From the Archives

As I preview my work over the last thirty years for inclusion in my first retrospective book with Titan Publishers I am coming across lots of memories. I will share bits of this process and history with you as I scan and put together the book with my designer buddy Jeff Burne.

Here is part of a large portrait I made of Ricky Bell (from a photo) while still at Art Center College of Design. I was captured by portraiture and being very interested in sports wanted to illustrate for sports oriented magazines, etc. The NFL had an office in Los Angeles and I wanted to create art for them in a big way. My buddy Matt Mahurin and I were in a personal competition to see who could get a commission from the NFL first right out of  Art Center. He beat me to it (as he did most of the time).

I finally did quite a bit of work for the NFL with editor John Wiebusch, but it did not happen until almost nine years after graduation. Ha! Talk about patience. I will be showing some of my favorites in the book.

The painting of this head is about two and a half feet high. Graphite, acrylics and a little oil paint. I really beat up the surface of this piece to get the textures. Click on it to see the details.