Bill Vann Art

CASINO HOTEL CONCEPTS

2008-08-07T14:43:00.000-07:00

Recently, I came across these images I did for an Architectural Firm, where I had to concept the following images for an upcoming meeting with several big investors looking to build hotels in Las Vegas.
The idea was to design these hotels to look like they were "Space Ships", on the ground, waiting for take-off!!

Here are several details of the final Acrylic renderings, which were done at approx 30X40 inches in size. These images were rear projected in their final form as a total panorama effect, in the room in which the meeting took place.

This final image shows yet another concept idea of a different style of "Space Ship" design that looks as if it was buried into the landscape it landed in. Overall, this
project turned out to be quite a bit of fun for both myself and the Creative Director from the clients' firm. Hope you enjoy seeing these images.

Robot Experiment

2008-08-07T10:00:00.000-07:00

This post consists of two quick Photoshop experiments I did recently with a ROBOT theme in mind.
Mostly, I waS JUST PLAYING AROUND WITH FILL COLOR AND BACKGROUND TEXTURES.
I HIGHLY RECOMMEND THAT ANY ENTRY LEVEL ARTIST make it a practice to keep up to date with any and all new digital technology available. You only learn by "DOING"!!

I'll be posting more experiments soon on my Blog. School starts on August 25th, so I will be busy from that point on, for the Fall semester. Be back soon....

My Trip To Michigan over the 4th of July

2008-07-14T11:33:00.000-07:00

I went to Michigan (Lakeville/Oxford) over the July 4th Holiday, to celebrate my granddaughter's birthday, and also visit
with my son, daughter-in-law, and my other grandchild, Braden.
She's a Firecracker baby, born on the 4th of July! My son and his family, live right on the lake, with a boat, and dock, so the trip was one that I looked forward to.
I planned to keep a journal, for the entire length of my stay, and have my granddaughter work with me in filling it up
with our daily events. Jacqueline began the book with this cover design, and I'll post as many of the spreads as I have photos of before I had to return home.

Here are the first few spreads by Jacqueline, without any of "Pa Pa's" help.

We worked on the following spreads, on a daily basis. After breakfast, we normally had a chance to sit at the dining room table and talk about each entry, and what we would put on each page.

Since friday, the 4th, was jacquelins' actual Birthday, we held a little pre-party that morning, where she was showered with all kinds of bagged gifts from various family members. She was obviously levitating in her chair, as each gift was opened.

The gardners' came that morning to finish the trimming, and mulching around the outside patio and deck area, and then we made a last minute trip to the Meijers' Store to pick up the cake, and other goodies. All these events are reflected in
the following spreads.

Little, by little, we filled up each spread with images that we thought would record the previous days' events, that
lead to her Birthday party, on Saturday, July 5th, at the lake house. It was a fun time, and a big successful turnout of many
of Jacqueline's school friends. Her brother, Braden, who is three years old, also had a GREAT time at the party!!

I will be getting the final few spreads from jacqueline soon, and plan to add them as a follow-up Posting, so the whole
journal will be complete on my Blog.
That's all for now. I'll be back in a short time with the additional artwork.

Preliminary Drawings for Three new figure concepts

2008-06-07T20:00:00.000-07:00

Now , that my Summer school session has been completed, I hope to move forward with these three figure concepts.
I've finished the pencils on these pieces, and have them on board, ready to go. I haven't worked on any nude figure studies
for some time, so I'm looking forward to having some fun with these. They're fairly large sized boards, so.... if they go well,
I might be able to sell them near the end of summer.

I really am taken with the style of Ashley Woods' recent work. You may be familiar with his "POBOT" series (trade mags),or his "Tank Girl" graphic novels. Very limited palletes, and loosely rendered. I will let his work mentor to me, and we'll see
where it takes me. Here are the three final drawings, on the board, waiting for me to begin.....

i will be adding a lot more posts, as the summer unfolds. I will try to finish these three pieces, and publish the results near the end of this summer. There will be other items, and visuals I plan to place here , long before I finish the three nude series.

Recent Images from Fantasy Sketch Group

2008-06-07T19:30:00.000-07:00

It's been some time since my last posting. The reason being: finishing up with teaching Illustration courses for the
Spring semester, various projects in the studio that has kept me extremely busy, when I'm not teaching, and finally
the many commitments I have as Chair of the Illustration Section at the St Louis Artists' Guild.

That being said, lets move on to the Fantasy Sketch Group. What a fun, and much needed, (for me) monthly, get together,
group of friends, and fellow artists. We draw for three hours, from live models (sometimes two at a time), for ten minute sessions. It's agreat opportunity to try new tools, visual approaches, and visual concepts that are for me and my own
amusement. Plus, I use the time to learn some new drawing skills.

I will post several examples today of a fairly recent session, in which I wanted to draw, using only colored Pentel pens, with
just a hint of some additional marker, here and there. Check out the following..............

Sometimes, I will take what I've done during a group session, and scan the art into photoshop, or Painter, and then add some digital color as an experiment. You can see how this works in the following two examples.......

THURSDAY DEMO / DRACULA

2007-10-26T17:01:00.000-07:00

A lot of time has gone by since my last posting. I recently did a DEMO at the St louis Artists' Guild, in St. Louis.
Since Halloween is approaching, i thought it would be appropriate to do a RUB-OUT painting technique, using
Count dracula as my model.
The following pics are of my preliminary drawings. color sketches, and finally, the finished demo.

These are the pencils I used to create the final demo. The first image is a detail of the head portion of the full upper body
sketch. I only used the head as my subject for the demo.
I made a zerox copy of this sketch to about 14 inches in height. I then pasted it onto a canvas board, using Acrylic
Gel right out of the jar. I applied a heavy coat onto the canvas board, and while that was still wet, I placed the zerox
on top of the wet gel, gently pressing it down onto the canvas board surface. After it was securely in place, I applied
another heavy coat of Acrylic Gel on top of the Zerox. This was set aside and allowed to dry, completely, before beginning the demo.

This color sketch was done, using some prismacolor pencils, on a copy of the drawing that had been taken to a full tone rendering. i wanted to use a red / green palette for the demo, so as to keep the painting to a limited palette.
After two hours (approx) of pushing around the opaque water color medium (gouache) on the Acrylic Gelled surface,
i finished the demo of Dracula's head. Here are the results:

Here is the full version of the final demo....

...and here is a detail of the head portion of the final art. Let me know what you think, and I'll return your comments.
Bill Vann

The Journey of the Ant

2007-07-10T13:33:00.000-07:00

Last month I had the opportunity to create an Image that will become the visual portion of the label that will be applied to an Insect repellent used to control the local Ant population. The idea was to create an image of a single ant that looked a little scary, but wasn't in the Monster Horror movie imagery. The first stage was rough pencils, shown below.

One of the three ideas was selected, and a final pencil was scanned and emailed for approval....

The next step was to create a full color rendering, which I did using traditional tools and water based mediums on a watercolor board surface. The original artwork was approximately 9 X 12 inches. I made a quick trip to the clients office and delivered the end product.

Apparently, what i didn't know was that the line of products that this client manufactured had a very specific "DIGITAL"
style to all of their Illustrations. Of course, my traditional look stood out in contrast to what was being done by other artists.
Soooooo.... the next phase was to go back to the studio and crank up the "ol computer, and see what I could do to tweek the ant artwork, and make it look like it belonged to the other digital style that was on the product line.
Without having to start over, I scanned my image, took it into Photoshop, and after some serious layering and some slick blending and editing the final result, below, is what was then re-delivered to the client with happy results. Check it out!

Martin Luther King Art

2007-07-10T13:15:00.000-07:00

It's been a while since I've been able to focus on posting new info and images on my Blog. Due to finalizing the last few weeks of the spring semester, and gearing up for summer school, plus whatever work has come my way in May and June, I just haven't found the time to do any posting.Here is an image that I did recently to honor the Reverend Dr. Martin luthert King Jr.on
the anniversary of his birth date.

The original image, shown here was done in color, and then had to be scanned, and converted to ablack and white image to be published in the St Louis Post-Dispatch newspaper. Here is the same image as it appeared in the Post-dispatch article. Dan Martin was the Art Director on this project. He's a long time friend and fellow Illustrator. A fast turn around, but that's normal for the Newspaper industry.

Portrait Samples...an Overview

2007-03-03T14:12:00.000-08:00

It has been some time since I've posted anything on my Blog, and I'm glad to be getting back to it!!
I've picked out a number of Portraits that I've created over a long period of time, and thought it would be good to post them and throw them open to comments. So... look these over, check out the mediums used, and get back to me with questions, or comments.
I'll start out with this Terry Bradshaw piece done originally for Conoco Oil and used for the NFL Hall of Fame Induction piece for his Induction into same. It was done using Acryla Gouache, on a gessoed board. Size was approx 28"X36".

Being in the arena of great sport athletes, the next image is of Jerry Rice in his heyday with San Francisco 49ers'. This was a cover for Chelsea House Pub. Medium used was gouache on acrylic geled board. Size: 12"X18".

Walter Peyton, or "Sweetness", as he was referred to in Chicago, by his fans, was a Sports Impressions Collectible Plate project
that was also created with Acryla Gouache on Cold Pressed Illustration Board. This piece was good sized at 20"X30".

Continuing with the athlete theme, and also created for Sports Impressions, is Michael Jordan for the avid plate collector.
This particular product literally "blew off the shelves"! Also painted using Acryla Gouache on Cold pressed board, and is
around 18" in height.

I did this next piece as a demo for the Dynamic Graphics Educational foundation. I worked for their Seminar division for
many years, as one of their Faculty. This image is of Doug Ross, who was an Attendee at several of my seminars, and who
has become one of my dear friends since i did this demo painting of him at DGEF. Gouache on gessoed board, 16X20".

Another cover for Chelsea House Pub, this montague of several Golfing Greats was a real fun piece for me to create for them.
Gouache on gessoed panel, at 16X20".

I'm going to wrap it up today with portraits of Pavoratti, Dr Martin Luther King, and two versions of Mark Twain. Here are those images, and the mediums used were pretty much the same as most of those other pieces pictured above.
Let me know what you think, and if you have any questions. Until the next Posting...

RUN FOR FUN POSTER PROJECT

2006-11-10T13:45:00.000-08:00

Todays' posting will deal with the process steps I went through in the creation of an Illustration that eventually was used as a Ltd Ed Litho Print for an annual Running Event in the township of Webster Groves, Missouri.
I was asked to portray the three athletes who were helping to sponsor this event. They were Jackie Joyner Kershee, Craig Virgin, and Ivory Crockett. Each of these talented athletes are world record holders in their own specialty disciplines. The plus side of this project was that I got to meet and have lunch with all of them. A real special experience!!

My typical "first steps" are to doodle around with several very loose, and rather abstract visuals that are rumbling around in my head, as I weigh the direction and approach needed to satisfy the demand of the project.

Once a final visual direction starts working for me, I focus on that particular chosen sketch, and delete all other concepts. Then, I proceed to do a preliminary rough pencil, for client approval. If all goes well, I execute the final sketch to be used in the preparation of the final art.

Whether the artwork will be produced Digitally, or Traditionally, I still need to work out a color sketch of the piece, in order
to be able to move forward towards the finish. This step is often accomplished by simply making a zerox copy of my final pencil art, and using markers, prismacolor pencils, and either acrylics or gouache to punch up the colors, I do a quick rendering, at a fairly small size. Generally at 50% of the original.

I will proceed directly towards the last stage of Digital, or Traditional Tools, after reviewing the color comp with the client,
and dealing with any last minute corrections, that's about it!! This print was produced in Photoshop, using my scanned
image of the line art as a color base. I followed my color comp fairly close, as you can see. Post comments, if you have any
questions. Until my next posting.... keep drawing in those sketch books!!

SPORT ART... ILLUSTRATED !!!!!

2006-11-04T16:51:00.000-08:00

Today, I will be posting some SPORT ART images from my studio portfolio. All of these paintings were created in the TRADITIONAL METHOD. No digital tricks here.... just paints, brushes, and some good'ol elbow grease.
When I show these to my students at the University, they can't fathom that they were painted without the use of any digital software applications. Here are the following images, starting with several major Pro Sporting events.

These next three images were created for use in game schedule posters for teams in the NFL, MLB, and other poster uses.
The pitcher image was a demo piece done for a seminar given to a group of entry level Illustrators.

The last grouping are all Football related imagery. The Redskins image shown was done as a special Super bowl poster. The visual of the Receiver was more of a generic poster to be used for any needed purpose the NFL deemed necessary. The final artwork posted here today was a special "Monday Nite Football" promo for the Ruby Tuesday Restaurant Chain Franchise.
This type of Traditional artwork can, and still is being created in this modern day of the pixel, I'm glad to say. My only wish is that some of the younger, recent grads out of school would pick up a paintbrush more often than they pick up a mouse!!

Wizard of OZ Concept Sketches

2006-11-03T15:02:00.000-08:00

There is a new blog from Blue Sky Studios at www.bsschallenge.blogspot.com that a friend of mine turned me onto lately.
It's a weekly challenge to all the animators at Blue Sky Studio to come up with clever,contemporary visual concepts that are variations on a theme, suggested by the BlogSpot site, created by BlueSky studios. it's ONLY open to their animators, but anyone can view the work, and leave comments. A few artists from the St louis area are doing a similar thing, and posting their work on
www.stlartthrowdown.blogspot.com.
The sketches above are my own concept solutions to this weeks BSSChallenge on Wizard of Oz characters... namely "Dorothy"
Wondered what Dorothy would look like with a little scarecrow in the oven???

These are a couple of different concepts with a more urbanlike street appeal. I think she looks pretty hot with short spiked hair
and a tougher cityfied body.
Be sure to check out the BlueSky Blog above and enjoy the work posted there this week on the Wizard of Oz theme. Also... go to the St Louis throwDown Blog to see more original concept art. Until the next Posting, keep drawing!!

Recent "CHUCK BERRY" Portrait project

2006-10-24T14:14:00.000-07:00

Here is a step-by-step process showing the execution of a recent portrait that I did for the Argosy Casino, as a surprise gift for Chuck Berry, for his 80th birthday. My method of working always begins with small, thumbnail concepts, that by themselves tend to be rather abstract, and not containing much detail. They are more for placement and composition, which allows me to deal more conceptually with the images I want to include in the painting. I hope you will be able to follow along with the process as I've laid it out. Hope you enjoy the ride, as much as I did!!

From the thumbnail above I have finalized the finished drawing, using the composition of the thumb as my guide. I had a larger print of the drawing made on a watercolor paper, then mounted onto gator board for a base.

In this shot of my Taboret, you can see that I'm using Jars of opaque gouache. I have kept all the old Pelikan jars that the product use to come in, and I'm constantly refilling these jars with the tubed colors that are the only thing available in todays' art stores. The reason I still have these jars is they are easier to open and close than the twist off tops that come with the tubed materials. The next phase of painting will be done using Holbein Acryla Gouache.

The next two images show how I rim lite the main image and the two smaller images on each side with different hues of color to help step down the hardness of the edging on these areas. It's at this point that i decide on a color to underpaint the total background area.

From this point on, the painting was beginning to take on more of a total, tonal look, with all areas of the surface covered with more opaque paint You can see the development taking place as you scroll down each image to the final pic of the completed painting. The last day of the painting process turned into an all-nighter, in order to make the deadline, and get the piece framed. It turned out well, and the recipient, Chuck Berry, was totally thrilled with the end results.

Anheuser Busch Glassware project

2006-10-01T17:59:00.001-07:00

It's been a few days since my last post, due to some fires at the studio that I had to put out. I thought that this would be a good time to display some of the fun wildlife images that I created for an A-B (Anheuser Busch) project in the past few years.
The idea was to create wildlife images that would be used as decoration for a set of 8 oz. glasses, to be sold in sets of eight
glasses, and would appeal to people who like to hunt different kinds of wild game.
These are a few of the images created for this project. They were produced as decals that circled the upper portion of each glass. The area in the center, top portion of the art was left for the Budweiser logo, to be dropped into.
Overall... the final result was excellent.

FINAL COLOR VERSION - SLEEPY BEAR ON CARPET

2006-09-14T18:20:00.000-07:00

..........and here he is, in all his glory, drinking his Chai Tea while talking to his girlfriend, on his cell phone.
It doesn't get more up-to-date than this, folks.

SLEEPY BEAR CONCEPT-CELESTIAL SEASONINGS

2006-09-14T17:49:00.000-07:00

Some of the most fun i have had in this business has been developing character designs for clients. One of my clients, Celestial Seasonings, has had a lovable little character they call Sleepy Bear, who is found pictured on almost all of their packaging of their tea and herb drinks. I have had the good fortune, over the years, to depict this little rascal in various situations, that relate to the specific products in each box he appears on. This particular one was a Chai tea product. These first two roughs shown, are just quick ideas that were emailed to the Art director to get the ball rolling. They show "Sleepy Bear" on a magic carpet, flying thru the sky. The larger pencils show the final chosen pose with differnt choices on the cup he is holding. The Final color art will be posted in the next entry, tomorrow.

MY GREATEST FEAR...

2006-09-14T17:38:00.000-07:00

This image was part of the Faculty exhibit at meramec CC last semester. It was conceived from an earlier concept done by a dear friend of mine, who is no longer with us. His name is Steve Sheldon, and he was ,in my opinion, one of the best creative minds in the business of producing creative solutions. I based this painting on one of his unique posters he did of a multi-colored forest animal... a wolf, as I recall, who was looking around in a very cautious way, saying" My greatest fear, is that I may taste good"!
Thank you Steve, for that great idea. This way, I'll always have some hard evidence that you are still with me.

Recent Train Art Painting

2006-09-13T13:55:00.001-07:00

Here are some recent step-by-step pics of a painting I executed for a new Exhibit at the St louis Artists' guild.The theme of the show was "TRAINS, PAST..PRESENT..AND FUTURE"
Unfortunately, i missed the entry deadline for this particular piece of art, but I did manage to get an earlier effort completed and it WAS ACCEPTED into the show.
Here are the stages of development, beginning with the final pencil concept.

The next stage was to project my pencil onto the working surface. I used a stretched canvas as my base.
After completing the underdrawing, I applied a thin, semi-transparent layer of burnt sienna Acrylic, directly over the drawing.
You can see, at this stage, that i'm thinking about a change to the train image. I didn't care to be looking at the back end of the train on the mid-left side, so I just changed it to be coming directly into frame from the left side.
The next step was to begin painting in the sky area, by scumbling in some fairly thin acrylic paint. At this stage I am not trying to be too careful, or trying to complete any one part of the picture.

From here on in, it's just a matter of letting the painting "talk" to me about value and hue.
I decided to add a river in the extreme foreground as a way of directing the viewers' eye INTO THE PICTURE FRAME.
In general, I like to work from the back towards the front of the picture plane. You can see that unfolding in the third and fourth pics. plus I have begun to fill in all the clouds to semi-complete the upper sky area by this stage.

The final images shown here show the various stages of finished development of the work, leading up to the framed artwork.
I hope you learned a few things in looking over this step-by-step process. Let me know what you think with your comments.
I'll be posting other works on a weekly basis, on this BlogSpot.

WHAT YOU SEE.... ISN'T ALWAYS WHAT YOU GET !!!!!

2006-09-11T15:16:00.000-07:00

Here is the final Prototype (in 3_D) of the Winter Brew tapper handle that... somehow.... came out of the designs, both pencils and color comps that i posted on the last Blog entry......... GO FIGURE !!

Tapper handle concepts - Final comps

2006-09-11T15:00:00.000-07:00

The final stage of development on the Tapper Handle Project was to create a few color "comp" versions of some of the pencils that the client preferred... over others. Based on the Snowman direction, here are some examples of what was chosen for consideration.
The first color version of the snowman was deemed a little too "cute or bright" for the intended target market. So I toned down the color and limited the pallette.

SOME RECENT CONCEPT PROJECTS

2006-09-11T13:22:00.000-07:00

I have been involved recently with developing pencil concepts for many of my clients. I have found that these recent projects have been a great source of renewed interest in my drawing skills. As you will see, in this Blog entry, what you are given, by the client, at the start of the project, and what you finally arrive at, near the end.... aren't always the same.
The first example shown here was a project for Anheuser-Busch to create a Tapper Handle Design (3-D) for a new "Winter Brew" with a Jack Frost Image direction. My first few emails were more of an exploratory nature, to see if I was on the same page with the client.
There were a total of three pages of rough pencil ideas sent to the client.
The next stage of developement was to push a little farther in another image direction (ie:Super hero, etc.) and see if the Brand Managers liked this approach.

2006-09-10T14:41:00.000-07:00

The Bill Vann Art Signature Collection

2006-09-10T14:25:00.000-07:00

This blog has been created to make available to all interested collectors, many of the original paintings and drawings that i have been collecting for many years. I have finally run out of physical space, both wall... and storage, to house all this incredible artwork. Plus, my wife has been after me for years to simply downsize the collection.
It may take me a while to organize the posting of these images for all to see, but i'm determined to do so in the next few days.
I also have secondary plans to use this Blog as a tool to show a different marketing approach to the kind of Illustration projects I intend to obtain from here on in...