My blog has moved!!

Thanks for checking my blog! Unfortunately, I no longer update this blog. I have moved to a Wordpress blog integrated into my new Portfolio website. Please update your bookmarks and follow my only blog here:

Jay's Illustration of Life
http://jaymontgomery.com/blog/

RSS feed
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Also check out my BRAND NEW portfolio website at the same URL.

http://jaymontgomery.com


Thanks,
Jay Montgomery

Busy Bumblebee - Process

Gotta new documented process of my traditional paintings. It was a quick demo I did this Fall quarter at SCAD. The students have to do some sort of "manimal" (part human part animal) This is what you get when Yaritza Burgos (AKA "Bumblebee Man" from the Simpsons) gets a "Bee Movie" body and finds a job.

Prismacolor Pencil transfer to Strathmore Illustration Board. 10" x 7.5" image area. Taped off with Blue Safe Release tape.

Acrylic and Ink base colors. Watercolor was used for the clouds that I don't have a picture for.

Oil wash made with Dioxane Purple and Permanent Green Light thinned with Gamsol.

Dried oil wash removed with kneaded eraser revealing highlights and unifying shadows.

Prismacolor pencil details. and color shifts in certain areas.

Final flatbed scan color corrected with touched off with digital signature.

Details reveal lots of great texture and variations in colors.

Whole process took about 8 hours, but not all at once.

Before yours and her very eyes

Before yours and her very eyes
Originally uploaded by jaymontgomery

Made this little video of one of my many painting methods. Painting was created with acrylic, watercolors, an oil wash, Prismacolor pencils, and gesso in about that order.

Video was created with iPhoto 11' slideshow. Limiting options but works OK. Real easy once you do it once right. This was my first time doing the slideshow.

Shannon Elizabeth

One of my favorite sexy actresses. Totally created and drawn by hand in Corel Painter 11 using the sponge tool in the background and a few pastels sticks for her face. Click to to see details.

Decathlon Poster Process

New work!

A 16" x 20" poster I did as part of a demo for my Adobe Illustrator class a Portfolio Center. I just finished it today. I thought it turn out pretty good. Whada you think?

This part was done in Adobe Illustrator CS4.

I then copied certain grouped areas from Illustrator into a Photoshop document and created a series of Smart Object layers. Then I added various textures in the layers masks of the Smart Object layers.

The result is a the marriage of Illustrator and Photoshop. The best of both worlds.
I love texture!!

Prints available here.

"Drawing Inspiration" book is out and I'm in it!

I'm proud, humbled and honored to be apart of this wonderful collection of superstar artists from around the world. I met the author Michael Fleishman back in 2000 at a Graphic Artists Guild convention and what bundle of energy and knowledge he was even then. This is my 2nd Fleishman book that I have been in.

Look what's on my drawing board?

Page 145: On this page I discuss working out value at the pencil stage before color, among other things.

Chapter 13 - Drawing Is Provocative, page 212 is all mine! One of the things I discuss here is what I teach in some of my classes. Andrew Loomis discusses the importance of the five P's and the five C's. Look it up if you want to know or ask me or better yet buy this 368 page 500+ illustrations book and read all about it.

New Process video!

Just created this process video for my Materials and Techniques II class at SCAD. Enjoy!

Brian Despain

SCAD Atlanta Illustration Dept. had a wonderful opportunity on Wed. Feb 17th with Illustrator turned fine artist Brian Despain. His Agent, Kirsten Anderson, of the owner and curator of Roq La Rue gallery in Seattle was scheduled for a lecture at SCAD on Feb 18th at 6pm behind the hub. Professors Mike Brown and Kenneth Knowles were working with Kirsten for the painting Dept. Brian was driving up from Florida (where he was staying) to meet with her at SCAD for some business. So we got lucky to have such an amazing talent or as his Dad would say "the best thing since sliced bread" to come a do a lecture and demo for the Illustration Dept. It was a great collaboration with the Painting and Illustration Departments that should happen more often. There was a pretty descent turn out with students and faculty. Thanks for all that showed up.



Brian was a wonderful speaker and a self admitted artist that likes to be in complete control of not only his paintings subject matter, but every step in his image creation process. Coming from a commercial art background doing a wide variety of graphic design jobs, photo-retouching, video game 3D Modeler, but never really a full-time freelance illustrator. Now for the past few years he has really hit the gallery scene with his stormy clouds, robots, fish, numbers and other elements that captivate the viewers attention much longer than the typical quick read illustration. He talked extensively about his philosophy of art and the connection with the viewer.



He had prepared a painting to start that was due in a month for a gallery show that his agent, Kirsten, was presenting. He starts with an idea, refines it with pencil, scans it in and in Photoshop and Painter he does a really tight color study while still working on fixing details, proportions and angles. This goes pretty quick with digital tools to take about 3 hours or so. Most of his work as relatively small , but he can but a ton a detail in the piece even at 8" x 10" or 11" x 14". The piece he was working on was 11" x 14". He "glues" a tight line drawing print to a sturdy hardboard. He does this first by sealing absorbent board with matte medium, sanding it smooth. Then he brushes on a layer of matte medium on the board and the back of the print which is on 3 ply bristol. He positions the bristol paper that is slightly larger than the board. Cuts off the excess paper. Then brushes it down and seals the bristol with about 5-6 thin coats (sanding in between dried layers) on top of the drawing. The results is a sealed smooth surface to paint on. He then prints out an color and black and white version of the color study.



Painting in oils, Brian has a developed a very controlled and meticulous process that works very well for him. I certainly can't cover every aspect of his detailed painting process, but here is an overview from what I gathered. Feel free to further discuss this in the comments.

He uses the old masters technique of grisaille, which is basically starting with only gray tones of all the details of the painting then colorizing it with several thin layers of color on top of the dried grisaille. His gray color is a 1 to 1 mix of Ultramarine Blue (I think) and Burnt Sienna which produces a neutral gray. He has a special mix of his own oil medium which is three parts linseed oil, two to three parts stand oil and one or two parts oil of spike lavender. He likes the strength and elasticity of the stand oil but it’s too thick to use on its own, and the oil of spike is used as a diluent to speed drying time. Brian uses the oil of spike instead of say, turp as a diluent as it’s not as toxic though it is quite expensive. On his glass palette he adds his medium to the paint with a water dropper controlling the amount mixed in. With a palette knife he mixes then medium into both colors then mixes then together to create a neutral black. Then with white he mixes 4-5 grey tones on his palette.


Then finally with cheap small fine haired flats, filberts, and round brushes he starts from the top down rendering the whole painting precisely in grey tones. His layers are very thin to increase the dry time but still stays workable on the board for the length of the painting session. Once the grisaille is dry he starts in with the color.



Brain uses a palette of 11 oil colors that he exclusively uses on all his paintings. He developed a set of color mixing charts showing how all the color interact with each other and by adding white in varying value ranges. He refers to this constantly during the coloring painting stage. His favorite brand of oil paint is Rembrant and some Daniel Smith. To colorize the grisaille he uses a bit more of the same medium without thinners for a glaze showing the tone underneath the color. A painting this size would take him about 2-3 days do to after all the prep work is done working full days and drying the painting overnight.



It was a real treat not only for the students, but the professors as well to see and hear about his philosophy of art and method of his madness and "pro tips". I know I was thoroughly enlightened! Thank you Brian for a fantastic and well-received lecture/demo. It was more than we all expected. You are welcome at SCAD anytime!

Aqua Teen Hunger Force background!

After working on 6 movie backgrounds for Cartoon Network's "Aqua Teen Hunger Force colon Movie Film for Theaters" (yes, this is the full title exactly). They called on my pixel pushing skills again for the TV show. Just this past Sunday the new episode of the Adult Swim TV show Aqua Teen Hunger Force "Rabbot Redux" aired and it had about 2 min of air time using a background I did! Took about 2-3 weeks to do back in December
2009. A bit about the creation process.

1. This is what the Art Director, Bob Pettitt, sent me as a starting point. This was used as a "holder" for the animation build of the scene. After talking with me about the scenes needs and he sending me a few texture files, food items for the salad bar I got started.

2. I established eye an level horizon line using one point perspective. Then I created most of the base mechanical/architectural shapes in Illustrator CS4 then by copying and pasting into Photoshop CS4 I created several smart object layers.

3. I sent progress to the AD a couple of times. I did not do the Ferrari. They already that done, I just had to make sure the perspective matched the rest and fit in between the bed and fountain. I had to make sure that the layers of objects were set up in such a way that the characters could go behind all the elements. So each object was on it's own layer with transparent backgrounds.

4. After creating in smart objects in Photoshop, I used them as clipping masks to add textures mainly. On some smart object layers I added shadows and highlights as clipping masks. This is the final background low res version. The original is 12000 x 3240 pixels (40in x 10.8in at 300 dpi) with 411 layers! High Def Baby!

Some details - indoor horse stable!


fancy luxury bed! I used the Vanishing Point filter and the Liquify filter to apply the bed spread pattern.

Some screen shots of how they used them in the end. It was about 2 min of airtime. Pretty funny little scene.

If you want to see the whole episode you can go to this direct link on the Adult Swim website, but I must warn you that it's NSFW, but not R rated. It's not the type of crude humor that everyone can appreciate. (If there is such a humor.) It's only a 15 min show, but to skip right to the scene go to the end of the first video clip and the next clip will load and it's toward the beginning of that video file.

My Facebook Fan Page

My brother-in-law is also an illustrator and were are currently having a little friendly competition with our FB fan pages. The first one to 300 fans gets to take over the world! If I reach world domination I will only use my powers for the good of all human kind. In other words, I will NOT bombard you with lots of status updates to read. I promise to post only the best and most current work. I spend the majority of my time on this planet creating art for others to see and enjoy. I have got some really good stuff I'm working on and my Fan Page will be the first place to show it.

All I need you to do is to become a fan if you are not already AND to suggest fans by clicking the "Suggest to Friends" link below my profile image.

Jay Montgomery Illustration Fan Page

Thank you!
Jay

Robot Dilemma Process

What's on the easel now is a acrylic grisaille with oil color.

Thumbnail base idea.

Tighter sketch, but still did not like the girl.

After a pencil tight I did a value study in Photoshop. Better girl but still not right.

Acrylic grisaille on yellowish base with only black paint and no highlights. I also fixed the girls pose a bit to show the bomb behind her back more visible to the viewer not the robot.

Oil coloring process.
This is about 2-3 layers in the sky and one layer on the robot and ground.

More to come.

Served with Southern Hospitality

For the past 6 years I have had the honor to do the main trade show image for the Hinman Dental Meeting. The largest dentist convention in the USA held in my home town of Atlanta. Every year we come up with a new concept on basically the same topic of continuing education in Dentistry. This years theme was Quality Continuing Education Served with Southern Hospitality. So I had the idea of showing a server with a serving dome in a southern type home. They wanted to include all sorts of native trees, and a porch with a rocking chair. At first the image seemed simple enough to illustrate. But there were lots of depth and layers to the piece that needed to all work together and it proved to be more complicated than I imagined.


After doing a scribble sketch at a meeting with client. I started building this in Photoshop using mainly shape layers. Knowing that the layers would be moved around to come up with the best composition. This composition proved to be to complicated with too many panes and needing an opening in the porch railing.



This was better but it was hard to tell that the server was inside the house. Plus the hand look like it had only three fat fingers. The angle of the fingers were a challenge to show all of them naturally. See the final hand below. The plate that the serving dome is on is in the shape of a circle and triangle which is the main part of the dentistry logo.



Final approved illustration. Notice the Hinman logo was used as the cuff-link.



To add pop to the image I slightly blurred the background. All elements are on there own layer. I also added a very subtle texture.

Let me know what you think?

Project triangle

When clients ask me about pricing. If I feel it's right to say with them based on what I know about them I say that I go by the classic business model of you can have GOOD, FAST or CHEAP and the client can only PICK TWO of those. I even say this on my process page of my main site.

I always knew of this concept but I recently discovered a that it has a name and other version of it. It called Project Triangle according to our helpful yet unreliable source of Wikipedia.

There are others project triangles listed here that I think are generally true.

• College: Work, Sleep, Play – Pick two.
• Men: Handsome, High-Earner, Faithful – Pick two.
• Women: Single, Sane, Sexy, Smart – Pick any three. (also called The four S's of dating)
• Operating System: Fast, Efficient, Stable - Choose two.
• Bicycle Parts: Strong, Light, Cheap - Pick any two.
• Opensource Software Development: Speed/Time, Inclusiveness/Openness, Quality
• Schedule, Scope, Resources – Pick two.
• Nation's populace: Ignorant, Free, Civil - Pick two.
  
  

So I guess I'm Faithful and Handsome... he-he! ...and my wife is Sane, Sexy, Smart!

What do you think? These are certainly not applicable in all situations but do you go by them even if you don't know what's called?

Oh one more thing. Join my Facebook Fan Page if you have not already. I'm proud and thankful to say it already has over 170 fans and it was created on Nov 22nd.

http://www.facebook.com/jaymontgomeryillustration

New Illustrated Book!

You might recall an earlier post about a new book I illustrated. Well it's out! Just in time for the holiday's a yet another new book about Christmas...but this time it's special because it's illustrated by me! It's a different take on the ever popular poem "The Night Before Christmas" with 11 new highly detailed illustrations. "The Night After Christmas" by Jim Chapman was a challenge to illustrate and fun at the same time. I wanted to capture a more contemporary approach to the old tale to fit the modern subject matter of the this timely poem. It's about the cultural materialism that retailers have trapped us into forgetting the true meaning of Christmas. Here is a great description from the publisher Winepress Group.

Does Christmas seem like a stressful, unsatisfying ritual? Why do we go through this annual exercise of decorating, shopping, wrapping, and over-spending--only to vow we're going to do it differently next year? Was Christmas always this way? Or did our culture make it into something it wasn't meant to be?

If you've ever asked yourself these questions, you may well need this book. Christmas does, indeed, offer something more. Obscured beneath the tree, hidden inside the gift wrap, buried under plastic debt lies an enduring enigma that beckons us to reconsider. Somewhere in all the clutter can be found the key to a merry Christmas. For those who take a second look, there awaits a gift that can make every day a holiday.

"Delightfully riveting and insightful...I'm sure every person can relate. What a great reminder of what we so often forget!"

--Gary Smalley

It's a very nicely printed 24 page 8" x 8" hardcover cover book with book sleeve and spot varnishes. I designed the cover as well as illustrated it. I wanted to show hints of money in the design so I used a The colors turned out exactly how I wanted them. At first glance it's a typical Christmas book but at a closer look of each illustration you see something more. I had fun coming up with all the viewpoints compositions and details. The look of the credit cards were challenging for both the author and I. Since we could not show any credit card logos or anything close I had to come up with generic cards with all sorts of details. We went through several revisions until the author and his lawyer were satisfied that we were not going to be sued by the very companies that push all this materialism down our throats every holiday season. If you know what my family and I look like you will get a laugh at my photo references as well.

Now I have a book to give to my family this year for Christmas. Maybe your Christian friends or family would like a copy. It does make a great gift! I would love to hear what you think of the book and illustrations.

I would happily hand sign any books for free. Just let me know. jay at jaymontgomery dot com

My Students work from Fall Quarter

I only taught one class at SCAD this quarter. It was Materials and Techniques I where they only used traditional mediums for the finals. Mostly mixed media techniques using colored pencils, ink, watercolor, pastels, and acrylic in a variety of ways and combination's. The assignments were a Double Portrait, Endangered Species Chocolate bar package art, anything to do with an octopus, and a Rolling Stone Review editorial illustration of an album. They all seemed to have a great time with it while actually learning something new.

http://employeepages.scad.edu/~jmontgom/ILLU_205_Fall_2009/

I'm featured in a new Freelance Portfolio E-zine!

Greg Welch is a designer that specializes in magazine publishing. He has done a great deal of print magazines and has been doing some impressive online magazines and PDF portfolios for all types of artists. He created this new Freelance Portfolio online magazine. One of my illustrations is featured in the premier issue on the cover and here it is. He promotes it heavily online and is gaining some traction and a bit of controversy even. Want to be apart of it contact Greg.

Ya Ya Kids T-Shirt Illustration

Recently finished a new Ya Ya Kids shirt for Manic Mommies Podcast. I had done 4 other traditionally with watercolor then touch up in Photoshop. This one was done in Photoshop after an creating a tight pencil with graphite.

Here is video I created about my process.

Illustration Friday - Germs

This was for an editorial illustration for Texas Journey Magazine that I did a while back about children going overseas on vacations and trips. The article discussed ways to prevent and keep your children safe from all travel health issues. It was fun designing fake the stickers. I first created all the stickers flat in Illustrator and then applied them to the luggage painting using Photoshop's distort and liquify tools, then I brought that into Painter to add a uniform painted texture overall.

Just now did this different collection of all the stickers on skin just for the Germs entry to Illustration Friday. Speaking of which the creator of IF, Penelope Dullaghan, was just recently interviewed on Escape From Illustration Island. Check it out on iTunes!



Comments are appreciated!

My Flickr Gallery

Just messing around with the Flickr gallery embedding tool.

Night After Christmas - sketches

I have been working on a new picture book of sorts for marketed towards adults for Winepress Publishing since early March 2009. It's called Night After Christmas - A Holiday Paradigm Revisited. by Jim Chapman. It's a take on the poem The Night Before Christmas by an anonymous author first published in 1823. It deals with a modern families struggle of materialism and lost sight of what Christmas was really all about. I did 10 full page illustrations plus a cover in a stylized realism manner. I had lots of fun coming up with the scenery which is loosely based off my own home and family. I had about 3 months to do 11 full blown, full page illustrations with repeating characters and scenes all while teaching 2 classes, taking 1 MFA class and many other freelance jobs. I thought I was done in June and then the author had lots of little revisions to some of the illustrations starting a few weeks ago. I got final approval on all the illustrations just last week! It's due to be printed and in the stores hopefully in a couple of months just in time for Christmas.

I wanted to give you first a taste of the process of some of the illustrations. I always start with pencil and here are some sketches I sent the publisher. The author had some very specific art direction from a Word doc and the story obviously gave some clues to set the scene. I had already done a fair amount of research and photo reference.




So from these I digitally painted the scenes in Photoshop and Painter. The finals are coming in a later post.