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! 

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?"

That's Mr. Hogan to you...

painting study of Ben Hogan by artist Steven Anthony Salerno  -visit SASgolf.com

limited edition print entitled "9/64" by artist Steven Anthony Salerno -visit SASgolf.com

Usually, I keep entries to my illustration blog separate from my golf art blog, (see www.sasgolf.blogspot.com -the blog for my golf art gallery site, SASgolf.com) but sometimes I do decide to enter a post pertaining to my golf art on my illustration blog anyway...as a way to inform people who only know of me by my whimsical illustrations that I also have a whole other artistic endeavor with my golf art images.


Posted here is my painting study (gouache, watercolor and pencil on paper) of past PGA Tour iconic superstar, Ben Hogan, one of my favorite players and subjects. This painting was then merged with one of my photos of wood textures to create a final art image for my edition of prints entitled "9/64" -which refers to Mr. Hogan having won 9 major championships and 64 PGA Tour victories in his career, and is available on my site SASgolf.com in the "exclusive edition" category.

Rainy Day in Manhattan

sketch by Steven Salerno  -visit stevensalerno.com

It was a rainy day in Manhattan today... good for staying inside and working. Walking to the studio this morning, I observed the drizzle, rain and gray backdrop of concrete being punctuated brilliantly by little kids wearing rain gear of intense gloom-busting bright pinks, yellows, lavenders, blues, and greens... under equally color-saturated umbrellas, some so large that all I could see were a pair of rubber boots sticking out from under the umbrella bobbing up and down the sidewalk, moving forward (with an occasional directional adjustment given by mom's guiding hand) through the morning rush-hour throng scurrying off to work and school. Once in my studio, I did this quick sketch, posted here, from memory of one these brave inclement weather tots. My favorite though, was one fashion forward 4 year old wearing green boots in the shape of frogs, a raincoat with a monkey pattern (and the monkeys were wearing raincoats and rain hats!) and an umbrella in the shape of a giant duck. A future zoologist, no doubt.

After completing this little rainy-day sketch and contemplating it a bit, it reminded be of an Ernest H. Shepard illustration from Winnie the Pooh, written by A.A. Milne. I have also posted a scan of this particular drawing from my 1949 edition of the book. You can see the similarities... I guess an artist being amused at the sight of a little child wearing big boots and wielding an umbrella is an ageless charming vision.

Visit stevensalerno.com and click on the kids' books section to view my many children's picture books.

Smaller is Better!

front page illustration of the Sunday, March 13th NYTimes Real Estate section

Steven Salerno's illustration/NYTimes March 13th, Real Estate section

(detail view) b&w line drawing with crayon, of the little train engine 

(detail view) of final illustration/little train engine

Visit stevensalerno.com to see all my illustration portfolios.

I recently was contacted by the NYTimes real estate section art director Carol Dietz, to illustrate an upcoming article about how over the past handful of years smaller boutique real estate firms in NYC have been rivaling the larger, more established firms, giving clients a choice. She (and the editors) were open to whatever approach I might take, however did not want the illustration concept to be a comparison of the little firm vs the large firm... but rather focus on how the little firms can offer more attention to clients, etc... and also wanted the illustration to somehow show three categories of building types: the townhouse, the prewar apartment building, and the modern high-rise. I came up with a couple different idea approaches, but Carol liked best the one of a little train engine (suggestive of the children's book,"The Little Train That Could") pulling a load consisting of the three type apartment buildings. I came up with this idea based on a couple lines in the article text which commented on how smaller firms are nimbler and have more energy to focus personal attention on their client. It seemed like such a nice fit to depict a little engine, determined as it chugs up the steep tracks, successfully delivering its products to the clients. 

I created the illustration by separately drawing the train engine, the flatbed cars, and the three buildings with black crayon and black gouache, scanning them all into Photoshop as one layer on top of the background image layer that I had created digitally in Photoshop of the NYC skyline. The color of the train engine and the apartment buildings was also done digitally. You can see this illustration in the March 13th Sunday NY Times Real Estate section. (click here to see a previous post on another assignment I did for the NY Times Sunday real estate section with art director Carol Dietz.)

WORKBOOK illustration directory #33 for 2011 (new smaller size format)

Steven Salerno's latest ad page in the WORKBOOK illustration director

I have been advertising my illustration work in the WORKBOOK illustration directory every year since about 1992 (I missed just one year in 2010). WB had always been a full sized directory book... I think in earlier years it was a 9"x12" format... then eventually went down to 8.5"x11", then more recently down in size again to 8"x10". For 2011 the new page size is a compact 7"x9"! 

Posted here is a view of my ad page in the new directory. Originally this image was created for an ad agency in Dallas, and the image contained just the fountains. I modified the image for use as my promo in WB#33 by adding the characters walking about. You can see an earlier post on that ad agency assignment by clicking here. 

I was skeptical at first when I first heard from long time sales rep Robert Pastore of this proposed new compact size slated for 2011. Despite my concerns, I committed to advertise with WB again in 2011 because I liked their other new change too -that this smaller directory book will come out 2 times: a spring release book and then another book again in the fall. In the past I would pay about $2,600 and have one ad page in their one large format book which came out every February distributed to about 18,000 art directors, art buyers, etc.. across the country.  With this 2011 book, for the same cost of $2,600, I will have an ad image in their spring book, then another different ad image in their fall book. A double punch for the same price. Plus this smaller size book is so much easier to handle... their previous books weighed about 5 pounds! Maybe WB found that two smaller books were more profitable for them due to less paper costs, or maybe because of rising paper costs they needed to reduce the books format size just to stay in the black. And possibly shipping two smaller, lighter books is less costly compared to shipping one very heavy book.  

I just received my copy in the mail of the 2011 WORKBOOK #33 directory, and feel it does indeed work well at this new "7x9" size. It is still large enough to present an image with a big graphic impact and now an art director does not need to be a body builder to carry it with them across the room, or take it home one weekend! Sure, it would be great to still have a large size ad page... but if compromises needed to be made from a business standpoint by WB, this new format works well and the added second book bonus is terrific. So now it is up to the art directors to respond well to the book, too! 

Visit stevensalerno.com to view all my portfolio samples.

Illustration Safety Lesson

visit stevensalerno.com to view all illustration portfolio samples

Don't worry, the baby depicted in this illustration was a paid actor, and the "poisons" in the bottles under the sink were all fake props. In other words, no one was harmed during the making of this illustration. It was created for a magazine article which emphasized the very important point of child-proofing the home. 

Each month I create a spot illustration, or two, for Metro Creative Graphics (in NYC)... a supplier to newspaper clients of editorial images of all sorts. Metro's service is to have commissioned artists create relevant topic images which their subscriber clients can then obtain in a monthly package for reproduction use in their newspaper publications. This particular illustration posted here was indeed to illuminate the issue of dangers in the home for a small child. It was created simply... a gouache brush drawing with added color wash effects in Photoshop.

Visit stevensalerno.com to view all my various illustration samples.