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Category Archives: *Client Work

Visiting with Friends

Visiting with Friends

Summary: Nameless Toads Playing Cards, Clandestine Notes, and Surprises! And so it was, that on a bright afternoon friend and fellow Foolscap Press owner Larry VanVelzer stopped by the studio to ask me to create a watercolor as a surprise birthday present for his wife and partner Peggy Gotthold. Without hesitation we set about crafting our… Continue Reading

Graduate Research & Creativity Symposium Cover Illustration

Graduate Research & Creativity Symposium Cover Illustration

SUMMARY: MY ILLUSTRATION “THE ASTRONOMER” WAS RECENTLY CHOSEN AS THE COVER IMAGE FOR THE UNIVERSITY OF HARTFORD’S GRADUATE RESEARCH AND CREATIVITY SYMPOSIUM CATALOG.… Continue Reading

Holiday Cheer with Elves & More

Holiday Cheer with Elves & More

Summary: Volunteer work with a bike charity in Ohio, and the gift of a new logo illustration. … Continue Reading

Illustrating “The Hole Story of Kirby the Sneak and Arlo the True”

Illustrating “The Hole Story of Kirby the Sneak and Arlo the True”

Summary: This blog post covers a book project that I worked on from the end of 2014 to the beginning of 2105. I was hired to create a cover illustration and a number of black and white interior illustrations for the book The Hole Story of Kirby the Sneak and Arlo the True.… Continue Reading

The Story of the Fisherman; Up Close

The Story of the Fisherman; Up Close

The Story of the Fisherman is a letterpress book that is hand bound and hand colored. The limited edition of 117 (101 of which are for sale) is a project that is produced by Foolscap Press.… Continue Reading

The Story of the Fisherman Final Art Gallery

The Story of the Fisherman Final Art Gallery

A gallery of all the final art work that was used for the book The Story of the Fisherman.… Continue Reading

The Story of the Fisherman; Sketches and Video

The Story of the Fisherman; Sketches and Video

During the course of working on “The Story of the Fisherman” I’ve generated many many sketches, here are just a few. I hope you enjoy them.… Continue Reading

Inky Arabian Nights : Process Video

Inky Arabian Nights : Process Video

I put together a video sharing some of my watercolor techniques. There was a lot of positive feedback on that video that I wanted to create another process video. … Continue Reading

Quick Work; Positive Results

Quick Work; Positive Results

Moving quickly to meet a new client’s needs, I discover a new illustration style.… Continue Reading

Chapter Headers

Chapter Headers

Summary: Finishing up a series of chapter header images for a of young reader adventure books by Will Overby… Continue Reading

The Un-taping of Bo Diddley

studiobowesart

Really psyched to receive an original drawing from

Whoop! Art giveaway! congratulations @fuselier.doo

Whoop! Art giveaway! congratulations @fuselier.doodles !!

Day 7: Final Final Finals! How're your final imag

Day 7: Final Final Finals!
How're your final images coming along?

Me? I'm busy putting down watercolor washes and working the painting process. So far so good!

Tonight we'll have our 🌈celebration, and conversation about the whole #studiobowesart_character_challenge

Hope to see you here!

✅ Post Prompt: What was one of your favorite parts of the process?

Day 6: Guest Presenter Lisa Johnston Hancock! ✅

Day 6: Guest Presenter Lisa Johnston Hancock!
✅ Challenge: Continue to create your final character painting!
✅ Post Prompt: Post below, are you going to make it to tomorrow’s livestream? Sunday 5pm EST!
✅ Create an instagram post of your sketches, and post using the #StudioBowesArt_Character_Challenge

🌈They say that sharing is caring, and I’d like to share with you one of my friends, illustrator and author @lisajohnstonhancock 👏👏👏

👋 Hi Illustrator Friends!

I’m Lisa Johnston Hancock, a children’s book illustrator, artist and art educator and I’m taking over Brian Bowes’ account for the day! Hehe.😈

When Brian asked me to come along on this “whirlwind challenge,” I was already taking part in my Art Making Club 30 animals drawing challenge over on my Patreon account. I chose a sloth as inspiration because I thought that it would make a silly imaginary friend and also be a fun way to check that animal off of my list. My Patreon account was created in June to share patron only posts, behind the scenes content, process videos and books that inspire me. I also share one art tutorial monthly and you get a welcome sticker pack for joining!

👉 If you are interested in checking it out, you can find me here:
👉 www.patreon.com/LisaJohnstonHancock 🔥
👉 https://linktr.ee/lisajohnstonhancock

My favorite part of this challenge was slowing down and enjoying the process. I had fun moving shapes around and figuring out how I wanted my friend to look. I work both digitally and traditionally. I’m currently on vacation and I have my trusty iPad as a tool, so I drew my character digitally in Procreate. I’ve included three of my current favorite brushes incase you are curious; Lane’s Master Charcoal Brush, Max Pack Gouache Glaze, Max U Colored Pencil Waxy.

I hope you had fun, I know I did and can’t wait for the next one!

🏆 Participate and get entered into the Drawing for the Drawing! 🏆
Follow these simple rules of engagement to be entered in the drawing! ✍🏾
✅ Follow @studiobowesart
✅ Respond to each Daily Post Prompt. New posts will be posted each day at 11am EST. 🤓
✅ Use the #StudioBowesArt_Character_Challenge in your instagram posts. (So we can see your work!)

Day 5: Final Illustration 🌈 Let’s see what we

Day 5: Final Illustration
🌈 Let’s see what we’re talking about! It’s time to bring this whirlwind challenge in for a landing. We’ll be looking at results on Sunday during the Livestream! 🏆

✅ Challenge: Create your final character painting! Review your notes from the past week and choose from your best ideas to create a fun and energetic final illustration.
✅ Post Prompt: What would you like your Imaginary Friend to help you with right now?
✅ Create an Instagram post of your sketches, and post using the #StudioBowesArt_Character_Challenge

Reminder 👉 Day 6 🔥 Instagram Takeover with Illustrator+Author, Lisa Hancock 🔥
✅ Follow @lisajohnstonhancock

⚡️ Exercise: Rock Steady ⚡️
For today’s post I'm reaching back into the Vault! Today’s images were taken from a blog post I wrote and you’re encouraged to check out the original post here>>

👉 http://brianbowesillustration.com/2013/01/03/think-globally-act-locally/

👉 Use a simple step by step illustration process: Thumbnails, Sketches, Values, Colors, and Final piece. Each step builds upon the positive qualities of the previous step.

💪 Pro Tip: Create multiple sketches to start with; explore your ideas. Often people will try to create a single image, especially when working digitally because you can cmd+z and select and move selections. The work is better served when you create, re-create, and refine your work. This is especially true if you're creating a character that will need to be seen from multiple points of view, such as in a children's book.

🏆 Participate and get entered into the Drawing for the Drawing! 🏆
Follow these simple rules of engagement to be entered in the drawing! ✍🏾
✅ Follow @studiobowesart
✅ Respond to each Daily Post Prompt. New posts will be posted each day at 11am EST. 🤓
✅ Use the #StudioBowesArt_Character_Challenge in your instagram posts. (So we can see your work!)
✅ Help each other! After you’ve posted, please comment on the 3 Most Recent posts under the #StudioBowesArt_Character_Challenge
🏁 Participants Instagram names will be collected at the end of the challenge and put into a random generator.

Day 4: Textures & Colors Today is a two-parter! We

Day 4: Textures & Colors
Today is a two-parter! We're going to be focusing on developing our painting skills today by intentionally practicing our use of color and textures.

✅ Challenge: Create a three different texture spheres with three different color harmonies.
✅ Post Prompt: Post below, what is one area of improvement that you’d like to focus on in your painting?
✅ Create an instagram post of your sketches, and post using the #StudioBowesArt_Character_Challenge

⚡️Exercise: Texture and Color Spheres! ⚡️

Textures:
👉 Thinking back to day one, reflect on what your Imginary Friend feels like. Is it a warm cozy sweater? A fuzzy-wuzzy? Maybe they have fish scales. Maybe their from the land of Faerie and have more natural textures like leaves or flower petals. Maybe you're just fond of that shag-carpet in the other room. Be bold and explore fun textures for your fun character!

✅ Create a list of three textures that you'd like to explore for your Imaginary Friend.

Use color harmony to support your Imaginary Friend's color.
👉 Choose a single color that best represents your Imaginary Friend. Choose only one! We are going to call this our "hero" color.

👉 Hues in relationship with one another are called a Color Harmony. Common color harmonies have names like Analogous, Complimentary, or Triadic. A full exploration of this may be the topic for another challenge!

💪 Pro Tip: Color harmonies should almost always be in major/minor relationship. All the other colors that are used in any color harmony need to support your "hero" color. You'll want to save your "hero" color to use as the minor part of the relationship.

🏆 Participate and get entered into the Drawing for the Drawing! 🏆
Follow these simple rules of engagement to be entered in the drawing! ✍🏾
✅ Follow @studiobowesart
✅ Respond to each Daily Post Prompt. New posts will be posted each day at 11am EST. 🤓
✅ Use the #StudioBowesArt_Character_Challenge in your instagram posts. (So we can see your work!)
✅ Help each other! After you’ve posted, please comment on the 3 Most Recent posts under the #StudioBowesArt_Character_Challenge
🏁 Participants Instagram names will be collected at the end of the c

Day 3: Gestures Up until now our silhouettes are m

Day 3: Gestures
Up until now our silhouettes are mostly static, that means that it's time to infuse some life into our new friends!

✅ Challenge: Create a wide range of gestures and learn more about how your Imaginary Friend will act and react!
✅ Post Prompt: Tag a friend who might be interested in this challenge!
✅ Create an Instagram post of your sketches, and post using the #StudioBowesArt_Character_Challenge

💪 Pro Tip: Act it out, literally. Find a place where you can physically act out your character's actions. As you're playing around notice what your spine is doing, the relationship between the hips and shoulders, notice what your hands and feet are doing.

⚡️ Exercise: "Even when you're doing nothing, you are still doing something.” ⚡️

👉 It is important to focus your attention on full body gestures first before facial expressions. Your audience will see and respond to body language before facial cues. This will prevent you from creating overly 'harsh' facial expressions, or worse yet, overly simple expressions like ... emojis! Ugh!

✅ Create 5 Action & Reaction Sketches. Label each sketch.
You can use items this list or think of your own.
👉 Actions:
Sitting on a stool
Riding a bike
Laughing
Jumping over a puddle.
Painting

👉 Re-Actions:
Just won a prize!
Eek a mouse!
Nobody saw that, right?!
I am not eating THAT!
Hey, what's that?

🏆 Participate and get entered into the Drawing for the Drawing! 🏆
Follow these simple rules of engagement to be entered in the drawing! ✍🏾
✅ Follow @studiobowesart
✅ Respond to each Daily Post Prompt. New posts will be posted each day at 11am EST. 🤓
✅ Use the #StudioBowesArt_Character_Challenge in your instagram posts. (So we can see your work!)
✅ Help each other! After you’ve posted, please comment on the 3 Most Recent posts under the #StudioBowesArt_Character_Challenge
🏁 Participants Instagram names will be collected at the end of the challenge and put into a random generator. Everyone has a chance to win! 🏁

Day 2: Shape Development Today we’re sketching s

Day 2: Shape Development
Today we’re sketching silhouettes for each of your friend-items from yesterday.

✅ Challenge: Use silhouettes to discover unusual shapes. Play with proportions.
✅ Post Prompt: Take a moment to share a time when your friend was really a true friend.
✅ Create an instagram post of your sketches, and post using the #StudioBowesArt_Character_Challenge

💪 Pro Tip: Choose a tool such as a brush or marker to help you get out of the habit of simply filling in outlines. You can see that I also used the negative space to draw the shape. Try that!

⚡️ Exercise: Finding Your Friend Shape ⚡️
Begin with silhouettes of the times one by one. This will help you to "get to know the shapes."
Things to avoid!
1. Creating 'filled in outlines'
2. Avoid details! Stay loose and general
3. Do not trace the objects

Drawing by hand/eye will help you to get to know the shapes. You want your work to be organic and lively. ✨ Trust your creativity. ✨ Discover something unusual, unexpected, and/or fun!

👉 Next create a series of sketches by melding shape elements together. Reverse, flip, mirror any pleasing parts of the silhouette that seem interesting. Go beyond your first idea!

👉 Play with the relationships. Divide each character into three parts: Head, Torso, and Legs. Notice the relationships between the height and width, as well as between the different sections. Exaggerate and contrast these differences to create a more interesting Imaginary Friend Shape!

🏆 Participate and get entered into the Drawing for the Drawing! 🏆
Follow these simple rules of engagement to be entered in the drawing! ✍🏾
✅ Follow @studiobowesart
✅ Respond to each Daily Post Prompt. New posts will be posted each day at 11am EST. 🤓
✅ Use the #StudioBowesArt_Character_Challenge in your instagram posts. (So we can see your work!)
✅ Help each other! After you’ve posted, please comment on the 3 Most Recent posts under the #StudioBowesArt_Character_Challenge
🏁 Participants Instagram names will be collected at the end of the challenge and put into a random generator. Everyone has a chance to win! 🏁

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