Author: Cliff Knecht

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Puzzlemania by Peter Grosshauser

During the past year Petter Grosshauser created numerous illustrations for Puzzlemania Magazine – a creation of Highlights For Children. Each magazine contained chances to solve puzzles, navigate mazes, and find hidden pictures among many activities for young children. Peter created “hidden picture” illustrations where kids would look for hidden objects, items that should not be in the scene, etc. These are a few of the illustrations that appeared in the various issues. Click on the images to see the entire scenes.

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Website Art by George Schill

ShowClix is an online ticketing system that provides event ticketing software to help manage all aspects of ticketing operations. Venues and event promoters around the world work with them to manage their online ticketing, telephone support and sales, box office operations, admissions, and event promotion. They were looking for a new concept illustration for their website home page and commissioned George Schill to illustrate the idea of Millions of Tickets Delivered…Events Powered by Innovation. After a series of concept rough sketches George came up with the idea of a ticket contraption.

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New Digital Style by Larry Jones

Larry Jones has created a series of new illustrations that digitally show a nice clean design look. The art is built in Illustrator and then textured in Photoshop. Something to think about for your next project!

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The Legend of St. Nicholas

As most of us know the legend of St. Nicholas goes back hundreds upon hundreds of years to various European countries. He had different names depending on the country and some historians believe that a Bishop in Asia Minor became St. Nicholas as far back as 325 A.D.! Legend states that after his death on December 6 he was adopted as the patron saint of children and this became St. Nicholas Day. For centuries, children were visited on that night by a gift bearing old man with a long white beard who rode on a horse. Over the years he went through many name changes – Father Christmas, Pere Noel, etc. depending on country and religion and he also developed a split personality or alter ego – meaning he could either reward or punish. That brings me to my name – Knecht – and German heritage! In Germany, St. Nicholas’ alter ego was Knecht Rupert who rewarded good children with fruit but in most cases arrived to frighten the naughty ones. Maybe I’m related to him! Many years ago I acquired this original newspaper illustration of Knecht Rupert from the December 25, 1880 issue of The Queen – notice the frightened looks of two of the children!

Our modern Santa Claus is a composite figure, drawn from the history, legends, and folklore of many countries. He evolved from a Saint, was demoted to a somewhat evil gift bearer at times, and finally became the jolly, robust character that children know and love today. Over the years our artists have illustrated many Santas for Christmas projects – here are a few of them. Enjoy them – they will bring a smile to your face during this holiday season!

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Media Bullpen Website by George Schill

George Schill’s assignment was for the Media Bullpen, the Center for Education Reform’s website which brings accountability to national education reporting and “scores” stories across the media. The site redesign was to have a baseball theme, and George was called upon to create a series of banners and spot art using education, baseball, and media metaphors. Here is a typical sheet of idea doodles sent to the client. 

After approvals and working with their color palette, the final art was created in Photoshop. Here is a sampling of banners and spot art that is used throughout the site. Click on the thumbnails to enlarge.

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Old Testament Mural by Peter Grosshauser

We were approached by the Central Lutheran Church of Minneapolis, MN concerning a very exciting mural project. Peter Grosshauser had illustrated a beautiful bible story book for young children for Augsburg Fortress Publishers and the church wanted a mural created in the same art style that would be exciting for children to view. The theme would be the Old Testament. The wall space for the mural would be 56 feet in length by roughly 8 feet high! We explained to the client that it would be impossible to paint the mural on site due to the sheer size, amount of time to complete, travel restrictions, cost, etc. Peter came up with a great idea of illustrating the mural digitally in three sections after approval of sketches.

Peter then sent the digital files to a supplier in California who printed the art on flexible canvas. The “rolled-up” canvas panels were shipped to our client and they mounted all three on frames and secured them to the wall. They were delighted with the end result – a great solution for the project! Enclosed is a picture of the mounted murals that was sent to us – not a great picture but at least you get an idea of the sheer size!

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Maze Placemats Book by Larry Jones

One of our fun projects for this year was a series of mazes to be used in a Mazes Mats book for Publications International. Geared for children 4 and up, Larry Jones illustrated mazes that were kids placemats for fun on the run! Designed as easy-tear pages, kids could use them as “boredom busters” to take anywhere – in the car, to a restaurant or waiting room – wherever they choose! Here are a few of the mazes that Larry created.

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Santa Illustration Demo by John Walker

When talking to clients about my work as an illustrator, one of the most frequently asked questions is how I go about painting assignments digitally. So here is a step by step procedural, taking a painting from initial drawing to fully rendered, final art.

Santa Claus has been a frequent illustration subject over the years and I have several different treatments of Santa figures drawn up in my sketchbook. I chose one of those to use as the basis for this demo.

Nearly all of my work begins with a traditional pencil on paper drawing. The drawing gets scanned into my system and opened in Photoshop, where it can be cleaned up and adjusted. I like to work on a toned background, so I import a favorite backdrop and use it as a base layer. The drawing layer, now floating above the Background, is changed to a Multiply layer style, made to look like a sepia ink drawing, and the opacity is lowered to 50%.

I move the art to Painter, which I like to use for it’s natural look and feel. I create a new layer, between the canvas pencil layers, and paint in some basic values with an airbrush tool. A background is created to give Santa an environment to stand in.

On another new layer, I begin to lay in local color. I like Painter’s Chalk and Pastel brush categories and use them often, here with Flat Cover on basic paper settings, to give a firmer edge. I like to work over the entire painting at the same time, moving between background and foreground.

Color block-in continues. I want some texture in the illustration, so I use Painter’s Square Chalk brush variant with a heavily textured paper setting on the walls. The drawing remains the top layer acting as a blueprint to keep everything on track.

When the basics are laid down I begin to refine the painting, adding color and rendering form. The moon is added outside the window as a source for some rim light on Santa.

At this point I am far enough along that I can collapse most of the layers into one. I always make a duplicate of the drawing layer first, in case I need to use it as a reference point later on. I usually work with as few layers as practical. This allows the painting tools to interact in a much more natural, traditional media, way.

A view of trees and snow outside gives Santa a winter setting, and the diamond pattern adds an Old World look to the window.

All that’s left now are a few details. Santa gets some overstuffed pockets, the wall gets a trim board, a bit of flash here and there, some minor tweaks, and the painting is complete.

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Adam’s Amazing Dream – 3D Interactive Pop Up Book

Peter Lacalamita has been a digital illustrator for many years and recently he has been creating 3D animations for broadcast TV and interactive games for the iPhone and iPad. He launched Adam’s Amazing Dream with a gifted writer, Nancy Morency, and created all the art and coded the app with the game engine Unity3D. Peter also creates apps for clients and is near completion of several apps that feature ferocious dinosaurs!

Adam’s Amazing Dream is based on the true story of a little boy that “sees” incredible things in his dreams. This unique story is sure to give you chills and re-inforce your beliefs in something beyond our world. It will give you an opportunity to discuss angels and the importance of dreams with your little one while enjoying Adam’s interactive pop-up world. In this first story of a future series, we meet Adam. He is a happy, expressive little boy that tells us about his guardian angel, Uncle Bono, who takes him to fun places, when he is sleeping. But this time, it isn’t Uncle Bono who visits him in his dreams, it is someone new…and Adam can’t wait to tell his parents about it! Take advantage of this wonderful, new way to enjoy a story with your child. Children can choose to read the story themselves, or have it read to them by the author. They will be captivated by the story, the characters and all of the fun interactive animation. Geared towards children 3-5 years of age. View the app in the iTunes Store.