Art by Lawrence Washington

March For this series, this is actually the first picture I started on. I got the idea from looking at Edward Hopper's "Night Windows" and said : I want to make a calendar series with pictures like that! At this point in time, I hadn't drawn anything for a few months (Stress related. Sensitive artist and all that).  When you compare this to what ended up in the series, it's like night and day. You can tell here that my skills need work. I had no idea what to do with the lighting, the colors are hideous, and the person is drawn horribly. I like to put this next to the finished one to see what a difference practice makes. Does this look familiar? I ended up using this as the image for the cover, but it actually started out as the image for March.  After the abysmal first attempt for March, I decided to do the pictures in order. As you read from the January drafts, that didn't go smoothly, but I eventually found my rhythm. When I came around to ...

January I started this one not really knowing how the series would come together. I envisioned a series of pictures with "Hopper-esque" influences but that's about it. I remember spending too much time worrying about the staging of this scene and what elements should go in it. I spent a great deal of time adding details to the buildings and the train, then went to bed. The next morning, I looked at the whole piece again and hated it. I still gave it another shot and added people to the scene but I ultimately gave up on it. I didn't even bother adding details to the sky. I really like this one. With the movement of the background and the cool train in the forefront, I think it's a really cool image on its own. But in the calendar, not so much. After I found my rhythm and I finished more pictures in the series, this one looked a bit out of place. It has an overall different feel than the rest of the series, so I took it out and did a whole new one...

So I figured for a little bit of fun I'd show you some of the ideas I had to abandon. I don't think any of them are bad, I just felt they didn't fit the overall piece. Enjoy: Cover Drafts This is the first idea I had. I wanted to have a picture on the cover that used elements of all of the pictures in the calendar. But once I was finished, I thought it looked too busy and that the words were too hard to read.  This is the second draft.  I had an idea of creating a skyline in white space to make the pictures pop. But the design could use some work.  This is another take on the idea. I figured adding outlines and using a more arty font would liven things up. This was the cover for a few days until I printed out a few test copies and the whole package had this 'cheap' feeling to it. So ultimately I went with the design in the final version. More on how the final version came to b be is coming up...

It's that time of the year again. the current iteration of what seems like a tradition for me, I have chosen a concept called "The City". This series began as a tribute to the work of Edward Hopper. If you are a fan of his work, you should notice the influence in a lot of the pictures. This project took about three months to complete, starting on September 1st to the end of November. The poster took the longest, due to the many details that went into it. I made a total of 125 calendars. Printed and assembled at home.  I wish the cost of mass producing these was a lot cheaper. During the course of the coming year I will research print companies to see if I can find a cheap and easy solution for getting these made. Anyway, here is the full set from this series. Enjoy. Cover January This went through several drafts before I settled on a final design. Though I never had a clear design in mind when I started this, I knew wanted to create an art piece with ...

It's Xmas time and I've been very busy; artistically and otherwise. Stay tuned for more. I made another calendar that I am very proud of...