Venus in Fur: Second Pass

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For my second pass at the Venus in Fur poster, I decided to focus on the tight shiny leather glove as the dominatrix raised a finger to her lips to insist on silence. I imagined her saying Shhhh. I was thinking of a woman who might say, “Hey, I’m up here.” Meaning the guy is not looking where he should. Anyway, she is scolding the director.

I also did not know who would be cast as Vanda. I just needed to see her lips, so I avoided painting her nose on upwards. I case Vanda with flowing blonde hair and bright red lipstick. Most people would be looking at the outline of her tight black lace bra and her cleavage. That hidden valley punctuated by a small black bow was the star of the poster.

When John Singer Sargent painted a bare shoulder in his 1884 portrait, of Madame X, there was a major uproar in the Paris Salon. It was considered indecent, immoral, and a “slap in the face” to Parisian social standards. I had done a life sized copy of that Madam X painting for a New York City theater stage production so that painting was certainly on my mind.

In this poster I had one shoulder covered in rich black fur and the other was bare with the necessary strap to hold the black lace bra in place. Were that strap to slip, and it is dangerously close to doing so, then gravity would cause a wardrobe malfunction. I made sure to keep the bra strap in place so as not to upset Orlando High Society.

Anyway this concept hit the mark for a play about domination and masochism. I had darkened the flesh of the face so it receded into the darkness a bit, but the chest was painted a bright pasty white. I know that a viewer’s gaze will go to the brightest highlights and in this case that has to be the breasts.

In the approval meeting there was some discussion and concern because no one knew who might be cast as Vanda. At the Shakes any actress could get the part in the auditions. She could be any nationality or skin color. They were not looking specifically for a fair skinned blonde. She might be brunette. I had to show the actress and certainly I had to show plenty of flesh. It seemed like an impossible catch 22 conundrum. I needed to give it thought back at the studio and find some solution. I wasn’t sure a solution existed and I felt that this version of the poster was hitting the mark. I might have to paint the tools of the trade, like whips and other leather goods but I liked this in-your-face sexuality. Just don’t look her in the eyes. The flesh in this painting still needed some loving touches but I left it as it is to embrace change.

Venus in Fur: First Pass

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With the first pass at a poster for Venus in Fur by David Ives, for the Orlando Shakes, I was intrigued by the intricate detail of fish net stockings. Much of the image features hills and valleys of flesh covered in fishnet. I decided that was too abstract an idea to dominate so much of the poster, so I added the legs and whip to make it clear fishnet stockings are found on shapely legs. Then I added the reclined female odalisque whose outline is defined by the flow of the whip. Then of course plenty of black fur was needed. It was a strange combination of thoughts, but it has the visual feeling that I wanted.

Venus in Fur is a bold and unexpected play about an audition for a part in a play. The director, had been through a solid day of auditions for the female lead in his show, but hadn’t found just the right woman for the part.

A disheveled woman came in late out of the rain and apologized for being late. She had to convince the director that he needed to stick around for this last audition since he was ready to go home. She quickly got ready. Since the male actor who had been reading the parts, had already left, the director had to step in and read opposite her.

Over the course of the audition the actress began to dominate every scene and then dominate the director. Sexual tension rose, and the director began to cower and become subservient to her sadomasochistic demands. I began to wonder if this was all written in the script or had the two of them gone off on a tangent. This is definitely a show that I hope to see in person someday. I regret not getting in to sketch a live performance at the Shakes.

This pass at the poster was me experimenting to catch the flavor of the show, but I knew that another version that I was working on at the same time was more direct and powerful. The title treatment felt perfect, so at least that element would make it to the final cut. The other tiny element that I felt would be needed for the poster was the elegant hand covered in black shiny leather. The gloved hand is such a tiny piece of this puzzle, but I felt it told more about the story than the fishnets that first caught my attention.

So I kind of knew that this version of the poster would not fly. It was time to go back to the drawing board and try and nail down something sexy but more solid. Since I could not be sure who the actress would be, I was looking for ways to hide her identity. This pass at the poster felt a bit scattered. The best ideas come with plenty change and evolution.

Henry VI Part I: Joan of Arc Final Poster

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There really were no major changes to this concept for the Henry VI Part I: Joan of Arc poster. I had to just go in and keep refining the look that I had established while keeping some painterly spontaneity. Joan is based on a golden statue in France sculpted by Emmanuel Frémiet. The battle carnage in heavy armor suits was typical of the day.

Getting on a horse in such heavy armor would be a heroic task on its own. Huge respect for the horse who would have to carry so heavy a load into battle. In the poster you can only see the saddle and a bit of the horse’s neck armor.

The basic premise of the poster is that Joan and the roses would be bathed in a golden light while the battle behind her would be subdued in grey darkness. Pikes and swords jut up everywhere. The pikes were responsible for defending against enemy horsemen. The Pikes jutting up into the sky often cross thus creating inverted Vs which mirror the Henry VI title.

Medieval horse armor was known as barding. It evolved into steel plates which could protect against targeting by infantry arrows and slashes. The armor would cover the head, neck, chest, and flanks. All that armor would add 90 pounds along with the weight of the rider and her armor. This would be a heroically strong beast. Joan had to lift the armor on her arm and the standard one-handed sword which typically weighed about 2.5 pounds.

Painting the roses involved the most delicate work on the poster. Painting all that armor involved focusing on the mid tones of the metal and then a bright highlight to give that metallic flair. When I did the poster I did not know who would play Joan. That auditions had not happened yet. Lorena Cohea played the part as the feisty and fiery Joan of Arc. I looked at photos of her after the run of the show and she isn’t that far off from the Joan of Arc that I painted, if you bathe her in a golden light.

I gave the little red puddle where William Shakespeare’s name appears a glinting highlight which implies it is a puddle of blood. Joan stands out against the deep purple and blood red storm clouds which overshadow the battle below.

The show ran from January 10 to 21 in 2024. I regret that I didn’t sketch the show itself since I was in my studio working on other illustration assignments. I know what would have transpired since I read Shakespeare’s script. I also know this was a bare bard production which meant that the actors did not rely on a director for the staging they blocked in the scenes as need on the fly. They also went into costuming and selected their own costume for the show. This is very much like the way productions made their way to the stage in Shakespeare’s day. The set might have been minimal but Shakespeare s words carry heavy weight of relating the intricacies of the politics of being a king in medieval France and England.

The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs Final Poster

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For the final version of The True Story of the 3 Little Pigs poster I had to rework the wolf to give him way more expression. With the sinister grin he clearly looks guilty. Jim Helsinger advised me to look at  the Grinch’s grin and that was a gem of an idea. dialed it back a bit. I kept the brush work very rough since I was painting fur. It was a fun change to make. He now felt like the villain he should be.

The pigs got rounder heads and were more anthropomorphized. Two of the pigs are in the jury box while the third pig is in the witness stand. That third pig is a police pig. I’m not so sure he is one of the pigs that got his house blown down. Anyway he looks confident and smug, like he has absolutely convincing evidence that will convict the wolf. Of the jury pigs, one looks annoyed and the other surprised and worried. The simple act of giving each pig a different hat helped me decide who they were and what their personality might be.

The rest of the background remained unchanged, with the infinitely tall brick wall and color panels. A panel that was black I changed to a dark green because it worked better with the Wolf’s green pin striped suit. I gave the wolf stronger shoulders and added the same green color as a bar across the bottom of the poster for all the credits. In general the poster used the complimentary colors or red and green to help make the image pop.

With the jury box and witness stand a little bit off kilter I set a subtle sense of unease. I can’t help but look at the wolfs teeth biting his lip as he grins. I resisted adding the fangs. That would have added too much menace. I learned that lesson working on the Dracula poster. It is impossible to show a vampire’s fang toothed grin without it looking menacing.

Another reference I was looking at while I worked on this poster was the Dick Tracy movie. All the costuming in that movie was vivid and over the top. This was a very fun poster to work on and it came together quickly with the notes provided. It is always fun to see how the poster pivots towards the final look. It is much the way AI images evolve with verbal prompts, only this is Artist Intelligence.

James Chonody Studio: Fallen Angels Project

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James Chonody was painting at Avalon Park Florida one day, and a woman stopped and introduced herself. She liked the paintings James had on display. They started talking, she said her son had suggested she stop and talk, yet her son was nowhere to be seen. Her son had been killed three months prior by a DUI driver. Mom wasn’t in the car, but the father and sister took months to recover from the crash. Her son was in the front seat passenger and he was killed.

She asked James how he started painting and he was afraid to tell her that he was a recovering alcoholic. When James started painting seven years ago, the drinking stopped. He didn’t know how she would react. She might lash out. He ended up telling her anyway. She gave him a big hug and said she was so proud of what he was accomplishing.

He asked if she would like him to paint a portrait of her son, and she agreed. The next morning, he had the painting finished in about two hours at 9am. He sent a picture of the painting and wrote “Good Morning Mother.” She called back crying and joyful. They have been good friends ever since. She introduced him to another mother who lost her son who was a high school football player killed by a DUI driver. The DUI driver was a cop’s daughter, and this was her second offense. James did a portrait for that family and was paid. He then did a portrait of a pregnant daughter who had been killed.

After that, James felt terrible charging money for these portraits, He felt like an ambulance chaser, although that was not his intent. The work came to him. He decided to start doing the portraits for free. It was good practice for his portrait work. He posted on Facebook that he would be doing these portraits for free. That is how the project started. The families in support groups started to spread the word.

A woman in Minnesota was in a Fentanyl support group and she spread the word.  She warned him that he might be flooded with requests. He said, “bring it on.” Seven people put in requests for portraits. Each portrait would take about two hours to complete, and he did this for about two years.

With each of these tragic deaths there was also suffering in the lawsuits that each family had to endure. Hearing about these lawsuits started to get to James. He did a few more portraits for families he was close with but needed to abandon the project.

James had to get brain surgery and these families reached out with their support and prayers. Several families visited him in the hospital. The portrait project had allowed James to find a support group that he didn’t know he would need. The whole project was a bit of an accident in the way it started, but he is glad he did it. He had painted 120 portraits for his Fallen Angel’s Project.

Since James knew that I wanted to sketch him working in his studio, he put out one more call on Facebook letting people know he would do a painting for free. A father in Arizona asked for a portrait of his son who had been killed in a horrible car accident. The boy had a fun surprised open-mouthed expression in the photo reference that was picked.

James works on a canvas covered in black gesso and blocks in the painting with thin layers of white paint. If he touches the canvas lightly with his brush he will paint the mid tones. Then when he loads the brush with thick white paint, he can get the highlights. His reference was on a digital picture frame above the easel. It took him about an hour to finish the first pass of the painting.

James has his studio set up in the garage and with the garage door open light floods into the space. On the back of the garage door was a large canvas painted with a blue sky with white clouds. A mystical sun and moon canvases adorned the ceiling. The walls were painted a light neutral grey. Black metal grid stands often used in street fair displays stood along every wall. His paintings were hung everywhere on these grid stands. The newest paintings hung on stands that faced the street. James tends to sell the work as fast as he creates it which I vastly admire.

The Comedy of Errors Final Poster

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The final version of the Comedy of Errors poster for the Orlando Shakes mostly addressed subtle changes to the upper half of the poster. A catch phrase was added which I incorporated in a flowing scroll below the new title treatment.

The woman with the gossamer wings was moved down into the parade crowd. She replaced one of the twin brothers and I added a few more costumed revelers in the parade. In the night sky I added warm glowing embers that could be interpreted as stars of the flaming embers of an exploded firework falling to the ground.  Many of my poster images incorporate some glowing elements. Once some magical light effect is in the scene I start to feel satisfied.

Most of the parade remained unchanged, I just kept working on subtle details while keeping some spontaneity. There was some talk of adding the waterfront at the end of the street, but that would have pulled visual interest away from the parade. I kept the grey city buildings at the end of the street to cut off any further depth to the scene.

The new type treatment was very similar to the type I was seeing on many Mardi Gras posters and flyers. I like how William Shakespear’s name fit below errors with the E and S book ending his name. This was a fun poster to pull together. I didn’t have a chance to sketch the production of the show. I would have liked to see this marriage of Shakespeare’s play and Mardi Gras. It must have been a fun show that would have been magnificent to sketch.

This production was in 2023. It feels like I worked on the poster yesterday. I have been updating the portfolio on this website, so I am going through all the past work I have done to populate different categories on the website. I have been adding artwork to the Theater Posters category and discovered I never wrote about these posters at the time. When I find that I didn’t discuss the process at the time, I am going in and doing it today so I can add the art to the portfolio.

The Comedy of Errors Second Pass

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For my second pass at the Comedy of Errors poster I focused on a Mardi Gras parade. I wanted a brass band and a wash board. I had been to a wedding in New Orleans and my most vivid memory caught in a sketch was of a brass band playing on the street. I started researching opulent Mardi Gras masks and costumes. I also wanted it to feel like the parade was proceeding down Bourbon Street in the French Quarter. I also started having fun with the title treatment. I drew this swirly title by hand and I rather like it. I don’t know why it was ultimately abandoned. If I were to use in in the final poster I would need to clean up the edges by erasing and redrawing edges of the letters to make everything slippery smooth.

For some reason I fell in love with a woman with light blue purple chiffon wings. I raised her up above the crowd as if she was the figurehead on a sailing ship or was raised on a float. I kept the tow male twins from my first pass at the poster and just hid them in the crowd. The guy holding the bright yellow umbrella also crossed over from the first pass of the poster. I added a golden Mardi Gras Mask just because it was so fun to paint. There was a desire to make the title bigger, so the mask had to go.

Burbon street looked fine but it was rather dark in this rendition of the poster. I wanted more of an excuse to play with point lighting and neon glows. The upper hapf of the poster was dark to allow the title to be read but there must be a way to add more drama to that night sky.

In general everyone liked the parade but the woman didn’t need to be the center of attention. There was a desire for the title to feel even more like what is seen on Mardi Gras posters and promotional material. I started researching type that had that Mardi Gras flair. In general the lower 1/3 of the poster was working just fine. I needed to play more with the upper 2/3 of the poster image.

My favorite touch was the trumpet leading the eye into the deep space. That I would have to save.

Comedy of Errors First Pass

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In designing the 2023 Orlando Shakes poster for Comedy of Errors, I started with a kaleidoscopic idea that featured two sets of twins. In the Shakespeare comedy identities get mixes as two sets of twins fall in love. It is a comedy that stresses how ephemeral love is and how blind. I was looking a tons of reference from Mardi Gras since the Shakespeare play was to be staged in New Orleans. My idea involved perfect symmetry which is something digital painting is quite good at. In the background I placed abstractions from intricate Mardi Gras parade floats. The only thing that broke the symmetry were the two men in the background both holding yellow umbrellas. The title treatment was kept bold with offset lettering to imply comedy.

This was just one of the ideas pitched for the poster. Ultimately everyone leaned towards a street parade scene since it had more action and a large cast of characters. Purple and yellow became the complimentary colors that dominated all of my initial concept sketches. I was doing concept sketches at full size. I honestly feel it is just as easy to paint a concept rather than to do a pencil sketch which  can be harder to interpret. I like throwing line and color at the page right from the start. I know everything can change and likely will so the stakes are not high.

I just gave a quick presentation for the Orlando board that showed the process behind 10 of the theater posters. I realize now that should be a sub category in my portfolio. Some people probably think that one image is created and accepted but the process if far more collaborative allowing an idea to evolve and grow just as any stage production evolves with many rehearsals. My first pass at a poster is seldom the one that will get accepted. My first pass is just a sloppy attempt to catch the fish. Once the fist is caught, then the more interesting and intricate ideas can work their way into the process.

Orlando Shakes Board Meeting

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Jim Helsinger, the Artistic Director at the Orlando Shakes (812 E. Rollins St., Orlando, FL), invited me to give a brief 10-minute presentation at the Orlando Shakes Board meeting that showed some of the creative process involved in each season’s posters. It was exciting to share a bit of the creative chaos that transpires every season.

I prepared 10 slides (JPGs) that showed all of the versions of each poster that were used as the concept for each poster evolved. Some slides had just 4 versions of the poster while others had up to 10 different concepts.

The meeting was tightly packed with budgeting and marketing presentations, so I didn’t want to run overtime. With the 10 slides I had just 1 minutes to discuss each poster evolution. This is something I do here on Analog Artist Digital World each season anyway. I show all the ideas that didn’t work, before showing the final poster concept.

With Stuart Little I pointed out that the first pass at the poster was just something to get the conversation started. I did another version with Stuart in the port hole of a boat and then one with the cat dominating the scene. When the cat was pushed further into the background the concept allowed Stuart to take center stage.

With Hound of the Baskervilles the challenge was to make it clear that the show was a comedy. I first pass was quite dark with a huge demonic dog hidden in the trees while a silhouette of Sherlock was looking through his magnifying glass. A second pass had Watson and Sherlock seated in the same forest. I realized that Watson has a bigger role in the mystery than Sherlock. I put another dog in a golden frame. That dog was once again too dark and menacing. When I replaced him with a smiling rottweiler and had Watson looking through the magnifying glass with a huge magnifying glass and Sherlock looking quite perplexed. The comedic aspect seemed clear to me.

With Fat Ham I just had to switch from the nightclub dance mode I adopted in the first tow passes at the poster and instead focus on the picnic in the backyard. With Shakespeare’s As You like It I tried about 10 different concepts before settling in on female lips and a mustache. I had seen an image of a lipstick kissed onto a sheep of paper and to me that pattern looked like trees in a forest. It is an abstract though that came after many far more literal passed at the poster design.

With Dracula: A Comedy of Terrors there were tons of passes at the poster because I had worked on it for two seasons. Concepts started with a full cast and over time the challenge became figuring out how to depict a vampire smiling. Any time a vampire smiles it doesn’t come off as comedic, it comes off as menacing. Clattering toy teeth were an obvious work around to let people know this was a comedy.

Come From Away also had many passes before setting on a final poster image. It is about planes being diverted to land in Nova Scotia after the 9-11 attacks in NYC. Many of the early designs had multiple airplanes lined up on the runway. But that isn’t what the show is about. It is about how people come together for one another in an emergency. The challenge was how to depict a welcoming community. Orlando came together to embrace love and strength after the Pulse Nightclub massacre.  The concept that worked showed multiple hands creating a heart shape with a bright sunrise glowing in that heart shape. I had seen this symbol of the heart so often after Pulse, and I finally embraced it for the poster concept.

Richard III was a rare case where I did four concept and one hit the mark perfectly. In that poster, Richard’s hand rises from inside a crown and it scratches three bloody trails onto a white wall.

With A Christmas Carol I got to point out how I had created a poster design for the show 4 different times. This time I resisted showing a large cast and instead just focused on Scrooge walking down a dark London street while it snowed. That simple image allows the viewer to decide who Scrooge might be on that dark evening walk.

With the Children’s show Corduroy, I sketched a Teddy bear sitting on a shelf. He seemed sad, which he was since he had been abandoned there for so long. The show, however, is very finny and comical. The poster needed a verb. I did two passes with a girl hugging the bear, one was realistic and the other cartoony. In the end the concept that got accepted showed Corduroy reaching for a button which had popped off of his green overalls. That button was his quest for the entirety of the show. He wanted to look good to the little girl would return and bring him home.

Last I got to share a sketch of the recent production of Henry VI: The Rise of Richard which I had done on location in the theater. I have been doing a location sketch like this every day since January 1, 2009. Of course I sketched the board meeting itself. I only had an hour while subtracting my presentation time. I had to work fast. The sketch is rushed and not as complete as other sketches I have done, but it isn’t the worst thing I have ever done, so I accept what it is and move on to the next.

Million Dollar Quartet, Final Theater Poster

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For this poster I did extensive research on what record album c overs looked like in 1956. The Million Dollar Quartet jam session took place on December 4, 1956, at Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee. It was an impromptu gathering featuring rock ‘n’ roll icons Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins.  The session was a chance meeting where the four musicians played together, captured by Sun Records owner Sam Phillips. A local newspaper, the Memphis Press-Scimitar, published an article the following day featuring a photograph of the four men, leading to the “Million Dollar Quartet” nickname.

On my first pass at the poster, Elvis didn’t quite look like himself, so I had to tie him down some more.  I also did not have the red radiating beams which is an effect I saw on another album of the day. The beams reference Sun Studios where the performance happened. Those radiating beams gave the poster the pop that I was looking for.

Million Dollar Quartet is a Tony Award-nominated musical by Colin Escott and Floyd Mutrux. The show brings this historic night to life with a score of their hit songs, telling a story of music, fame, and personal drama. The score includes over 20 chart-topping hits like “Blue Suede Shoes,” “Great Balls of Fire,” “Walk the Line,” “Hound Dog,” and “Folsom Prison Blues”.

I unfortunately didn’t have the time to go to the show to sketch. There really should have been a sketch artist in the room when these 4 performed together. The show was   in honor of Harvey L. Massey. I once sat next to Harvey and his wife Carol in the Shakespeare Theater. They were seated in the seats above the entry doors. I decided that those seats were the perfect angle from which I should sketch the show. I asked if it was alright if I could sit next to them to sketch. Harvey was a huge supporter of the Orlando Shakes productions. Had I realized who he was at the time I might have been to intimidated to sit down next to him and sketch the show.

Harvey L. Massey, was the retired Chairman and CEO of Massey Services. Massey Services is the pest service that almost every Central Floridian uses to keep pests from their homes. The company grew to more than $200 million in revenues with more than 1,700 employees. He passed away peacefully on Tuesday, January 24, 2023 at the age of 81.