Pinup Art....for a Cause

A few weeks ago I unveiled some new pinup art of the host of the Chelsea Fan Channel, the beautiful Sophie Rose, to be sold at auction through the Chicago Blues, the local supporters group for English Premier League's Chelsea Football Club. You can find the details here.

This is art is a mixed media piece, 18" x 24". I will personally sign the art for the winner. Comments are very welcome.

Playboy's Carlotta and Heather Redux

As promised, here are the professional shots by my friend Ralph Haseltine of the updated drawings of Playboy Models Carlotta Champagne and Heather Bauer.  Enjoy.

More Naked Wives

A couple of commissions for a client of his beautiful wife.  The subject is over 50 years old. but you'd never know it based on her wonderful photos.  Enjoy.  Contact me a with any comments or questions.

 

The Art of the (Color) Nude

It's obvious that I love illustrating nude women.  I feel I am very proficient in graphite.  But I've decided that this is the year for me to stretch myself, and work in different media.

The below images are 2 of the 3 commissioned by a client of his (now ex-) wife.  Each was based on nude illustrations that he found, & I added her head to them.  Although I did have some nudes of the lady herself, they were only for facial reference.

I really liked this project, as I had only done a few colored pencil nudes before. This forced me to look at the female nude in color, rather than breaking down the reference photos into black & white tones.

I am really happy with these illustrations; I thought I did well establishing her skin tones, her curves, etc.  Almost the quintessential 'Naked Wife' in my portfolio. 

Contact me with any comments or questions.

Modeling Into Maturity

I recently had an online conversation with a beautiful model friend of mine who has done Playboy, and I mentioned to her how she should be modeling for years to come.  She surprised me by say, " I hope you are right about doing this a long time."  Normally she seems very confident in her modeling,.


It got me to thinking about a model's "life expectancy," so to speak.  Glamour and nude models start at about age18, but when are they done? When will the agencies and photographers stop calling them to shoot nude?  30 years old? 40 years old?  


The mature model interest has really gained momentum in recent years, and the number of women posing nude over the age of 30 globally has increased significantly (over 6000 models age 30 and older on Model Mayhem in the USA alone).  A lot of this can be attributed to teh popularity of actress Jennifer Coolidge as Stifler's mom in the movie "American Pie," where the term MILF first gained real popularity.  A mature model really has to know how to pose her body for the best possible image.  This is something that most models know who to do, but imperfections can be magnified as a woman gets older.  Things sag, get out of place, the skin is not as taut. 

One of our very own on Blogger is the beautiful Unbearable Lightness, who started nude modeling in her late 50's, and is now 70 and still gorgeous and going strong.  She is a confident and realistic lady, she is shapely and Unbearable Lightness gets the most out of wonderful photo.  She exudes confidence in her abilities. 


I have a real fondness for capturing older models in my art; there is something that I really enjoy in helping her feel beautiful and glamorous.  Many of  my commissions are not even real models, they are everyday wives and mothers, who want to feel special.  Nothing wrong with that.

I feel confident that my Playboy model friend will be able to continue with her career for many, many years to come. 

Show Some Skin!

Lindsey Vuolo, Miss November 2001

In my line of artwork, I draw everything from clothed pin-ups to full blown nude images.  I have fans of just about every image I've ever created, but, as the title of this blog suggests, the biggest responses are from those that show the most skin; i.e., the full nudes.  

This is especially evident on my Facebook Fan Page.  I have a large contingent of fans from the Middle East, India---places that normally do not allow a lot of nude images.  But while a lot of fans are from Asia, most are still from the USA.  I have tested placing non-nude pinups, and nude drawings, and the largest number of 'likes" is always for the "nakey." 

Farrah Fawcett

Well, duh, you might say, and I guess I would agree. But I guess I'm a little confused at all of the attention for the full nudes, as opposed to the very sexy, very demure pin-ups.  Pinups, also know as "cheesecake," are the SFW way to view sexy images of women (or men, for that matter), covering up the essentials, yet showing a LOT of skin somewhere.

Pinups are not always fully clothed, mind you; there are plenty of semi nude and implied nude pinup examples.  I'm speaking of the contrast in responses to MY art, and the differences in the likes on Facebook.  Thoughts on this? 

The Naked Wives

Over the past few years, it seems that I have received more and more commissions for "The Naked Wives;" i.e, women who very happily want nude or semi-nude art of themselves for their spouses, or husbands looking to give their wives the same. 

I recall how I got started drawing nude wives.  The first commission was a depiction of a husband's wife for tattoo art; she didn't pose nude, we took a number of reference photos and 'pieced' them together to create the artwork.  Since then I have received numerous requests to create this type of nude art.

Personally, I love working with women over the age of say 30 or 35.  I find that it takes a lot of confidence for them to pose or be depicted in the nude, and they are always so pleasant to work with.  Some of my most challenging, yet rewarding, artwork has come from these commissions.  I hope you enjoy them

The Angst of the Artist

For me, being an artist also means dealing with a ton of insecurities.  Creation of my artwork is fraught with highs and lows,  moments of grandeur that can suddenly turn into despair.  I've dealt with feelings like this as long as I can remember.

This illustration of Marilyn Monroe is the first artwork I've ever done that I can truly say did not cause me to not panic when I made a mistake.  I have to credit my wife, who guided me through her vision of how this piece should look.  She played art director, and assisted me through every step of the creation process, including some major, major changes in the hair, face and more.

Now, I don't want to make it seem like she doesn't help with my other work; she always gives some input when art is on the drawing board.  But since this was a birthday gift for our son, she was very invested in how it looked.  So she kept me on track, kept me focused for 4 months until we completed it. And not once did I feel like I wanted to give up on this piece (which would have been tough, since it's 30" x 40").

Come see the large version at my site at Fine Art America.

Published in Flip Magazine Again!

Veronica Gonzalez

More good news! Yesterday my artwork of the beautiful Veronica Gonzalez was published in the online version of Flip Magazine, a publication dedicated  to pinups and the beautiful women who pose for them. 

This is my third feature in Flip Magazine, I was also included in the July 2011 Issue, as well as a previous issue.  It's a great honor to be included in Flip, as I got to explain the process of creating artwork of beautiful women in a bit more detail in the interview.  And Veronica was gracious enough to explain why she chose to work with me on this project.



This issue also includes  a feature on our good friend, model Jax Turyna.


I invite you to click through to see the new issue of Flip Magazine.  The print version is only $10.99, and I will more than happy to sign copies for free for anyone who purchases it.  Thank you.

My Art is Featured!

Recently, my art was featured on 2 modeling industry sites; in fact, both within the same week.

First, I received a Member Spotlight Feature on Model Insider. a newer site.  This had been in the works since June, and frankly, I thought I was passed over and forgotten, until I received an email from my contact there that I was in fact, featured on the home page, above the fold.

Later that week, I was featured on Model Mayhem on their EDU series of articles of pertinent industry information, featuring my latest art of the beautiful Veronika Leo, using my ubiquitous "From Photo to Art" features as the basis for the article.

It was a very nice week of unexpected notoriety, and I hope you all enjoy the articles.

From Photo to Art.....Veronica G.

I recently received a commission from a beautiful young model on Model Mayhem, Veronika Leo (Veronica Gonzalez).  She wanted me to draw a sultry pinup of her, based on one of her photos.  We did go through several of them, but when she realized that I could 'create' lingerie out of a bikini, so to speak, and because of her sultry expression, we decided on this photo as a reference :

Veronica asked me to change the photo reference to “..a pin up type of look-_ with lingerie…very sensual”, since this was a special gift for her boyfriend.  And since she already had lingerie pictures in her portfolio, I wanted something a little bit different.  So, after I laid out the drawing from the original reference, I started to sketch in some of the details and mulled over what type of lingerie I could create.

 

The trickiest part of smaller portraits like this (14” x 17”) it to get the drawing to look like the subject, not just the photo reference.  I usually hang about 3 different views of the model around my drawing board, to remind me of what she looks like.  At this point I was trying to get a lot done on Veronica’s face, then move my way down.  I knew she’d be wearing thigh high stockings; I just wasn’t sure about the actual lingerie outfit.

The cut off feet was a point of contention to some; most people didn't like it, but I wanted to get as much in to a  14" x 17" format that I could.  It's isn't easy drawing half a foot, but I used a lot of other reference, which was invaluable in giving me some perspective of the shoe, the stockings.

I played around with the lingerie a few ways, and kind of came up with an outfit organically that I think worked.  Then it was just a lot of shading, detailing, etc., before I finished up.

Veronica was such an inspiration for me to draw; she’s a beautiful young lady, and very expressive in her poses.  Her input was invaluable, and she was very excited about the art when she picked it up.  We hope to work together on something again very soon.