I Want My Fuel TV!

THE CLIENT

•Fuel TV
•Eyerus + Visual Communication Studio (the agency)

THE ASSIGNMENT

In homage to early-80s montage-style TV Guide covers, this art is the cover for a faux TV Guide-style publication promoting network programing and personalities found on Fuel TV.

THE CHALLENGE

Create something wild and wacky, with as many visual detours as possible, and a kitschy 70s vibe. Include personalities of 3 of their main shows: Captain and Casey of The Captain and Casey Show, James "Bubba" Stewart of Bubba's World, and Laban Phiedas and Ted Newsome of American Misfits.

Also include the network's 6 core action sports: snowboarding, bmx, motocross, surfing, wakeboarding, and skateboarding.

THE PROCESS

Research I spent some time digging into Fuel.tv, the client's website, learning what makes the network tick. I also went through each represented show's vast photo galleries to pluck potential reference.

Compositing Time to start laying things down and see what kind of grayscale compositions I could flesh out. Montage illustrations are a different breed of animal. Of course, basic principles of 2D black and white composition come into play -- value, weight, shape, movement, and space -- but other challenges, inherent to the montage, present themselves...

Space One can't simply slap figures and objects onto a montage illustration without forethought to their relationship to each other in space as well as their light source, otherwise one has a recipe for a disparate cut-out mess. The twist -- figures now become the landscape, and not only need to work together in space, but also define it.

There are 2 planes of reality, here. First, the large background figures. They provide weight and define overall movement, due to their large size, shape, and visual importance (both to the network and to the crux of this illustration's story).

The second plane of reality lies with the smaller figures, in front. Since they are of a relative size, they need to all work together, perspectively -- larger in front, smaller in back, and with a consistent vanishing point and light source. If they don't work together or relate to one another in some decipherable way, we'll have confusion.

In a montage, there are already lots of elements with which to cause potential confusion, if not planned carefully. Without a believable sense of space, the viewer is guaranteed to be confused. Unintended confusion equals an unsuccessful illustration.

THE SKETCHES

My first sketches were sparse. I mistakenly thought the 6 core sports could be hinted at without including all.






The client liked the direction, but wanted to be sure to include all 6 sports.

A preferred composition was chosen and I added the missing sports.



This was a step forward, but I needed to up the humor and wackiness quotient to properly reflect the sensibility of the network as well as the concept of the cover. Think 70s kitsch -- Cannonball Run.



Real close, but lose Mr. Stewart's Rick James 'do and put the gals in "Token Hotties" shirts (integral to one of their shows).

Done and done. Here is the approved sketch.



Now, step-by-step through the final. But, first...

ONE MORE TWIST

In addition to a 5 in. x 7.5 in. periodical cover, the art would be used as a 5 ft. tall poster for a client presentation. I produced the illustration with that large final output size in mind, creating the underpainting on a sheet of 30 in. x 40 in. gessoed illustration board, scanning at a high dpi, and finalizing the art at about 4 ft. W x 6 ft. H at the dpi required for the printing device.


















The final "underpainting."



Scanned and tidied up with values complete.



THE RESULT

Quality people make it easy to go the extra mile. My client is happy, which, in turn, makes me very happy. When coupled with the art's fun subject matter and uniqueness to much of my portfolio, this turned out to be one of my favorite illustrations I've done.



Allan Burch is an award-winning illustrator and portrait artist, providing solutions for editorial, book, advertising, and institutional projects.
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Pope John Paul II for the University of San Diego

On the fast track to sainthood, Pope John Paul II is not only one of Catholicism's more popular Popes, he is also one of 16 illustrations I was commissioned to create for the University of San Diego's President's Report.

The theme of 2009's report highlights people, places, and things that serve as influences to the school's mission and heritage. Reading the contextual clues, one can correctly deduce USD has a strong foundation in the Catholic church.

This president's report is a beautifully designed work of art in itself. Bound as a leather printed cover, many of the illustrations accompany their own month in an included calendar, and double as removable, collectible prayer cards.

The challenges

•Compose an illustration that not only fits the format of a 3.5 in. x 5.25 in. space, taking into consideration an elaborate border treatment which will cut into the art, but also produce an illustration that commands attention at a smaller size.

•Establish a color palette which complements warm tones of the document's layout, and brings depth and interest to the scene.

Light and depth through color

Where light hits an object most directly, color is most intense. As that object recedes in space, and falls into shadow, color cools and loses intensity. Color theory 101, to be sure, but these principles were key in helping me create a sense of depth. Without such depth, this scene would quickly turn uninteresting (not to mention flat).

To also keep interest up throughout the illustration, it was important to make sure shadows and highlights kept some color and didn't become too gray or white, respectively (After all, the thing needs to be pleasing to look at, right?). That sounds like a simple thing to do, but it takes planning. Notice how the white stripe on his robe is warmer at the shoulder where light hits and turns cooler as it moves away from the "hot spot." Squint your eyes and notice the value doesn't change too significantly. His position in space is largely aided through color.

Using color like this is helpful to add complexity to a small, seemingly non-complex, picture.

A strong picture starts with a strong composition

This is especially true for a smaller illustration. There's not as much real estate to grab viewers' attentions. Plus, being small, people don't have much patience to squint their way through a scene to pick out intricacies. Hence, the simply-composed but easily-recognizable posture of the 264th Pope.

Here is the illustration in its final layout.



Allan Burch is an award-winning illustrator and portrait artist, providing solutions for editorial, book, advertising, and institutional projects.
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Exhibit at the Park Central Branch Library and The Coffee Ethic

You're looking at a reduced-size color print proof for a few of the illustrations I will be fortunate to have on display during the month of March.

You see, the nice folks at both the Park Central Library and The Coffee Ethic, in Springfield, Missouri, have graciously allowed me to adorn their walls with my art for the next 4 weeks.

What: Illustrations by Allan Burch
Where: The Park Central Branch Library and The Coffee Ethic (128 Park Central Square, Downtown Springfield, Missouri)
When: Meet-and greet with the artist (that's me), from 7pm 'til 10pm, Friday March 5, 2010. The show runs through the month of March.

The Park Central Library has one of the cooler spaces you'll find in a library. It's thoughtfully decked out in color-coordinated modern stylings and located smack in the middle of Springfield's art scene. It's an establishment of inspired design, both in beautiful form and progressive function.

Insiders call The Coffee Ethic, located adjacent to the library, Springfield's best coffee shop. The crowd, amenities, atmosphere, its close proximity to the many downtown attractions, and, of course, the top-tier eats and drinks, makes it a must-visit during Springfield's First Friday Art Walks.

If you're not familiar, on the first Fridays of the month, Springfield's art galleries, as well as businesses that hold art shows, have openings that evening. People crowd the downtown area, mingle from door-to-door and take in the visual treats gracing the walls, enjoy the bustle of performers and entertainment on the streets, and generally have a lovely time of things.

I'll have 35 canvas prints on display, all for sale, ranging from celebrity portraits, to editorial concepts, to uncommissioned personal projects. As generous followers of this blog, I would encourage you to spread the word, especially if you reside in the Springfield area.

Thanks in advance to everyone for coming down and showing your support -- not only for my efforts, but also for the 2 generous businesses allowing me to display them!

Thanks also to my summer of 2009 intern, Becca Johnson, for doing the legwork in setting up this exhibit.

Allan Burch is an award-winning illustrator and portrait artist, providing solutions for editorial, book, advertising, and institutional projects.
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"A Nurse's Shift" for The University of Chicago Magazine

Theresa Brown began her professional life as an educator, but made a change. She now belongs to the nursing profession, enjoying the new and personal fulfillment that comes from facing its uniquely intimate and deeply human challenges.

It's always a pleasure working with The University of Chicago Magazine, and this 2-illustration job was no exception.

One of the illustrations depicts the compassion shown between a health care worker (Ms. Brown) and one of her patients. Compassion, in my view, is a unique must-have skill set for a nurse. Individuals that possess it to a nurse's degree are saints, also in my opinion.

When one is in the vulnerable position of being sick and in a hospital, under someone else's care, there is no more important person in his or her life than a nurse. Their compassion means everything.

This illustration began with an ideation session -- coming up with all sorts of ideas that both tell the story of shifting careers from academic to nursing, as well as convey the human nature of the nursing profession.

Next step was a photo session. My enthusiastic model, Melodie, stepped into her scrubs and did an excellent job posing for those ideas.

On a side note, I'm stumbling upon some interesting lighting effects. I think it's adding a beautiful and extra-moody element to my work. I can't divulge what they are, or everyone would be doing it. (just kidding)

After approval of my sketch...



...I took it to the final.

Composition is always foremost in my mind. So, when shooting, I'm conscious of capturing the scene from different and unusual angles to make the scene fresh, and to reveal unexpected shapes and potential compositional elements.

Lighting is also important. It's a powerful tool for revealing those shapes and patterns that help define the composition. Color is obviously important, too. Warmth in this palette echoes warmth of the moment, and the blue provides just enough cool to balance the warms.

Check out the full story of Theresa Brown's career change, here.

Many thanks to Melodie for her assistance.

Allan Burch is an award-winning illustrator and portrait artist, providing solutions for editorial, book, advertising, and institutional projects.
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Letters to Angela

Picture-making is an ongoing learning experience.

This one started with a really cool photo of Christy adjusting her hair clip. Nothing out of the ordinary about that, right? True enough, but this particular photographic moment-in-time has some especially interesting things happening.

Compositionally, her arms and hands are positioned beautifully while not obstructing the face or creating visual confusion in any way. The shadow on her left arm connecting to the cast shadow on the wall connecting to the contour of her body at the bottom of the picture, leading the eye back upward, is quite an interesting and lovely shape, and a lucky catch by my 'lil Nikon.

I thought it a very "iconic" pose just ripe for a fine art creation.

Christy is one of my terrific models. Among the many emotive poses she struck, this is one of my favorites. It's a slightly unusual capture with the pose and shadow combination. It's also filled with excellent mood, contrast, form, and beauty.

For me, an illustration, speaking in terms of picture-making rather than concept, is usually about the image or the mark on the board. For a straightforward image, like a person seated in a chair, I like to pump up the mark-making to add visual interest and give the viewer a reason to investigate the picture. Conversely, for a very intricate and unusual image (like Manhattan, seen in an earlier post), I tend to tone down the wild marks and let the image take center stage. A fierce competition between marks and image can blow a perfectly good picture.

With this image, I set out to make the marks a predominant player. I had also intended something different for the background than what you see, here. As the piece progressed, though, I found myself tightening up the strokes to accommodate the originally intended intricate background which would become lost among painterly strokes.

Things were looking too tame with my original background. So, I worked up this graffiti and stone wall backdrop. It seemed to give the image a little more edge and is more complementary to the expressive strokes I wanted to keep.

I also like the resulting mood and mysterious story that doesn't reveal itself too soon.

My thanks to Christy for making this illustration possible.

Allan Burch is an award-winning illustrator and portrait artist, providing solutions for editorial, book, advertising, and institutional projects.
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Witness

Have you ever felt like this?

One of the beautiful things about making art is its capacity for self-expression. Sometimes you win a few, sometimes you lose a few, when the work is done. But, if one is lucky, he has a chance to be expressive during the process, and leave a little of himself on the paper or board or canvas.

When I need to unleash a few demons, I like to do a charcoal drawing. In this case, I pulled from my cache of photo reference and found a moody shot of Tasha who happens to be eliciting just the mood in the photograph that I'm feeling.

It's a tension-filled, closed pose, with arms and legs crossing her body. She's looking away from you and not revealing her eyes through the shadow, so you are left with a bit of mystery.

There is an air of vulnerability. Why do all things lead to the mirror and why is it facing you, the viewer?

Tasha is one of my phenomenal models who turns every pose into a work of art.

Even after engaging my instincts and emotions to lay down the artistic marks, I still needed to tap the left side of my brain to go through my checklist of items that lead to good picture-making.

When I'm done, I'm hopefully left with a cool, deep, and emotional creation that no one can take away from me. And, after one of those days when I feel like the world has taken an extra large chunk from my person, to create something of my own and for myself is very satisfying.

Allan Burch is an award-winning illustrator and portrait artist, providing solutions for editorial, book, advertising, and institutional projects.
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Cathedral at the University at Alcalá de Henares

35 km northeast of Madrid, Spain, is the city of Alcalá de Henares.

In the early-1500s, the city became Spain's most important intellectual center with the opening of its University, which hosted many political and cultural dignitaries of the day.

One of the most important and historic landmarks at the Spanish school is the Cathedral at the University at Alcalá. It was built over the graves of Justus and Pastor, two Christian schoolboys martyred at the beginning of the fourth century during the Diocletianic Persecution. It is also one of two cathedrals in the world to bear the title, "Magistral." This means its clergymen must hold a Doctor of Theology in order to serve.

Fast-forward to 2009 and the connection between the Cathedral at the University at Alcalá and the University of San Diego, my client for this illustration. You see, the former's late Gothic style is the inspiration for architecture on the University of San Diego's campus, also known as Alcalá Park.

To pay homage to this connection, and to reflect the school's other Catholic connections, the designers at the USD sought to create their 2009 Presdent's Report as a beautiful historical interactive book replete with calendar and 14 removable and collectable prayer cards depicting people and landmarks with connections to the school's Catholic heritage.

The to-be-illustrated cards would include subjects like Pope John Paul II, St. Francis of Assisi, Fra Angelico, Oscar Romero, and the aforementioned Cathedral.

The University of San Diego is an A-list client with whom I have a long standing relationship. I was thrilled when they contacted me to be part of this assignment.

As I settled-in for illustration #1, I thought, "I should document these illustrations from start to finish." I always enjoy seeing illustrations go from start to finish. I'm hoping you might enjoy seeing this particular one do the same.

In the beginning...

I was provided with some photo reference of the Cathedral. I gathered a few shots from my own research, too. Thinking about the background, I also looked around for a nice complementary sky.





My "sketch" is the basic composite of my photos. My goal here is value composition. Creating interest in the background sky as well as distinction between background and foreground is tops in my mind. The gray border is to simulate the intricate gold bordering which will be part of the final prayer card design. I don't want important items being obscured or uncomfortably cropped by the border treatment.



After approval, it's time to create the final illustration. With this project, I functioned in assembly-line fashion -- doing sketches first and plowing through the finals, in order, as they would appear in the book, second. This illustration was fourth in-line.

My illustration board is gessoed and the art is penciled on top.



The first step is to mess it all up, embrace failure, and leave myself nowhere to go but up.



Maybe not.

Actually, this is my initial wash of color. I do this to kill the white and to initiate the organic, painterly look with drips and blobs of paint from which I can start to create. I take a big brush and slap down some sienna and oxide acrylic color. Then, with my Lowe's special water bottle, I spritz the surface, letting the paint move around and interact with the texture of the gesso as I twist and turn the board. I don't want to lose my linework, so the paint application isn't totally opaque.

Launching into the "unpainting" process, I lay down some red oxide and burnt sienna acrylics, mixed with my special additive, to the building. In this photo, I've roughly silhouetted the building and cleaned up the edges, as part of the "back and forth" process. I think there is a nice complexity that comes from a back and forth with paint, as opposed to just adding and applying within the lines, so to speak -- at least for what I'm trying to do.



With a nice stiff brush, I "unpaint," or lift out areas of light. Below, I've not only done so with the building, but, I've also hit the sky and clouds with paint and brought out their light areas.

This is essentially the finished "underpainting." It's now time for the computer work.



The art is scanned and warmed up a bit. Here is where I'll start phase 2, which consists of shoring up values and final color. I'll start with value, as that's the big definer of one's composition.



Through a very proprietary process of methods, I'll eventually arrive at a value combination that is pleasing to me.



Notice the color is way hot. It's now time to tackle it and bring things under control.

Through another extremely proprietary process of layers and channels and things I don't fully understand, I'll eventually arrive at a color combination that is pleasing to me.



A balanced palette is always foremost in my mind. Here, it's warm with enough cool in the sky to balance things. The blue shifts toward the green, because a) too much red would shift it purple (especially with the reds in the building), and a little purple goes a long way; b) the yellow in the sky balances the red cast that would arise from a reddish-blue sky. We don't want any unbalanced casts, here.

I've knocked back the intensity of the blue to keep it in the background, allowing the Cathedral to take center stage. I also added just enough intensity in the clouds to not create a pasted-together look between background and foreground.

One thing on which I focused largely, with this project, was the use of cool and warm colors to create a sense of depth and light. Here, the cools in the shadows enhance the sun hitting the walls, creating a truer sense of light, depth and balance to the color palette, and overall interest to the piece, I think. Also, the higher color intensity within the foreground compared to the background was important to me, as touched upon, above. Controlling that intensity further defines a believable space for the viewer. Since the art on the cards is reproduced at 3.5 in. x 5 in., defining a space that reduces confusion helps the scene read with greater clarity. Clarity is always good.

It's sometimes a challenge for me to cool down a color (reduce its intensity), since I like to heat up and push color to its limits, whenever I can. But, scaling back, every now and then, brings a new level of complexity to an illustration. It takes a little more discipline, in my view, to figure out how to utilize the less-obvious, less-striking colors as part of a greater whole. Each color has its place. It's our challenge, as illustrators, to crack that code.

The last step is final production. Here is the illustration, as printed.



And, the back of the page, showing a quote on the prayer card and a statement about how the Cathedral's late Gothic style is reflected on-campus.



This was an intense project, with lots of work done in a relatively short time. But, jobs like this are always made easier with wonderful clients like the always-gracious and award-winning editorial and design department at the University of San Diego. My sincere thanks to them for the opportunity to help with this amazing project.

Allan Burch is an award-winning illustrator and portrait artist, providing solutions for editorial, book, advertising, and institutional projects.
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