Friday, March 30, 2007

Artist Profile: John Berkey

While the name John Berkey may not be as well known as Norman Rockwell, Berkey is arguably as famous. His spaceship illustrations helped influence Star Wars, as he was commissioned by director George Lucas to do pre-production designs for the first movie in the series.

Spaceships were often depicted as long rocket-powered tubes in Buck Rogers comics and movies, but Berkey envisioned them as large floating barges. That vision, and its influence on science fiction, is probably what Berkey will be best remembered for, according to Wilcock.

Berkey has many other credits to his name, however, including landscapes, streetscapes, nudes, illustrations for magazines such as Reader's Digest and TV Guide, postage stamps and portraits. Perhaps his most famous portrait may be one that lost a popularity contest.

Berkey was commissioned to paint one of two images the United States Postal Service considered in honoring Elvis Presley with a 29-cent stamp. In April 1992 the Postal Service let customers vote on which image of Elvis they preferred to see on a postage stamp: the young crooner or the older, jumpsuit-wearing lounge singer. Berkey was commissioned to paint the older version of Elvis, but the voting public preferred the younger version by a margin of about 3-to-1. The younger version of Elvis, singing into a microphone in front of a pink background, made its debut in January 1993.

In 2004, John Berkey was named to the 104-year-old Society of Illustrators Hall of Fame, which includes Norman Rockwell, N.C. Wyeth, Frederick Remington and John James Audubon. ArtOrg wishes to thank John Berkey and his family for the wonderful opportunity of holding these gallery shows and representing this art to the public.



See more paintings by John Berkey.

Monday, March 26, 2007

Artist Profile: Sergei Bongart



20th Century Russian painter Sergei Bongart (1918-1985) was born in Kiev in the Ukraine. He studied art in Kiev, Prague, Vienna and Munich, before emigrating to the United States in 1948. While living in California during the 1960s and 70s, he taught a number of aspiring young painters who later became well-known, nationally collected American artists—among them, Susan Greaves and James Dudley Slay. Bongart lived, painted and taught in Idaho and then in California, where he established the Sergei Bongart School of Art and administered it for many years.

Bongart is admired for his richly colored and emotionally expressive landscapes, still lifes and portraits. He was best known as a colorist, working in exaggerated color, using dynamic but carefully controlled color relationships and extolling the virtues of approaching painting as “color first, subject last." His work is featured in prominent museums, and has received many awards, including a 1982 Gold Medal from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame for his oil painting entitled "Spring Evening."

The only book written to date about Bongart is entitled simply, Sergei Bongart. The book was written by Mary Balcomb and was designed by your host, Norman Nason.

Friday, March 23, 2007

Photographer Profile: Michael Fatali

Michael Fatali was born in Brooklyn, New York, in 1965. At the age of six, his family moved to Southern Arizona. The first introduction to his love affair with the outdoors began with many hiking and camping trips with his father during Fatali's childhood.

When he was fifteen, his mother passed away from cancer. Feeling this unfortunate loss, he began to rediscover himself and develop an intimate relationship with nature which nutured him and taught him lessons of our communal co-existence with the natural world. Even though there was a physical separation with his mother early in life, he feels a spiritual connection when he spends quiet times in places of mystery. His insightful understanding of our unified connections with nature has blessed him with a life mission to share with us all. The still frames of time which are reflections that mirror the glory from the Creator of light and power.

In 1990, Fatali was still struggling as an artist with the creative desire to improve upon making intimate photographs of the Desert Southwest. With only a few hundred dollars and his large plate camera, he and his wife hit the road and moved closer to the red rock country he loves so deeply. Fatali displayed his new images of the now world famous slot canyons by opening his first gallery in Page, Arizona. Publications and featured television stories soon gained him both regional and international recognition. His sensitive eye for canyon light has become his own unique photographic voice in the world of photography.

Visit Michael's website.

Wednesday, March 21, 2007

Artist Profile: Clyde Aspevig



Clyde Aspevig's personal and artistic horizons have unfolded expansively since his childhood on a Montana farm near the Canadian border. That period of geographical and cultural isolation was in retrospect a blessing for the artist he recalls. "Because I grew up in a vacuum in Montana, I wasn't taught the cliches."

He sees such naivete as allowing him to be more open to everything around him, which is especially evident in his latest works. His peripatetic field easel now ranges across the wild mountains and prairies of Montana, Death Valley, Adirondacks, rocky North Atlantic coast, Scandinavian fjords and the well-tended hillside estates of Tuscany.

Growing up, he witnessed the alternatingly painful and joyful cycles of agricultural life. He was unusually fortunate to be encouraged by his family in the pursuits of art and appreciation of music. Clyde learned early on to work hard and persevere against obstacles natural and manmade. Rather than scoffing at or demeaning Clyde's interests, Clyde's father, the practical but open-minded farmer, bought his twelve-year-old son's first painting.

He considers his paintings as old friends and visual souvenirs of places experienced in his life. The viewer, too, shares in Clyde's magical evocations of the landscapes that touched him.

While his early efforts attracted awards and critical praise from the regional or "Western" sector of the art community, Clyde's work has since emerged to be highly sought after by world class collectors. In a culture notorious for nourishing illustration of stereotypical, iconic subject matter, Clyde fearlessly departed whenever he felt the call, and resisted early attempts by Western art dealers to label him and restrict him to the saleable panoramic scenics.

To Clyde Aspevig, painting expresses human emotion better than any other medium. The divine nature of light reveals to the receptive eye the timeless interaction of land forms and sky, water, flora, soil and rock. If he has any "mission" beyond the canvas in his creative endeavors, it is simply a wish to call attention to the timeless, intrinsic worth of our natural environment. The image resolves from a deliberative yet intuitive process of the artist, seeing. Nature, undistorted by the filters of acculturation.

Visit Clyde's website.

Tuesday, March 20, 2007

Artist Profile: Jeffrey Jones

Jeffrey Catherine Jones (born January 10, 1944 in Atlanta, GA) was a very popular science fiction and fantasy illustrator during the 1960's and early '70s. Among the books he did covers for were the Ace paperback editions of Fritz Leiber's Fafhrd and the Gray Mouser series and Andre Norton's Postmarked the Stars. At the time he was competing with Roy G. Krenkel who had a tight almost J. Allen St. John-ish style and Frank Frazetta. There were strong similarities and differences between Frazetta and Jones. Both tended to stage their scenes in stylized spaces, both showed a strong color sense which made both artists' work memorable. Frazetta's men were burlier, his women more buxom than Jones's. They are both very excellent draftsmen.
For a period during the early 1970's he also contributed illustrations to Ted White's Fantastic.



In the early 1970's when National Lampoon began publication, he had a strip in it for a while called Idyl. Despite the credibility this gave him with comic strip fans, and the fact that in the late seventies and early eighties, he shared a studio with Bernie Wrightson, Barry Windsor-Smith, Michael Kaluta and other cartoonists his popularity began to fade as his work evolved; his figures became less ethereal and his colors and textures more intense. Cartoonists Walter Simonson and J. D. King said at the time this was because of his growing interest in Expressionists.

As noted on Sequential Tart, in the late 1990s, Jones confronted some personal problems and, after considerable medical tests and consultations, had a sex change operation. In 2001, she experienced a nervous breakdown, and lost her home and workspace. Since 2004, she has her own apartment, and is again producing work.

Visit Jeffrey's website.

Monday, March 19, 2007

Artist Profile: Matt Smith

Matthew Read Smith was born in Kansas City, Missouri in 1960, and at the age of three moved with his family to Scottsdale, Arizona. Later, they moved to Europe where they lived two years in France and one in Switzerland. In subsequent years, Matt painted in Germany, Austria, and Italy. He has lived most of his life in Arizona, where he developed a deep attachment to and respect for the Sonoran Desert.

Matt graduated from Arizona State University with a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree in painting. Somewhat disappointed with the school’s abstract-oriented art program, he spent significant personal time studying the traditional styles of such landscape masters as Maynard Dixon, William Herbert Dunton, and Edgar Payne.

Most of the time, Matt can be found painting en plein air from southern Arizona to the Canadian Rockies or from the California coast to the mountains of Colorado. He comments: "I respect the tradition behind classical landscape painting, and I’m particularly inspired by pristine locations. I enjoy working in areas where one can travel for miles without seeing the influence of man. When I paint, I feel I’ve hit the mark when I’ve captured a balance between mood, look, and feel. You know you’ve succeeded when viewers sense the desert heat, or the chill of a mountain snowfall, or the mist hanging over a lake. No one can improve on nature’s landscapes."



Visit Matt's website website.

Wednesday, March 14, 2007

Artist Profile: Jan Op De Beeck

Jan Op De Beeck is arguably the world's greatest caricaturist.

Born in Congo in 1958, Jan moved to Belgium in 1960, where he obtained mastership in 1979 at Sint-Thomas in Brussels. He began teaching the arts in 1979 at the Coloma Institute in Mechelen. Jan married his wife Chris in 1979, and they have three children: Lieven (1980), Katrijn (1982) and Pieter (1985).

Jan Graduated in model drawing at the Royal Academy in Mechelen, made caricatures for several publications in Belgian press, and won several awards in Belgium, France, Poland, Portugal, and Iran (2002). He was elected in 2003 as 'World's Best Caricaturist' by the Professional cartoonists in Iran, and was invited in Saint-Just-Le-Martel, Saint-Estève and Samer (France) several times. He taught a masterclass with Sebastian Krueger in Seixal (Portugal) in June 2001, and was guest of honour in Ourense (Spain) and Dubai (UAE) in March 2002.

Jan has continued to lecture and travel (and draw) extensively, and he has won numerous awards for his caricatures. His latest book, Famous Corpses, was published in 2006.

Visit Jan's website.

Tuesday, March 13, 2007

Artist Profile: Richard Schmid



Richard Schmid was born in Chicago, Illinois in 1934. His earliest artistic influence came from his maternal grandfather, Julian Oates, an architectural sculptor. Richard’s initial studies in landscape painting, figure drawing, and anatomy began at the age of twelve and continued into classical techniques under William H. Mosby at the American Academy of Art in Chicago.

Mosby, a graduate of the Belgian Royal Academy in Brussels and the Superior Institute in Antwerp, was a technical expert on European and American realism. Studies with him involved working exclusively from life, at first using the conceptual and technical methods of the Flemish, Dutch, and Spanish masters, and eventually all of the late 19th century European and American painters. The emphasis in each period was on Alla Prima, or Direct Painting systems of the various periods. However, Richard’s individual style and the content of his work developed along personal lines.

In 2005, Richard Schmid was presented with the Gold Medal award from the Portrait Society of America during their annual portrait conference held in Washington DC. Richard is also the receipient of an honorary doctorate degree from the Lyme Academy College of Fine Arts in Old Lyme, CT.

At ceremonies hosted by the American Society of Portrait Artists in the Grace Rainey Rogers Auditorium in the Metropolitan Museum of Art in 2000, Richard Schmid received the John Singer Sargent Medal for Lifetime Achievement. Richard Ormond, Sargent’s grandnephew, presented the award. In May 2005, Schmid received the prestigious gold-medal award from The Portrait Society of America at their annual conference held in Washington, DC.



Throughout his career, Richard Schmid has promoted art education through his books, articles, workshops, seminars, and television presentations. He travels widely in the Western Hemisphere for his subjects, and currently lives in Vermont with his wife, the painter Nancy Guzik. Richard Schmid’s work is represented by WestWind Fine Art. For more information contact: Kristen Theis, Co-owner of WestWindFineArt.

Visit Richard's website.

Adobe Tackles Photo Forgeries

A suite of photo-authentication tools under development by Adobe Systems could make it possible to match a digital photo to the camera that shot it, and to detect some improper manipulation of images, Wired News has learned.

Adobe plans to start rolling out the technology in a number of photo-authentication plug-ins for its Photoshop product beginning as early as 2008. The company is working with a leading digital forgery specialist at Dartmouth College, who met with the Associated Press last month.

The push follows a media scandal over a doctored war photograph published by Reuters last year. The news agency has since announced that it's working with both Adobe and Canon to come up with ways to prevent a recurrence of the incident.

Read full story at Wired

French Easel Backpack



Recommended: French Easel Packpack

Photographer Profile: Robert Balcomb

Robert Balcomb, Master portrait photographer, lives in the Puget Sound area, having practiced portraiture for over forty years, from California to New Mexico to his present location. He is a graduate of the American Academy of Art, Chicago, and has a BS-Ed from The University of New Mexico and an MA-Ed from The University of Northern Colorado. He also was a faculty member of Olympic College, Bremerton WA, specializing in English grammar, technical writing, and public speaking.

Balcomb is not just a photographer. After the Chicago art school training, he spent two decades as an Advertising and Technical Illustrator—he emphasies the point that in order for one to consider himself a photographer in the world of Art he must necessarily be also an Artist, not just a shutter-clicker, as too many photographers unfortunately are. The Mortensen technique demands the touch of an Artist.

Balcomb’s exclusive technique results in portraits that are timeless, considered not just photos, but as works of Art, proud to hang on any wall. He has photographed people, many luminaries, from many parts of the world, including children and eventually their children, and then their children! They all know he is the only source for this most distinctive work.

See more Robert Balcomb photographs

Artist Profile: Morgan Weistling



Morgan studied art at an early age with his father, a former art student. His parents both met at art school. His father, Howard, a POW in Germany, entertained his fellow American prisoners in Stalag 1 with a daily comic strip that he created and drew to keep morale up. Drawn on scraps of paper found on the prison grounds, he crafted a humorous world of characters that managed to bring a smile to imprisoned soldiers. In the last days of the war and feeling the Russians would be coming, his talents with painting saved his life. Using some paints supplied by the Geneva Convention, he painted a American Flag on the shoulder of his prisoner uniform so that the Russians invading Germany would identify him and not shoot him. It worked.

Weistling's father came back from the war with dreams of being an artist. With the G.I. Bill, he took classes at Woodbury Art College in Los Angeles where he met Morgan's mom. After marrying and starting a family, Morgan's father had to abandon his artistic dreams and support his new family by becoming a gardener. But, he saved all his art books....

Morgan, much younger than his brother and sister, began his artistic training as early as 19 months old. His father would sit with him on his lap at night and teach him how to draw and use his imagination. " My dad and I bonded together with drawing and spoke to each other with pictures". Weistling's father had a real talent for telling a story in comic strip form and so it began in Morgan, a natural sense of the narrative."It was here that art became a language for me."

That led to his studying the art books his father had acquired years earlier. Authors such as Andrew Loomis, Vanderpole, and Bridgeman. The most important books, though, were the volume set from the Famous Artist School.

At the age of 12, Weistling was determined to go through the entire course on his own since the school was no longer in existence. By the age of 15, his study of anatomy, drawing, and painting needed a mentor's direction.

That direction came through a retired illustrator named Fred Fixler. Fred's school, then called the Brandes Art Institute, was dedicated to one thing: learning how to draw from life. "The minute I saw his life drawings I knew this was the guy to study with, there was no doubt," says Morgan. Working part-time as a janitor for the school to pay his tuition, Weistling studied there for 3 years.

While still a student and working at an art store, one day a prominent illustrator came in for supplies. Weistling showed him his student work. The next day he found himself employed at one of the top movie poster agencies in Hollywood. "At that time, all I wanted to be was an illustrator," Weistling says, "but that was amazingly fast." For the next 14 years he illustrated for every movie studio in Hollywood as well as many other fields of illustration.

After being art-directed for years, Morgan needed to paint something for himself. He took time out to produce a painting of two children and brought it to Scottsdale Arizona on the advice of long time friend, Julio Pro .

The first gallery he walked into signed him on the spot, Trailside Galleries. Co-owner Maryvonne Leshe was quick to spot new talent. She was soon proven right. "He would send his paintings to us un-framed and before we could get them hung, they would be sold," quips Maryvonne. Soon a "draw" system for Weistling's paintings became necessary. His first one-man show had 26 paintings and all were sold opening night. Since then, Morgan has had four more one-man shows and they sold -out opening night as well.

Also interested in depicting his Christian faith, Morgan has portrayed the life of Christ in many of his paintings. Those images can be found in the best selling book, The Image of Christ, with paintings and text by Morgan.

Greenwich Workshop publishes his paintings as giclee canvases.

Morgan and his wife, JoAnn, have been married 14 years and also met in art school. JoAnn is a painter too. She paints under the name, J.Peralta, to honor her grandmother. Their 9 year old daughter, Brittany, is often a model in Weistling' paintings.

Visit Morgan's website

French Easel



Recommended: Jack Richeson Full Box French Style Easel

Artist Profile: Craig Mullins



Craig Mullins was born in 1964 in California and moved at the age of 3 to Ohio. When 18 he went back to California where for several years he lived in the proximity of Los Angeles. Today he lives in Hawaii. Mullins was classically trained (attending Pitzer College of Claremont, California (where he stayed for around 2 years) and the Art Center College of Design) but was introduced to digital art with the release of Dubner PaintBox in 1987. Mullins has indicated that he now creates his images almost exclusively in the digital environment—using Corel Painter and Adobe Photoshop on a Dell workstation from his home studio in Hawaii.

Craig painted digital matte paintings for The Matrix Revolutions, Armageddon, Flubber, Contact, Apollo 13, Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, and Forrest Gump. He provided illustrations for the following video games: Marathon, Halo: Combat Evolved, Age of Empires, Need for Speed, Return to Castle Wolfenstein, and Europa Universalis III.



Visit Craig's website

Artist Profile: Glen Orbik

In Glen's own words (for who could say it better?):

"Several decades ago, with the original intention of drawing super-heroes, I started serious art study with retired illustrator, Fred Fixler. Fred was a highly skilled illustrator best known for painting movie posters ( Comedy of Terrors, Pit and the Pendulum, Man with the X-ray Eyes, Burn Witch Burn, House of Usher, Hercules—Unchained, Where the Boys Are, etc...). and elegant pretty girls. Fred had been a student of Frank Reilly and Robert Beverly Hale at the Art Students' League, with fellow classmates James Bama, Robert Maguire and Clark Hulings, among many others.

"After a few years, I took over many of Fred's classes at the school he started when he retired from teaching and have continued off and on for over 20 years. While at school I met future partner and sometimes collaborator, Laurel Blechman, a fellow Fixler student and teacher.

"I've been lucky enough to work on everything from book covers to movie posters, collectable lithographs and plates, to video games and comic books. I've gotten to do covers for such authors as Stephen King and Ray Bradbury. I've painted retro detectives, femme fatales, fantasy heroes, Sci-Fi rockets & Jedi's, western bandits and Hammer-style vampires. I'm a major fan of classic magazine illustration (who isn't ?), pulp paperback art, and film- noir.

A short, incomplete list of artistic influences (and a chance to name-drop...): Robert McGinnis, Gil Elvgren, Dean Cornwell, Mead Schaeffer,Andrew Loomis, John Buscema... and a healthy dose of Norman Rockwell.

"My partial client list includes DC Comics, Vertigo, Marvel Comics, Warner Bros., Clampett Studios, Universal Pictures, Sony, Avon Books, Berkley Books, cRandom House, Del Rey, Hard Case Crime, and TSR / Dungeons and Dragons."

Visit Glen's website

Artist Profile: Ryan Wurmser

Ryan Wurmser is a versatile young California painter who has turned from a successful career in illustration fine art. He paints richly colored landscapes with figures, interior scenes, still lifes and landscapes. Wurmser creates a sense of mood in his paintings by balancing passages of rich color with delicate grays. By working out-of-doors, directly from nature, he is able to give his works a naturalistic quality.

Wurmser, with his training as a draftsman, is able to reconcile accurate drawing with painterly brushwork, following in the footsteps of the early 20th century American Impressionists.

Wurmser was born in Los Angeles in 1973 and has always lived in the San Fernando Valley, north of Los Angeles. He came from an artistic family with a history of involvement in the motion picture industry. Wurmser’s grandfather was a highly respected set designer and his father is a professional sculptor and an art director, so it was almost natural for the young man to choose an artistic path.

After graduating from Westlake High School in 1992 he began attending the nearby California Art Institute with his parents’ encouragement. Initially, Wurmser studied drawing at the institute and credits Glenn Orbik and Steve Houston as outstanding draftsmen and teachers who have had a lasting impact on his artistic development, especially his keen awareness of the importance of good draftsmanship.

Classes with the plein-air painter and former illustrator Dave Jonas were instrumental in helping Wurmser develop a rich color sense and reconcile his academic training with more expressive brushwork. It was Jonas who introduced him to legendary 19th-century painters who came to influence the young artist.

Only two years into his studies, Wurmser was asked to take over Glen Obrik’s drawing classes at the California Art Institute. Then, for the past four years, Wurmser has been putting the skills that he developed through his training into practice as a freelance illustrator. When he began his commercial career, he threw himself into learning how to do the type of conceptual work that is required by major development companies.

As an illustrator, Wurmser had done theme park design for major companies such as Paramount, Universal, Landmark and Disney. Now, like many successful fine artists, he is leaving the commercial world behind for a career as an easel painter.



Wurmser is an avid collector of books on historic painters. He loves the work of Joaquin Sorolla, the Spanish Impressionist; the expatriate American John Singer Sargent; Nicolai Fechin, the outstanding Russian painter who emigrated to America; and other artists from the Russian school like Valentin Serov and Illya Repin. However, his favorite painter and greatest influence is the bold Swedish painter Anders Zorn. He is drawn to the sense of naturalism that Zorn achieved in his paintings of figures in outdoor light and his ability to focus the viewer’s interest on what he wanted to impart to them.

Ryan Wurmser is an energetic and personable young man who has an incredible sense of focus. He is a patient painter who is dedicated to making each painting true to his original idea. Despite the momentary frustrations of picture making, he finds painting a joyful way to make a living. He sees traditional art as a visual language through which he can impart his feelings and moods.

Wurmser is drawn to beauty and makes no apologies for the fact that his paintings are intended to be beautiful. He wants to paint interesting and attractive people. He believes that we all need harmony and that art can be a font of beauty in the hurly-burly rush of our daily lives. Now, with a long career as a fine artist ahead of him, he wants nothing more than to dedicate his life to providing collectors with works of art that will give them many years of pleasure and enjoyment.

See more of Ryan's work at the Morseburg Galleries

Artist Profile: Jeremy Lipking

Jeremy Lipking enjoys the process of wandering. As he journeys through life and explores different paths, his watchful eye continually searches for the subject of his next painting. Sometimes he’s captivated by a sight he’s never seen before. Other times, he paints an object from his everyday life, fascinated by how the light touches it at that very moment. By striving to capture the “here and now” in his paintings, Lipking injects into his classic and romantic images an ethereal, almost mysterious quality—something that many other artists have attempted to copy, but have not been able to replicated.

Born in Santa Monica, California in 1975, Lipking is a fourth-generation California artist and the son of Ronald Lipking, an advertising designer, children’s book illustrator and landscape painter. His early exposure to art—the constant presence of paints and brushes in his childhood home and frequent trips to local museums and galleries with his father—provided the younger Lipking with a strong foundation of the basics of design and drawing.

But it was the years he spent from 1996 to 1999 at the California Art Institute, which enabled him to make a tremendous leap as an artist. His instructors taught him to look at the world differently—to not, for example, look at the eyes and nose as distinct elements of the face, but to detect the shapes created by lights and darks and the subtleties of color. Following his studies at the institute, he embarked on an intensive self-directed effort to improve his paintings, closely examining the works of artists he most admired: John Singer Sargent, Spanish plein-air painter Joaquin Sorolla, and Swedish artist Anders Zorn, among others.

In 2001, at the age of 25, Lipking began attracting attention of the international art community. He received both the Gold Medal and the Museum Director’s Award at the California Art Club’s 91st Annual Gold Medal Juried Exhibition, one of the country’s most prestigious exhibitions of contemporary-traditional fine art. A year later, at the 92nd Annual Gold Medal Exhibition, he received the Museum Purchase Award. Lipking has had four solo exhibitions and has participated in many gallery and museum exhibitions. In 2003 he was asked to participate in the Arnot Museum’s exhibition Re-presenting Representation, in New York. Magazines ranging from Art and Antiques and Art News to Art-Talk and Southwest Art began reporting on his meteoric career and the enigmatic quality of his work that appeals to a growing list of collectors.

Today, while Lipking feels especially compelled to paint the most classical of artistic subjects, the human figure, his body of work also includes landscapes and still lifes—whatever subjects manage to capture his interest as he continually searches the world around him for reasons to put his brush to canvas.

Visit Jeremy's website.

A Tribute to Neil Boyle

Neil Boyle was one of a kind. An original. I've never met anyone else like him; not even close. Sure, he was a great artist, one who could paint, draw, sculpt, etch, woodcut, and generally make something brilliant out of just about anything. But he was also one of the funniest guys I ever met. "I paint bars and whores," he used to say, "because you're supposed to paint what you know."

Neil was born on April 5th, 1931 in Fort Macleod, Alberta, Canada. His formal education included training at the Banff School of Fine Arts in Alberta, Canada; Chouinard Art Institute and Art Center College of Design in Los Angeles. Neil taught at both art schools in Los Angeles and held an associate professorship with the University of California at Long Beach, and California State University, Northridge. After teaching for fifteen years at the California Art Institute in Westlake Village, California, Neil decided it was time for a change and moved to Vancouver Island off the west coast of Canada.

Before turning to fine art Neil was a successful commercial illustrator, having done work for many major publications and corporations such as The Ford Motor Company, Rand Corporation, Reader's Digest and Cosmopolitan. Awards were bestowed upon him by the Society of Illustrators in New York, Los Angeles, and the Los Angeles Art Directors Club. The award from the Society of Illustrators in Los Angeles was a Life Achievement Award, of which there were only six living recipients. Four of his works were chosen by the U.S. Postal Service for the commemorative Bicentennial stamp series "Contributors to the Cause", and over forty of his works have been chosen for the U.S. Air Force historical exhibits in the Smithsonian and the Pentagon and in their traveling shows.

Neil was a Master Signature Member of the Oil Painters of America, a Signature Member of the Northwest Rendezvous Group and a Signature Member of the California Art Club. He was also a Senior Member of the Federation of Canadian Artists. And, a lifetime member of the Society of Illustrators of Los Angeles and Tucson's infamous Mountain Oyster Club.

Neil died on February 4th, 2006, of complications related to esophageal cancer. He will be missed by not only me, but by the literally hundreds of friends and fellow artists who had the priviledge of knowing him.

Visit Neil's website

To Students of Art

In every drawing or painting you create, there is a stroke of genius. As a teacher, it is my duty to show you where and how you accomplished it; as a student, your duty is to strive to repeat it.

Collaborative Art Project

Here's an interesting example of computer art that just couldn't be done using any other medium (be patient, because it takes a few minutes to load): Computer Art

Johnny Carson Remembered

Well, he was an artist to me.

Legendary TV entertainer Johnny Carson died of emphysema today at age 79. He hosted NBC's "The Tonight Show" for nearly 30 years and was, to me, the greatest. Celebrities the world over are summing up their association with Johnny, saying: "He had class." During my college years I watched Carson nearly every evening, and grew to love his wry, deadpan humor. His skits, monologue, and hilarious exchanges with guests are still legendary. Carson launched more careers than any other TV personality and through it all, his vulnerability and kindness was always apparent. There's never been a better entertainer, and although I've missed seeing him on TV since his retirement, I miss him now even more. Thanks for the memories, Johnny. If there's a God, I know now he's laughing.

Machines Like Us

For those interested in science, MachinesLikeUs.com is a web resource dealing with evolutionary thought, cognitive science, artificial life and artificial intelligence. It encourages relevant scientific research and analysis, posts current news and disseminates articles that promote the following concepts: 1) Evolution is the guiding principle behind life on earth; 2) Religions and their gods are human constructs, and subject to human foibles; 3) Life and intelligence are emergent properties based upon fundamental mechanics, and, as such, are reproducible; 4) Living organisms are magnificent machines—robust, dynamic, self-sufficient, precisely tuned to their environment—and deserving our respect and study.

Visit MachinesLikeUs

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome

I first purchased an Apple Macintosh computer when it was introduced in 1984, and have been clicking a mouse and pounding a keyboard ever since. Still, it came as a surprise to me when, three years ago, I developed a numbness in my right forearm. This soon expanded to both forearms and I knew I had it: the dreaded Carpal Tunnel Syndrome.

Carpal Tunnel disorder results from inflammation of the fibro-osseous tunnel on the palmar surface of the carpal bones of the wrist, a hole through which several tendons and the median nerve passes. Repetitive motion (such as typing or mouse clicking) causes the inflammation that squeezes the nerve. This in turn causes numbness, tingling, pain, or other nasty symptoms. If left unchecked, permanent nerve damage may result.

Carpal Tunnel Syndrome can sometimes be relieved by surgery—a procedure designed to widen the carpal tunnel, lessening pressure on the median nerve. But results are mixed. In my case, this alternative was neither welcome nor inevitable.

Working first with a physical therapist, I learned several techniques that don't cure my Carpal Tunnel problem entirely, but keep it in check. I offer these tips to those of you who may be experiencing similar symptoms. If your problem persists, see a doctor.

1. Wear a wrist splint. I can't stress this enough. Each and every time you use a computer, wear a splint. If you have symptoms in both wrists, wear a splint on each hand. Avoid drug-store splints. The best quality splints are found in pharmacies associated with hospitals and medical centers. Expect to pay about $25 for a good splint.

2. Give your wrists a break. Every 15 minutes or so, relax your hands. When at work, do these few stretching exercises: place your palms together in a praying position; gently press, hold, and release. Do this several times. Rotate your wrists slowly 360 degrees.

3. Do mild weight lifting each and every day to increase blood circulation through the shoulders. These are the exercises that work the best for me (2 sets, 10 or more repetitions each): bench press (or pushups); military press (lifting weight above the head); chair lift (bend over and place one palm on the seat of a chair. With the other hand, raise a dumbell to your chest, lower and repeat). Here's a good web site for more information about working with dumbells.

4. Doorway stretch: several times each day, stand within an open doorway; interlace your fingers behind your head so your elbows stick out from side to side and contact the door frame. Step gently forward with one leg and slowly stretch your arms backward, against the door frame. Move in, hold for 20 seconds, then release. Do not "bounce" against the door frame or stretch too hard or too fast. The idea here is to stretch in small, comfortable increments daily.

5. For quick relief, use ice compresses to help reduce swelling. I find that a bag of frozen peas works especially well.

Follow these guidelines daily and I'm confident that soon you will feel significant relief from your symptoms. With any luck, your Carpal Tunnel Syndrome will be—if not cured—comfortably managed.

Photo Retouching

When I told a visitor to my web site that I use Adobe Photoshop exclusively for photo retouching, she found it hard to believe. My traditional drawing and painting experience certainly helps, but when combined with Photoshop, nearly anything is possible. I'm often called upon to retouch faces. Even the most beautiful model has flaws that need to be fixed, or proportions that should be steered more toward the "ideal." A few tips: always work on an image with the highest resolution possible. Make global corrections wherever possible, avoiding small areas of change unless absolutely necessary. Work in RGB mode until the last minute, then create a copy of your work before converting to CMYK (if going to press). Bone up on Color Profiles to maintain predictable color fidelity throughout this process.

For facial reconstruction, I make ample use of the Rubber Stamp and Healing Brush tools. I use selection tools frequently, varying the feather and often using different feather settings on different sides of the same selection. If a jaw line needs to be reshaped, I select the area in question using a slight feather, make a layer from the the selection (Command-J on the Mac), then rotate and/or reposition the layer until the jaw looks correct. This may have to be repeated several times using different selections of different areas of the jaw. I remove blemishes, wrinkles and "fly-away" hairs (yes, one at a time!), clone more hair where needed, then increase the contrast slightly and sharpen the image using Unsharp Mask.

If possible, keep at hand any extra photos from the model shoot. I often find that even though one photo is best or may be what the client requests, other elements can be gleaned from the unwanted photos (such as extra hair or fabric).

Color correction is both an art and science in and of itself, and will be discussed in a later post.

Drawing Pencils

Visitors to my web site often ask me about art supplies, wondering about oil and acrylic paints, paint brushes, easels, drawing paper and the like. One recently asked: "What kind of pencils do you use?"

I'm pretty particular when it comes to drawing pencils, and over the years have tried just about everything available. I most often use compressed charcoal pencils, because charcoal provides the darkest black. This is important because it offers the highest possible contrast in my drawings; the widest tonal range. Compressed charcoal pencils typically come in varieties of soft, medium and hard. Some brands have a smooth texture, while others are more coarse—feeling as if tiny grains of sand are embedded within the charcoal. This isn't good, because the sand can actually scratch your drawing. The softer the pencil, the more easily you'll be able to lay down a really dark, black tone, while the harder the pencil, the more control you'll have while drawing. So there is a tradeoff between control and tonal range. This is why I usually prefer to use a "medium" range compressed charcoal pencil, which gives me the best balance between control and tonal range. There are exceptions, of course—as when I wish to achieve a certain effect—but by-and-large a medium pencil is what I use. For the past several years I prefer Berol brand medium compressed charcoal pencils, which are long-lasting and smoother in texture than other brands I've tried.