Nature has always been a way for me to reboot my mind and usher in a flood of new ideas and creativity. Today was one of those days when my camera tagged along for the ride. A handful of pictures from the day.
Craig Elliott will have approximately 45 works on display and for sale at the Daniel Maghen gallery in Paris, France. The exhibit runs from November 3-13. The opening reception will be on Friday, November 5 at 7PM, where you can meet Craig in person. You can visit Craig’s website to view samples of the work that will be available. The Daniel Maghen website has more information.
Craig Elliott is an artist based in Los Angeles, California. He received his education at Art Center College of Design. He studied under artists such as Harry Carmean and Burne Hogarth. In addition to his fine art work, Craig has had a hand in designing many of today’s most popular animated films from studios such as Disney and Dreamworks. A multi-faceted artist, he is also an accomplished landscape architect, sculptor and most recently, jewelry designer.
After attending Art Center College of Design he began illustrating for various clients and started working full time in the animation industry. He has worked primarily for Disney and Dreamworks, designing their animated films such as Hercules, Mulan, The Emperor’s New Groove, Treasure Planet, Shark Tale, Flushed Away, Bee Movie, and Enchanted, as well as other upcoming features. Craig has also done fully painted comic book and cover artwork for Dark Horse Comics, and has done various Illustration work for many different companies. His work can currently be seen in the books “Treasure Planet a Voyage of Discovery” and “Spectrum 10, 11, 12, 13 & 15 and a gold medal in 16 the Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art”, “The World’s Greatest Erotic Art of Today Vol. 2”, “Erotic Fantasy Art”, “Fantasy art Now 2”, Aphrodisia I and his 3 sketchbooks. Several monograph art books are also in the works.
Donato Giancola’s new book, Middle-Earth: Visions of a Modern Myth is now available from Underwood Books. This 80-page hardbound book is chock-full of watercolor pencil and chalk drawings on toned paper and oil paintings. The illustrations within are inspired by J.R.R. Tolkien’s fictional world, Middle-Earth. You will find works depicting Frodo, Gandalf, Faramir, Boromir, Legolas, and many more.
Donato applies his renaissance inspired techniques to delivery extraordinary scenes, including my personal favorites in the book, “The Taming of Smeagol” and “Eowyn and the Lord of the Nazgul.”
Each work includes the media type and dimensions. Many pencils and oils are accompanied by commentary by Donato sharing insight into the story that is depicted.
There is also a leather-bound special edition limited to 26-copies, which includes an original drawing by Donato. Full details can be found on his website. You can see a two minute video preview of the book on the Spectrum Fantastic Art website here.
Hallucinations by William Stout is here! There are two editions for this fantasy art book collection. The paperbound edition is $19.95. The hardbound signed edition limited to 500 copies is available for $29.95. I have about 50 copies of the hardbound edition left. I have reserved this small batch for direct orders through Flesk. We will also have a few copies available at our booth at Comic-Con International in San Diego. Full details on the book can be found here. Click here for ordering information. Comic shops and book stores will receive their copies within the next week or two. Enjoy the interior sample images below!
Mark Schultz has drawn The Losers for the cover for the Our Fighting Forces September issue. Mark submitted a detailed pencil piece that could be used for advance solicitation. The next stage would have involved inking the approved artwork. But the editor, Joey Cavalieri, was impressed enough with the pencil art to run this version as the cover art. You can find both the pencil piece and the colored version below. For details on the upcoming comic, click here.
The new Flesk 2010 fall catalog is available for download! Included within is full details and sample art for all of our titles. You can download the latest catalog from the home page of our website, or click here to view it now.
I’ve added details on Jungle Girls by Jim Silke, the new Xenozoic collection by Mark Schultz, The Legend of Steel Bashaw by Petar Meseldžija, and Hallucinations and Inspirations by William Stout, and much more. There are plenty of goodies within the 38-pages. Feel free to pass the Flesk catalog PDF along to your friends!
I’ll be heading over to the grand opening of Skyland Gallery, located in California’s Santa Cruz mountains, on Saturday April 17. I pulled the following information about Skyland Gallery off of their website:
Owners Frank Cirocco and Lela Dowling have transformed the first floor of their mountain residence into a warm and welcoming space for the gallery. The Skyland Gallery is committed to supporting and inspiring contemporary artists working in the visual arts. Showcasing “art celebrating nature” as our primary guiding standard, our goal is to foster creativity and artistic excellence while providing exhibition space to an eclectic mix of new and established artists.
This is the announcement Frank sent me regarding this weekend:
Spring is here and the Skyland Gallery will be open to the public for the first time ever next weekend. Winter hibernation time is over – let’s get out and discover the great outdoors!
The gallery carries lots of artwork and unique gift items that are available only here and not online. The gift of art is always perfect for any occasion, so come up, join the celebration, check out some outstanding art, relax, and enjoy the view. If you need more incentive, you can always go tasting at any number of local wineries!
The gallery is located at 25079 Skyland Rd in the Summit area of the Santa Cruz Mountains. For driving directions, go to our website at www.SkylandGallery.com and download the map in the Contact section. If you have any questions, you can call us at 408.353.3465. We’re looking forward to meeting you!
Also, Frank and Lela have been kind enough to stock up on some Flesk books at the gallery store. I’m looking forward to visiting the gallery and seeing those that show up.
I have recently returned from the seventeenth annual Spectrum competition in Kansas City, MO. I was honored and privileged to be among the five-member jury this year, along with Bill Carman, Kerry Callen, Rebecca Guay, and Iain McCaig. While I will be writing a detailed blog about the event in the near future, for now you can view pictures and details on the Spectrum website here, as well as view the Spectrum 17 Award Winners here.
I will write more when I return from the Stripbeurs Breda show in the Netherlands.
William Stout will be signing at Stuart Ng Books on Saturday, February 13, from 2:00-4:00 PM. Stuart will have plenty of copies of Bills new books, Dinosaur Discoveries, New Dinosaur Discoveries A-Z, and his previous release, Prehistoric Life Murals, available.
This is also a great opportunity to visit the new Stuart Ng Books showroom. They have moved to a bigger and better showroom at 20655 S. Western Ave., Suite 104, in Torrance, California. They are located just off of the 405 freeway. For directions and to view an online catalog of books available from Stuart Ng, you can visit his website by clicking here.
A fixture in the Santa Cruz community for his warmth, kindness, intelligence, humbleness, and extraordinary skimboarding ability, Adam Loero, a good friend and teammate, passed away on Friday, Dec. 19. The news has left me crippled and shocked, while grateful for the pleasure of having known this great young man.
I have assembled a handful of pictures to share. As most of my time spent with Adam has been at the beach and in the waters in and neighboring Santa Cruz, these pictures reflect times spent enjoying those cherished breaks from life. You will be sorely missed, Adam.
Adam puts on a show at Eric Roush’s 40th birthday skim party in April 2008. I decided to take pictures for the first hour before getting wet myself. I’m glad I did, as I got these great shots of Adam. He had such a smooth style.
This picture was taken by in June 2008. Adam and I were skimming 26th Ave one evening. You can see the backlight from the setting sun. As usual, Adam was charging the biggest waves of the night and throwing buckets of spray.
Group shot from Eric Roush’s 40th birthday skim party at 26th Ave in April 2008. There’s Adam on the far right with his signature smile and friendly face. From left to right, a terrific batch of guys, Gary Velo, Eric Roush, Ryan Parola, Andrew, Cameron, then again Adam.
Adam Loero and Eric Roush hanging out at the 2006 O’Neill Skimbash at 26th Ave.
Adam competing at the 2006 O’Neill Skimbash.
Adam at the 2006 O’Neill Skimbash at 26th Ave in Santa Cruz.
Here’s Adam on his way to winning the Senseless skimboard contest at 26th Ave., Santa Cruz in 2008. He was just killing it. He was a superb craftsman on his board.
Adam driving into a mini summer barrel in his final heats of the Senseless skim contest in 2008.
This ride was Adams exclamation point to winning the 2008 Senseless contest. His face was always focused and calm, even in the heaviest and most critical situations. He’s an inspiration to us all.
We are all richer for having had Adam in our life.
My heart goes out to Adam’s family, and the entire SC crew, who I know is feeling the pain right now.
