Monday, July 18, 2011

Limited Edition Prints available from illustrator Steven Salerno

© Steven Salerno  "East Village Cafe"    -visit stevensalerno.com

© Steven Salerno  DETAIL "East Village Cafe"    -visit stevensalerno.com

© Steven Salerno  endpapers from HARRY HUNGRY!    -visit stevensalerno.com

© Steven Salerno  "nature,man,wine,food"    -visit stevensalerno.com

© Steven Salerno  "Late Night NYC"    -visit stevensalerno.com

© Steven Salerno  "O Petit Bar"    -visit stevensalerno.com

I finally stopped procrastinating and completed the section on my illustration web site, stevensalerno.com, where viewers can now purchase limited edition prints of some of the illustrations and drawings I have done over the years.

(navigation: Use the pop-down illustration portfolio menu at the top of the homepage and click on the LIMITED EDITION PRINTS section to view the available art prints. And the site's bottom menu bar will have the "image info," the "pricing," and the "add to cart" scroll-overs and link...)

Currently there are 14 various art images available as a limited edition print, ranging from whimsical illustrations I created for children's picture books, to food art, and all the way across the content spectrum to much earlier drawings I did of the punk scene in NYC in the early 1980's... with more of my art images becoming available as prints soon. 

To create these art prints, my original artwork is digitally scanned then superbly printed on acid-free 100% cotton rag fine art paper with brilliant permanent pigment inks. Using advanced inkjet printing technology which sprays millions of continuous microscopic ink droplets with unsurpassed precision, the quality of these high resolution Giclee art prints is exquisite, resulting in rich, vibrant images that accurately capture the colors and tones of the original art. This is the same ultra-fine inkjet reproduction process museums use to make precision replicas of art in their collections. I hand number & sign each print within the limited edition. Most of the editions are a total of just 100 prints. You receive the unframed print and a Certificate of Authenticty registered to the buyer. (gift wrapping is not available)

These prints are truly of terrific quality, and are rated (in terms of retaining their color pigmentation level) to last up to 200 years without any significant fading... but this is contingent upon the print being properly framed and sealed behind 98% UV protected glass or acryic (plexi-glass) as well as not being displayed on a wall receiving any strong direct sunlight or in an area of high humidity. 

The secure on-line purchase transaction is conducted through PayPal -but if there is anyone still adverse to making purchases through the web... contact me at steven@stevensalerno.com and we can certainly do it the old school way and work out a payment via check through the mail.

I am thrilled and honored that there are people out there who want to own one of my prints for their personal home collections! 

Thursday, July 7, 2011

Are You Lost?

It seems that even if I include samples of map illustrations I have done for clients in the past, I still get art directors who will call and ask, "Do you do maps?"  "Of course," I reply. "Are you lost?"

visit stevensalerno.com to see more maps!
I have done so many map illustrations through the years, I've lost count! They are fun to do... and I prefer the kind if map assignments where the AD is just looking for a simple map visual with a mere visual suggestion of the geographic area in question, rather than a heavily detailed map with lots of icons within it... but inevitably most map assignments tend to be of the more detailed variety. It is through these kind of map assignments over the years that I first began developing my own way of creating hand lettering...

Posted here are just a few of my favorites. Above is a minimal-color map of Italy I did for a travel magazine assignment. It was created with gouache and a few splashes of watercolor and pastel.

visit stevensalerno.com to see more maps!
Keeping with the Italy theme, the map above depicts a shopping district in Milano. The map was one of several illustrations in a series for an advertorial for the Italian airline Alitalia. It was created with ink, pastel, crayon, and compiled in layers in Photoshop. The next sample of one of my map illustrations (below) is one I did for CRAIN'S Business NY, and depicts the Williamsburg area of Brooklyn, NYC. I created this one with textures painted in gouache, scanned into Photoshop, and then I "cut-out" the shapes I needed digitally, additionally adding in my little paintings of boats, waves, the bridge, a bus, etc... as well as my hand-lettering.

visit stevensalerno.com to see more maps!
The last map illustration sample is of a small upscale shopping area in Paris wedged between the Rue de la Roquette and the Rue de Charonne, with the charming "O Petit Bar" just around the corner. My favorite touch is the silhouette I made of the boy and dog in the foreground. This is an older illustration of mine, created well before I even began adding vector and other digital effect images to my ways of creating graphics. This map was created just with ink, pastel and watercolor, with the lettering done directly within the art image too. If I were to create this type image again today, I would definitely make it by scanning the various drawn and painted elements into Photoshop and then designing it in separate layers, which would all be SO much easier and a far more flexible way than the "traditional" way it was originally created!

visit stevensalerno.com to see more maps!
Visit my illustration web site, stevensalerno.com to see more samples of maps! As well as packaging, children's books, advertising, etc...

And I look forward to hearing from the next art director who calls and asks, "Do you do maps?"