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.

COVID Dystopia is now live on YouTube

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COVID Dystopia has finished it’s film festival circuit and is now live on YouTube. This animated short has screened at dozens of film festivals around the world and has won multiple awards including…

Winner of Best Micro Short… Berlin Short Film Festival

Winner of Best Animated Short… Chicago International REEL Shorts Film Festival

Winner of Best Animated Short… Orlando Film Festival

Winner of Best Animated Short… Wild Rivers Film Festival

It has been an adventure traveling the world going to the festivals which were brave enough to screen the film. Though masked for the whole flight back to Orlando Florida, I managed to catch COVID-19 returning from the Pittsburgh Film Festival. It is ironic that COVID caught up with me as I was promoting COVID Dystopia.

We might be done with COVID but COVID is not done with us.

The film is now free to view online. Take a look at this link… https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1rN3JGMfMi8

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.

James Chonody Street Artist Little Econ Trail

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I have been biking the Little Econ Greenway Trail each morning since I have been in an Airbnb in Azalea Park. I set up this short-term rental for two weeks. Stella Arbeláez pointed out that the place was very close to the Little Econ trail. I am glad I made it a limited stay in Azalea Park, because the house is directly under the flight path of planes landing at the Executive Airport. I thought only little Cessna’s landed at that airport, but I was wrong. The planes also fly over the Little Econ Trail but the noise isn’t as bad since the planes have more elevation when flying over the trail.

I tend to bike the trail as soon as I wake up in the morning. I know that the heat builds and I would rather not be sweating when the Florida heat reaches it’s peak in the afternoon. Riding my bike each morning gives me time to think, and it allows my body to heal faster after my hernia repair operation. The time spent biking also allows me to reflect on what I want to accomplish for the day.

One morning I noticed an artist set up in one of the picnic canopies working on a painting. I had wanted to bring along my art bag so I could do a sketch on the trail, but I managed to forget it back at the Airbnb. I cursed my thoughtlessness and rode by, hoping I might catch him the next day. Thankfully he was indeed there the next day. I rode past again because I wanted to be sure to do a full circuit of the trail. On the ride back, I stopped to introduce myself.

James Chonody was dressed in a Hawaiian shirt that looked like Van Gogh’s Starry Night painting. My awkward introduction was warmly received by James, and he started to tell me all about his career as a location artist. James gave up drinking about 7 years ago and at the same time he took up painting. He thought he might reward himself with a drink after finishing his first painting, but he became completely obsessed with that first painting and forgot all about drink. Painting had kept him sober for 7 years. I feel the need to get lost in the creative process once every day to keep my life on point, and I suspect James feels that same need. He said that children who like to spin obsessively are prone to want to drink later in life. They like the feeling of being a bit off balance. Art does the opposite.  It offers a chance to be completely balanced and very much aware of the surroundings.

As James related his life story I felt like our paths were very much alike. He worked for Disney helping engineer the parade floats, and I put in 10 years at Disney Feature Animation. He feels more satisfaction now that he is producing art that satisfies his tastes. We had some fun bashing Disney executives.

James blocks in his paintings quickly and can do several paintings a day. He doesn’t like to over polish a painting, he likes the look of definite bold brushwork. I was a little worried because he felt the mason jar painting he was working on looked complete. I just hoped he would work on it long enough for me to finish my sketch from across the bike path. He did continue painting by adding lights to the background of the piece. He started packing up at about noon. I think like me he likes to get back to the studio before the worst of the Florida heat hits.

His painting often starts with a black ground. He explained that this allowed the darkest darks to already be in place, he just needed to add lights. We joked about watercolor artists who refuse to use black. They spend so much time mixing black with burnt Umber and ultramarine, blue. Like James I am happy to just use black if it suits the needs of the sketch.

He is a member of the Sanford Seminole Art Association and he encourages artists to paint on location. I hope to stop out and join them at some point. I am always excited to learn about a new arts organization.

The story James related of resilience and using art to rebuild oneself really resonated with me. James is 74 years old and he has his art for sale as he works on a painting. As we were speaking someone walked up to his artist’s area and they were in the market to buy the painting James had of a golden retriever dog swimming. The person didn’t have enough cash, and he offered James a down payment. James suggested he look for an ATM cash machine nearby. He joked with me that the park should really set up an ATM near the picnic canopy where he sells his art since the art sells so well. As I was finishing my sketch, the guy returned with the rest of the cash to buy the painting.

James explained that it was a good day since he had sold several paintings and he had replenished his artistic stock by completing a painting of the mason jar full of lemonade. He also had a painting of a mason jar full of fruit loops cereal. He said people love nostalgia and nostalgia sells. That Fruit Loops painting would end up in someone’s breakfast nook, of that he was certain.

Other paintings on display were of Italianate architecture.  James said that some people could spot his engineering background in his artwork. I sometimes get similar comments about my location sketches. James paints live at events, so we certainly have much in common. It was such a pleasure to meet a fellow artist on a beautiful Sunday morning. Showcasing his work outside allows him to meet people and sell art.  He wondered why more artists don’t do it. I want to live more like James when I grow up.

2022 Christmas Carol

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The 2022 version of A Christmas Carol poster for the Orlando Shakespeare Theater (812 E Rollins St, Orlando, FL) was built around the vision of Christmas past with the whole cast having a grand time dancing at the Fezziwig Christmas party. Fezziwig was Ebenezer Scrooge‘s jovial, generous first employer. He was a “foppish” and jolly, stout man, and he hosted a lavish Christmas Eve party every year for his employee. He stands as a stark contrast to Scrooge’s stinginess.

Scrooge and Christmas past are far back in the crowded room near the torch at the windows. I put the focus on Fezziwig and his wife dancing.

My decision to leave Scrooge in the background would have to be changed, so this was not the final version of the poster. A number of faces of members of the cast were changes and Scrooge an Christmas past took center stage to replace Fezziwig and his wife.

I painted Scrooge and Christmas past with blue tones to separate them from the crowd. In the play no one ever sees scrooge of Christmas past, so if they danced then perhaps others at the party would have danced right through their holographic visages.

With so much intricate detail this poster was a joy to work on while the changes kept me adjusting the composition throughout the process. Tiny Tim had to be added and brought to the foreground. The woman that Scrooge loved and lost is dressed in blue and dancing in the mid ground. She has her back to the audience and is facing scrooge but does not see him. That is how many relationships erode. Someone you once trusted becomes a passing acquaintance.

I like the chaotic flavor of this poster. The Shakes had sent me photos of the cast dancing from past productions, so I had plenty of reference to add people dancing, drinking and having a great time.

Lake Eola Nutcrackers

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After the start of the new year I drove down to Lake Eola to see what remained of the Christmas decorations. Orlando goes hog wild with Christmas light displays around the lake. The lights offer plenty of selfie photo opportunities. It seem that the lighting displays get more complex each year. Sketching Christmas lights is a challenge so I decided to see what was in the park in the daylight.

I made my way to Lake Eola from the Orange County Regional History Center. When I got to the lake, the Nutcrackers were the very first thing I saw, and I simply got my art stool out, sat down and got to work. The large artificial Christmas tree was also still up.

Several people met in the courtyard area amidst the nutcrackers. I soon found out that they were a religious group. A woman started shouting out that we were all destined for hell unless we embraced Jesus. An AI meme was posted by the President of the United States where he depicted himself as Jesus healing a sick man that looked like Jeffery Epstein. I wonder if the woman shouting in the streets wanted me to embrace that vision of Jesus? Was she promoting a MAGA fever dream?

I had enough things to think about while I was sketching, so what she was shouting got filtered out as I relaxed into the sketch process. I had to find vanishing points, I had to consider size relationships, and I needed to figure out how much of the scene I could squeeze on the page.

The Nutcrackers must be 12 feet high. It would be quite fun if they were articulated being able to move their arms and open their wide crushing mouths. It would be nice if every Nutcracker in the nation were to animate and march down the streets to find despots, fascists and and drive them from the nation. Unfortunately, they can only stand at attention.

Romeo and Juliet

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Because I have been working on my website, I noticed that I did not share the poster design for Romeo and Juliet here. The Site went down for a day and I spent 8 hours with techs at Bluehost trying to find out why the servers was scrambling all the elements of the site. Some tech scan had to be done over another 6 hours and I was so glad the when I woke up this morning everything had fallen back into place. Anything digital is mysterious and delicate. Anything not printed on paper will someday be lost.

The poster I designed for Romeo and Juliet pretty much hit the mark with the first pass. I had to work on refining the faces but otherwise my concept of an embrace that vaguely resembles a heart was accepted as is. As I painted Juliet grew younger and Romeo receded into the dark.

In part I was thinking of the scene from Titanic in which the young artist Jack held Rose from behind on the bow of the ship.

The challenge as always was that I did not know who would be cast in the parts. I covered most of Juliet’s face with the hilt of the sword. A previous version showed the sword stabbing flesh and I completely understand that needed to be implied not stated visually.

I had romeo reseed into the darkness and his face is partly hidden by the letter J.

Red shattered glass hints at the tragedy to come. Much of my time was spent making Juliet’s hand feminine and Romeo’s hands more masculine. The abstract nature of the hug makes understanding whose hands are whose a challenge. Had I depicted their bodies the arms might have made more sense but that would have detracted from the heart shape that their embrace creates at least in my mind.

The multi racial casting for the show resulted in some racist remarks on social media and I love that the Shakes stands up for absolute inclusivity. Whoever had the best audition was best for the part. That is the way any show should be cast.

Since I was working on the next season’s posters I didn’t get a chance to sketch the show. I need to get better about getting out of the studio when such an amazing sketch opportunity presents itself.

Urologist Waiting Room

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At the end of my trip through Europe, following in the footsteps of my father, 1st Lieutenant Arthur Thorspecken, I discovered that a double hernia had developed at the base of my pelvis. All the hiking I had been doing should have been good for my health, and it was. I lost plenty of weight but perhaps the weight loss revealed the hernia which may have already been developing. In my mind the hernia happened overnight. The Airbnb I was staying in had free coffee. I never drink coffee, but I decided to try a cup that night. It tasted good, so I had another cup.

In the morning, as I was getting dressed, I noticed the two rather large bulges at my pelvis. I panicked. My health insurance had been canceled because of my travels. I scoured the interned to self diagnose the situation. It was not life threatening as I at first thought. I was fine with it unless I had to lift something heavy.  My heaviest object was my backpack full of sketchbooks. I decided I could live with it and then I would get it fixed once I got back to the United States.

This trip to the Urologist was a check up on a previous operation I had which was to remove my prostate. For that operation a laser had been shoved up my flag pole and the prostate was burned away with the laser beam. It was a high tech solution. I wondered if a laser bean blast had ricocheted and caused the hernias. One internet article confirmed that was a possibility.

At this visit with the doctor’s assistant, she denied that the previous operation could be the cause. She gave me a referral to a doctor who handled hernia repairs. I had the prostate removed so that I would not need to urinate as often as I did. Traveling in Europe I found that I still had to urinate far too often. I took a pee in just about every German landmark that I sketched. A sketch takes about two hours to complete and by that time I would have to pee like a race horse. A side effect to the double hernia is a constant need to pee. The doctor’s assistant prescribed a pill that helps reduce the urgency, but my Ambetter Insurance refused to fill the prescription.

My sister in Punta Gorda Florida had the double hernia repair surgery. Her case was much worse than mine. She had to have the surgery done multiple times because the doctors botched the repair. One doctor finally fixed all the botched operations and she has been fine ever since. I started looking for information about that doctor online.

My primary goal, and the reason I was staying in Florida was to get this operation done. I would have to face sketching a series of doctor’s office waiting rooms. This wait wasn’t very long. I only had enough time to put some lines on the page and add three washes to cover the page.