. 

Artists will retain all copyrights to their submitted works.
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Submissions & Deadlines:

Final entry deadline: April 15th, 2012 
All final entries to be emailed in high res 300dpi format. 

Submissions to be sent to: submissions@galleryprovocateur.org

After selections are made, artists will be notified. Artists will be responsible for meeting gallery deadlines for artwork arrival, additional biography information for website and inbound/outbound shipping of work to gallery & a $25 entry fee per piece for the exhibition which will help cover all costs incurred by the gallery including insurance for the work during the 3 month exhibition run.
_______________________________
About the gallery:

Gallery Provocateur is a not for profit gallery dedicated to promoting the arts and giving back to the art community with a low commission rate and nominal fees. The gallery is located in the historical landmark building, the
Congress Theatre. The avant-garde gallery presents provoking art in an innovative ambiance. The intimate setting and tantalizing art, stimulates all the senses. 

_______________________________
About the exhibition:

The art exhibition will open Summer 2012 (final date tba later). 

Exhibition will run for 3 months. Gallery commission is 25%. 
Exhibition includes, 3 month run of exhibition at gallery, 3,000 postcard mailer (postcards available for artists too), an opening weekend reception (featuring advance press review, black-tie barstaff, wine, refreshments and Hors DeOuvres'), press kits submitted to newspapers-magazines-television, live web broadcast of the reception (for overseas and long distance clients), and an online link to exhibiting artists permanently listed on the Gallery website (which receives on average of 20,000 visits a week), and last but not least...a closing reception/promotional event.

Pages from My Sketchbook

Just some pages from my sketchbook today - I've finally rescanned and edited everything again.  Still not satisfied with the depth of the red, but overall it's the closest I could get.

New Sketches

I've been drawing a lot lately.  Not from life, unfortunately.  But I have so many stories and pictures running around in my head I have to do something with them to be able to get any sleep or peace at night.

I scanned in everything new last week, hoping for once to make my weekly updated deadlines for Silkwood & Co. and Robin Hood Project.  But for some reason that I have yet to explain, I color corrected everything wrong in Photoshop.  And not just  - "Oh, you're being a perfectionist" wrong.  More like the "what were you smoking" kind of wrong.  Ugh.  I think I'm going to have to re-scan everything, too.  Annoyances.

Of course, I didn't realize this until I had uploaded everything on the blogs.

To punish myself, I'm posting some of the less horrific ones here for anyone too lazy, or kind, to go to the blogs to see what I mean.

Marcus, from S&C

Marian, from RHP

Sketches, from S&C

Sketches, from S&C

Can you see what I'm talking about?  The drawings on brown paper are ORANGE!  How did that pass the sniff test?!

Breathe. Okay.