Mathlete or Maestro? Pick Your (Brain) Side!

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Recently I worked with art director Chuck Beard of Pittsburgh Magazine on a spread image for an article about which side a person's core personality is wired, the right-side or left-side of the brain. This specific article is a guide to the various majors offered by colleges and universities ...and where these areas of study fall within the brain-side spectrum.

With this illustration I moved a bit away from my usual whimsy-based style... mostly because of the manner I rendered the large head in the image, which is more traditionally structured in an academic sense, plus because of the photographic-based little icons seen within the brain halves. Mixing photographic elements within my illustration is a tact I never use, but it seemed called for here because of the quasi-serious nature of the article, so I just went with it. I posted the basic image without the icons (bottom) and the full version with the icons and other graphic elements I created in position, which is how the art director used it in his page design (top).

The image was created with black (and white) gouache and brush on a gray paper, then all the color and various little graphic elements were created in Photoshop in layers. All the icons with the brain are object photo vignettes also enhanced within Photoshop.

I guess for all those who are left AND right brained equally combined in one personality, they would have to enter through the mouth in this illustration!

Ring Flash Cards... Mudpuppy project completed!

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My recent project with the on-line gift store for young kids, Mudpuppy.com was completed recently and all went smoothly working with art director Cynthia Matthews. It consisted of 26 images for flash cards divided between colors and shapes (called "ring" flash cards because they are all held together by a ring). The child must identify the specific color or specific shape depicted in the image. Posted here are four of the final cards: TRIANGLE (mountain), PINK (pig), BLUE (elephant), OCTAGON (spider web) 

The images were all done with black gouache and brush, scanned into Photoshop, then all the color was applied digitally with various brush and erase tools. It's refreshing to do simple images like this, though they take far more time than what it may look! (See the post below showing some of the sketches from this same project.)

Q: What color is this recession?

...another Mudpuppy project... Color Flash Cards for kids

To see all my illustration portfolio samples, visit stevensalerno.com 

Last year I worked with art director Cynthia Matthews at the company Galison (the parent company of mudpuppy.com, the terrific online store for books, games, toys, etc for young kids) on a project called FIRST PUZZLES... a series of three simple puzzles I illustrated that come in one box with a handle. (click here to see earlier post) 

Recently Cynthia hired me for a new project, to illustrate 26 Flash Cards... identifying colors and shapes for young kids.

Just today Cynthia approved most of the sketches... just a few need a bit of adjusting before I can proceed to starting the final artwork. Posted above are just a couple of the approved sketches, PINK (pig) and the GREY (mouse). The text for the cards will either ask what shape? or what color? eg: "What color is this mouse?" ... on the back of each card is the answer.

These images are just scans of pencil line sketches, that were then darkened in Photoshop to approximate the black look of ink line. Next, simple washes of color were indicated using digital color. The final art will be created in gouache paintings which will be scanned and then additional embellishments finalized in Photoshop.

19 Girls and Me (x 4)

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A few years ago I illustrated a picture book project for publisher Penguin... actually for their children's book imprint Philomel Books, entitled “19 Girls and Me” written by Darcy Pattison (released in 2006).

The story is about a young boy (John Hercules Po), his 19 female kindergarten classmates... and how they all become friends through their imaginative recess adventures around the world to places like Mt. Everest, The Great Wall of China and the Amazon River.

In these past few years this wonderful book has also been translated into German, Chinese and Arabic (the various cover images are posted above) allowing children from these other countries to share in Po's adventures, too. The Chinese edition even has the entire story repeated in English (with all the illustrations scaled down) in the back of the book, also including a musical CD. (I listened to the CD, and it appears to be Chinese children singing the story as if it were a Broadway musical -so charming!)

The Arabic edition, of course, reads from back to front... so all the images were flopped. (I never allow my images to be flopped, because visually they never seem quite the same... but in this case, it was a cultural necessity for this version.)

In “19 Girls and Me” all the illustrations depicting the children in the classroom, or when they are first stepping out into the schoolyard, are in black&white, except for the girls red dresses and Po's blue blazer. Then in all the scenes where the children are on their fantasy recess adventures everything is rendered in full color.... sort of like the same visual tactic used in the movie The Wizard of Oz ... a film in black&white, which then becomes full color when the main character Dorothy literally falls into the Land of Oz.

The interesting "behind the scenes" story regarding the illustrations for this picture book, is that I actually created all of the final images in full color. But when I showed the final illustrations to my Philomel Books editor Michael Green and art director Cecilia Yung they correctly assessed that the classroom and playground scenes, in terms of color, were too hot and bright to the point of distraction... so I came up with the solution to convert those specific images into black&white (ah, the magic of Photoshop!) but made them more stimulating by keeping the girls dresses red and Po's blazer blue. The end result looks as if it was my original intention to have the various “school” scenes in black&white and only the “fantasy” scenes rendered in full color.