William O'Connor Studios

Varnishing Day

2012-01-16T12:31:00.000-08:00

As we all know the deadline for entries into Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantasy Art is coming up fast. I just got my entries off today. I am a huge fan of this publication, have been in it many times and think it is a showcase of some of the best artists of our generation. That said, there has developed an almost mythological quality to this annual. Artists rushing about frantically trying to get work finished before the deadline, sleeplessly going over what to submit, what to leave out, then waiting with bated breath to see if they got in. Careers have been made in Spectrum. At the same time there are artists who refuse to enter. They feel it is too political, too random to place that much credit upon a small group of subjective jurists.

Whatever side of the fence you fall on, this time of year always reminds me of Varnishing Day. Varnishing Day was the most important day in the artistic calendar of the Academic Salon artist. It was the last day that artists could make final alterations to their work before the Salon would open to the public and the judges would cast their ballots. The entire year for an artist came down to this one show! If you got in and won an award it would make your year in sales and commissions. If you won the Grand Prix it would make your career! The better you did at the show the better your sales, the better your sales the more students you got in your workshops. The more students you got the better your print sales and the better you would do in the show next year, and around and around. This academic salon system became so ingrained in the culture that to be an artist you could not work outside the academies. Famous artists like Manet and Delacroix bristled at the Salon System, but tried to work within it. By the late 19th Century the younger generation of artists had had enough of the politics and began to display their works in alternative shows.

In 1873 a group of Franco-Prussian War veterans and conscientious objectors who had fled to England returned to Paris and were refused entry into the Salon. Being a bunch of twenty-something post grads who didn't know any better they got together, rented some cheap space and put on their own show. That group included Pissaro, Monet and Degas among others. This group sardonically called themselves The Refused, but were ridiculed by the establishment as The Impressionists. (This could be likened to being called The Doodlers, today.)

This revolution of individual artist's freedom to work outside the academy and the academy's standards changes art forever. By the end of the 19th Century the academic salon system had grown so big and political that it could not evolve with modernity, and like the dinosaur it was, went extinct. In 1893 one critic reviewing the art salon at the World Columbian Exhibition in Chicago containing the works of such Victorian luminaries as Bouguereau, Leighton and Waterhouse remarked, "This exhibition has done more to set back the advancement of art than any event in the past twenty years."

In 1913 The New York Armory Show would seal the coffin on the Victorian Salon System and give way to the twentieth century modern Gallery System. An exhibition by artists and for artists. You can see by the poster left that the artists are referred to as "guests", this was a private invitational exhibit, not a state funded juried show. Instead of paintings shoehorned together like a patchwork,"salon-style" each painting would be displayed by itself, "gallery-style". Instead of one huge institutional juried show there would be hundreds of little independent private shows run by the artists themselves. Each small "ism" could find its own niche, and its own followers. These would become the model for today's successful trade shows like Comic Con and Illuxcon.

In the 21st Century this evolution has continued. The Gallery System is now under threat by artist-run websites. Today artists do not even need the galleries or publishing houses gathering millions of followers on-line circumventing the exclusivity of the galleries. Today there is a venue for any kind of art you can imagine and you can follow along directly with the artist. Whether this is a better system is arguable. A direct Democracy of Art where page views and followers equates to quality, or is there still a role for the juried show in contemporary art? Check back in a hundred years and I'll tell you how it turned out.

So this week as you put the final touches of varnish on your painting for selection in the Spectrum Show lets all remember how far we've come, and where the future may take us!

Enjoy.

WOC

Artist of the Month-Franz Kline

2011-12-29T15:20:00.000-08:00

In my continuing Artist of the Month series I routinely try to explore artists outside of the Fantasy genre that have influenced my work or inspire my work tangentially through their unorthodox process. This month I expand upon this idea by including one of my favorite artists Franz Kline (1910-1962).

As a fantasy artist it would seem that there is very little connection between the high modern Abstract Expressionist and myself, but he is one of the few painters who's work I keep hanging on my wall in my studio. Kline is the ultimate composer. When ever I begin a work in the thumbnail stage I, (and every artist) should look to Kline. Eliminating narrative, eliminating color, eliminating space, Kline works in pure abstract composition. Influenced by Asian character brush painting Kline takes the pure form of the thumbnail sketch and elevates it to high art. The essence of the creative process.

There is not much to say about his work , it is pure and clean and sublime. There is no context or narrative, simply the essence of painting. I have always admired his compositions and he is the master of the thumbnail. So the next time you are struggling in your sketchbook over a dozen preliminaries, look to Kline and draw inspiration from the master who spent his life executing thousands of paintings dedicated to this simple and limitless exercise.

Enjoy.

WOC

Clothes vs. Costume

2011-12-16T06:44:00.000-08:00

I had a professor once that told me that there was a difference between clothes and costumes. Costumes are what people wear when pretending to be someone they're not, while clothes are the items we wear every day.

In fantasy character design I am constantly trying to balance the practical with the fantastical. As in any other type of design form needs to follow function. When designing the garments and gear of a character in a fantasy game that will be in combat situatons and traveling to different environments and locations, I always like to refer to actual soldier gear. The past 150 years has allowed us to take candid photo reference of what soldiers actually wear into battle. Although the technology has changed over the past several thousand years, the soldier's gear has altered little.

In this photograph (ca. 1863) we see soldiers preparing for rail transport to the front. Whats noticeable is how little they carry. A small ruck sack, ammunition case and rifle. This was a direct example of form following function. 19th C. soldiers never traveled far from their supply lines and a regiment would be accompanied by camp followers and even family that would cook and make camp.

In this WWI photo taken fifty years later we see how soldier's gear has evolved. Notice that there are no backpacks. Trench warfare had ground movement to almost zero. A soldier's primary concern was protection against machine guns. These German soldiers have sacrificed all their weight allowance to armor. The high leather boots and leggings were to protect them from standing and sleeping in the mud for weeks.

In WWII, only thirty years later, the style and technology of warfare has evolved again. Warfare and combat become extremely mobile. A soldier must carry everything he needs to last for an entire mission inside enemy territory. If you can't carry it, you don't have it. Its this form following function that we see almost all armor (except the helmet) abandoned in favor of mobility and all weight allowances are surrendered to ammo pouches and gear. The entire body becomes a backpack.

In Vietnam the rule of form following function changes again. Mobility is of crucial importance, but soldiers were closer to supply lines with the use of helicopters and fire support bases. Supplies could be sacrificed to more important needs, like armor and ammo.

Today the contemporary soldier is no different that anytime in the past 5000 years. In the middle east we see new armor styles evolving. Armored vests, elbow and knee pads, as well as eye protection are essential for urban close-quarter-combat. Shattering glass and broken concrete have replaced shrapnel as threats. With no need for long marches backpacks have been replaced by water pouches. The soldier's gear is tightly packed around the torso in order to maintain balance in the rough terrain. With close supplies and support their are almost no personal supplies carried on patrol. The new warfare has also introduced female soldiers into the equation. So what does female armor look like? Its exactly the same as male armor. The US Army frowns upon kevlar bikinis.

So although as a fantasy artist I am not trying to replicate historically accurate armor I hope this shows is that we can all draw a great deal of reference from actual soldiers and combatants. The fact is that a soldier will only wear what she absolutely needs. If it does not serve a function its abandoned, and its appearance is of no concern to them. This gear is what keeps them alive. When designing characters of my own, I continually try to remember, what would this person wear to keep them alive today? I try to design clothes and not costumes.

Enjoy.

WOC

Champions of the Heroic Tier

2011-11-28T13:52:00.000-08:00

Thought I would share a cover I did for Wizards of the Coast. Champions of the Heroic Tier (Wizards of the Coast 2011) I'm including my original thumbnail and the final cover. Fairly self explanatory, but a fun painting, lots of fiddly bits and action!

Enjoy.

WOC

Artist of the Month- Prokofiev (Peter and the Wolf)

2011-11-25T18:25:00.000-08:00

This month I am inspired by my daughter's interest in Peter and Wolf by Sergei Prokofiev (1891-1953). Listening to the New York Philharmonic production my daughter was enthralled by the audio and developed a whole narrative in her mind. Trying to watch the Disney version she was disturbed that the story did not follow her imagination and I quickly disposed of the rendition to allow her to imagine the story in her own way. I thought that this would be a great concept-art learning moment for students and artists to interpret the music in their own way. Attached is the audio for the Leonard Bernstein , New York Philharmonic Production of Peter and the Wolf (1960). I encourage you all to listen and interpret the story your own manner...

Listen:
Peter and the Wolf-Bernstein

WOC

Battle Cleric Redux

2011-11-16T12:42:00.001-08:00

After my last post I decided that it might be fun to revisit my twenty year old character of the Battle Cleric. Its twenty years later and the bearded priest has leveled-up more than a few times. His adventures have left him scarred but wiser....aren't we all.

A battle hardened veteran, and still a bad-ass undead killer.

Enjoy.

WOC

"Battle Cleric Redux"
6"x9" digital
©2011 William O'Connor Studios

"Battle Cleric"
9"x12" pen and ink
©1991 William O'Connor Studios

It Was Twenty Years Ago Today

2011-11-13T08:03:00.000-08:00

This month is the twentieth anniversary of receiving my very first commission. I never could have imagined that I would have the opportunity to do this work for twenty years! Its a bitter sweet reflective moment and thought I would share my memories.

In the Summer of 1991 I was studying illustration at Parsons School of Design. Although I was a Fine Arts Painting major at Alfred University my parents insisted that I should have a more practical back-up plan, and it was commercial arts or teaching. My instructor at the time suggested that I try pen and ink, since my sketchbook was filled with unfinished drawings. On his demand I rendered the image above (Battle Cleric, 1991), and promptly put away my pen and inks.

Two month later once back at University I was encouraged by my gaming friends that I should send off my portfolio. In an attempt to get it out of the way, and get back to my "real work" I sent off color copies and my one B&W to three publishers. TSR, White Wolf, and Isaac Azimov's. Peggy Cooper at TSR sent me a very encouraging form letter, I am still waiting for a reply from Azimov's, and I received this letter from Josh Timbrook and Ken Cliffe at White Wolf. Yes, I am so old that correspondences (and sketches) between artist and AD were sent via mail!

Within a week I called the White Wolf offices from my dorm hall phone (Yes, No Cell Phones! No Email.) I talked with them and they hoped I was available to produce 27 pen and ink illustrations for a new project "Ars Magica 3rd Edition". I agreed, assuring them that I was on the job, and that it was no problem. I was terrified!

My memories of the job are still very vivid in my mind. I remember my first thought was that I had been hired, and I had only done one pen and ink in my entire life! I didn't really know how to work in pen and ink. I went to the library and pulled out every pen and ink and woodblock artist I could find (again, no internet, just the old card catalog system!) I found Albrecht Durer, Howard Pyle, and several Golden Age Illustrators in the children's section of the local public library. These I made copies of and wallpapered my studio. If I had to render grass I found a Pyle's Robin Hood illustration with grass and copied the technique. If I had to paint wood, I looked to Durer to see how he did it. In this way I managed to scratch out 27 illustrations.
That was probably the biggest learning curve on a project that I've ever experienced. I learned more about the publishing industry, composition, design, drawing and illustration in two months than I could have learned in ten years of school. I remember that the most exciting part was that I was going to be published. In a hundred years, after I was dead, this artwork would still exist somewhere on a bookshelf.

I think what is most interesting is how different the market is today. The business of fantasy art is unrecognizable from two decades ago. There were no websites or art blogs. There definitely weren't any art challenges or portfolio reviews. There was no Comic Con and no Spectrum. This was before Magic The Gathering, Harry Potter, World of Warcraft and Lord of the Rings. Before the term "Concept Art" was in reference to anything other than performance installations. Before Fantasy became an international multi-billion dollar business. It was a very small industry with very few people in it. Everyone knew everyone else. You sent them your work, and if they like you they hired you. No recommendations, no workshops, no followers or page views. No symposiums or master classes. No style guides, no R&D, no creative directors or crowd sourcing. Twenty years ago was just an artist and the art director on the phone making stuff they liked. The X Generation produced some stellar artists. Among my fellow classmates of '92 include Donato Giancola, Irene Gallo, Tony Diterlizzi, and Rebecca Guay. I'm very interested to see what the next twenty years will bring!

Enjoy this very limited gallery of a few pieces that I did for that project, twenty years ago.

Enjoy

WOC

Ars Magica and Artwork ©Atlas Games

The Deck of Many Things

2011-11-10T06:45:00.000-08:00

Every once in a while you are thrown a curve ball as an illustrator and a funky project lands in your inbox. I had actually forgotten about this assignment since it was commissioned so long ago. "The Deck of many Things" was a 23 card assignment to produce playing cards that would be used as props in the game "Madness at Gardmore Abbey" (Wizards of the Coast, 2011.) Actually the deck was commissioned to be released with the D&D online magazine, and was presented as a rush job to be released the following month. With roughly twenty business days to produce the artwork I presented a mock-up image to the art director of what I felt confident I could produce under the tight deadline and still deliver on schedule. In the end the project was shelved and the rush was not necessary. (The foibles of publishing). The image shown here represents the original card back that I was rather partial to. Months afterward I was commissioned to re-design the card back because a yin-yang symbol would not be contiguous with the game universe.

Aesthetically the challenge was not to make the images look like contemporary cards, but rather like antique objects or an old woodcut tarot deck. It was a fun assignment, and a lot of work to complete 23 images in 3 weeks, but one of those assignments that only comes along once in a blue moon.

Enjoy

WOC

The Accidental Artist

2011-10-13T19:16:00.000-07:00

If there were a formula for being creative, we would all be Steve Jobs. The fact is that there is no formula for creativity. You can read all the books, and take all the Master Classes and workshops, but in the end despite leaning all the anatomy and painting skills in the world there is no class that you can take, no book you can read, that can make you an artist.

Today was my set-up day at New York Comic Con. The Jacob Javits Center is this week the Mecca for Pop Culture. Games, Books, Movies, Comics, everything you can imagine, blitzed into your sensory receptors like a shot of heroin with 100,000 fellow junkies. As I set-up and got settled-in I walked around and was quickly over-come. After all, no human should be exposed to that much Hello-Kitty in one day. I love the fans, I love the artists, but for me its like Vegas. Its beautiful and flashy, but not Real its all salesmanship. I decided that if I were to survive the next four days, I had to center and focus myself.

Escaping the venue I jumped into a taxi and headed for the Metropolitan Museum of Art. What was the opposite of massive pop-art over load?- The Japanese Wing! There I sat with my sketch book in the Buddhist pagoda room and just decompressed preparing for the onslaught. I wandered through the rooms and was once again enchanted by the beautiful Scroll landscapes. I worked in my book and decided I would paint a large vertical landscape as my next piece.

Inspired by the idea of a landscape I worked my way to the American Wing intending to see some Beirdstadts and Hudson River Valley School artists for inspiration. I was informed that the wing was closed for renovation. With no other options I worked my way to 19th Century painting Wing, Hoping to see Corot and the other landscape masters of the Realist School.

To my surprise I discovered that the 19th Century Wing had been completely rearranged. The new director has moved in many new paintings that I had never seen before. A David Caspar Fredrich landscape was exactly what I was looking for. A new gallery devoted entirely to the Orientalists was a surprise, and an Art-Nouveau Room reconstructed with a Mucha painting was entirely new to me. What a pleasant surprise! As I wandered back into the front Gallery, I saw a grizzled gentleman that looked very familiar. In a city of 8 million I don't expect to see anyone I know, but with the show in town I took a chance. I introduced myself, and it was in fact, Michael Kaluta! Another wonderful surprise. We chatted over the changes and additions to the gallery and hoped to see one another at the convention.

The moral of the story is that to be an artist one must venture off the beaten path. Do not put blinders on to only one thing, but venture outside of your comfort zone and explore. I have a new zest of ideas and new zeal for painting that did not exist yesterday. Go out and explore! Good hunting artists!!

WOC

POSTSCRIPT 11/6/11

I recently finished my Metrpolitan inspired Japanese landscape painting. It was very well received at Illuxcon and sold to an old friend.

"Race to Minas Tirith"
20"x48"
oil on panel
©2011 William O'Connor

NY Comic Con 2011

2011-10-12T13:21:00.000-07:00

Greetings Everyone!

Just a note that I will be attending The New York Comic Con this year at the Javits Center. I will have a table in the Artist's Alley at Booth #W9!
We're expecting around 100,000 attendees so come early to chat, get an autographed copy of my book, or to see what I've been up to lately.

I hope to see a lot of fans out there this weekend!

Enjoy.

WOC

The Persistence of Remembering

2011-09-10T07:53:00.000-07:00

As the tenth anniversary of 9/11 is upon us there are no end of articles, shows and retrospectives. Although each of us has a story and each of us has a perspective, as my readers will undoubtedly know my fascination with art is how it reflects the people and the time in which it is made. The vast array of art and words that are written today will be forgotten in a few months and a new event will fill our daily lives.

So how do we remember? What will continue to persist for our children and our children's children. The past week around the New York area there has been a flurry of activity in every city park and every town square. Volunteer groups and firemen are busily cleaning up their 9/11 memorials in preparation of Sunday's services. I have to admit that I had never really noticed these memorials before. It turns out that my town has three. With only the passage of one decade they have become as ubiquitous and invisible as WWI memorials with their army surplus howitzers.

The art of the 9/11 memorial is different because the event is different. Those that died (in every town and hamlet within a 20 mile radius of Manhattan ) were civilians. These were not soldiers who died valiantly for the survival of democracy. They were not killed on the field of battle to defend the American Republic. The 9/11 memorial functions as memorial and shrine. Most striking is the memorial as reliquary. Pieces of the World Trade Center have been dispersed around the region to be artfully arranged into neo-modern henges of broken stone and steel. Others are modest plaques copying the memorials of the previous centuries, merely listing the lost, with no aesthetic intrusion into the landscape.

However we remember the events of ten years ago it strikes me that these public creations will be the only day-to-day reminder for my children. As she grows up, and for generations to come, they will be a permanent part of the landscape, in the background of soccer games and passed a thousand times on the way to the library. What will these objects say about us in 100 years? It is obvious that they will reveal far more about those that survived than those that died.

The following images are of just a few local 9/11 memorials around the New York Region.

Be Well.

WOC

At Top:
Pearl River, NY 9/11 Memorial

Closter, NJ 9/11 Memorial

Glen Rock, NJ 9/11 Memorial

Huntington, NY 9/11 Memorial

Westfield, NJ 9/11 Memorial

Ridgewood, NJ 9/11 Memorial

Morris County NJ 9/11 Memorial

Artist of the Month-Marcel Duchamp

2011-08-31T14:43:00.000-07:00

"I don't believe in art. I believe in artists."
M. Duchamp

More than anyone else the face of Modernist hatred seems to be focused primarily on Marcel Duchamp (1887-1968). I think this stems from a fundamental lack of knowledge and understanding, which is a shame, because his work is so accessible. Personally I love Duchamp. There's nothing to get. Its not about classical mythology or esoteric historical figures. His work is funny, self-deprecating and iconoclastic, qualities that I admire in any artist. Duchamp was the ultimate anti-art-artist. (Banksy and Warhol are amateurs compared to Duchamp). He went up against a centuries-old academy of stuffed shirt authorities with their Victorian salons and Gilded-Age aesthetics and tweaked their handle bar moustaches.

You gotta love Duchamp for the absolute punk he was. At a time of classical ateliers and Ecole de Beau Arts he was the first garage artist. Nothing was sacred to this guy. If it was classical or institutional he laughed at it, turned it upside down, drew a moustache on it and pissed on it. (literally and figuratively.) You don't have to like it. You're not supposed to like it. If you want nice, easy, likable pictures, look at Bouguereau, but if you want art that challenges, look at Duchamp. He was a crazy, Dada-Surreal, Steampunk, Mad-Scientist! The Einstein of the art world. Art became Relative. He wasn't saying that an upside down urinal is art, he is saying that ALL art is upside down urinals. 500 year old traditions of smearing colored mud on canvas with sticks is just as silly and random (or more) as bicycle wheels on stools. There is nothing intrinsically sacred or artistic about paint or marble, but rather the conceptual, creative process of the artist is where the value lies, and he reveals that with humor and sacrilegious glee. If inspiring emotion is a prerequisite of art than Duchamp does it in spades. It is a hundred years later and he's still pissing people off. He makes every sophomore painting student scream in red faced wrath, "Its not Art!!" and Marcel just smiles from the grave and sardonically quips, "Exactly." For that alone Duchamp is awesome.

Enjoy.

WOC

at top:
Bicycle Wheel
1913 mixed media
Museum of Modern Art. New York

Fountain
1917 porcelain and ink
Tate Gallery. London.

W.I.P. Dragonward

2011-08-16T18:57:00.000-07:00

I have the opportunity to share a work in progress for a book cover that I'm painting. This is a pencil drawing and a grayscale rendering in photoshop to establish my values. The final will be in oil. I hope to share with you when its finished. I'm looking forward to working in oil for a client again. Its a lot slower but I like the process.

Once moving to paint my technique is a process of layers with some alla prima touches. I use glazes to enhance color and tone.

Enjoy.

WOC

"Dragonward"
12"x16" oil on paper
©2011 William O'Connor

©2011 William O'Connor Studios

Artist of the Month-Lucian Freud

2011-08-14T07:05:00.001-07:00

Reflection (Self Portrait)
1985
oil on canvas

I would be remiss if I did not do an Artist of the Month of Lucian Freud (1922-2011), who passed away last month. Called the greatest English master painter since Gainsborough, Freud was by far the most famous and successful painter of the past generation and regarded as the painter laureate of Britain. For a generation every artist who has struggled to do alla prima life studies can thank Freud.

As a student in the 1940's and an emerging career through the 1970's Freud is remarkable for his stalwart resistance to abstract modern painting. Facing contemporary painters like Stella and Rothko in America, Freud painted unabashedly figurative portraits with classical oil techniques. The first response to his work is the surface of his paintings. Having been known to work on his portraits for thousands of hours, the surface of impasto, tonal brushwork is built up in thick layers until the paintings take on an almost sculptural quality bringing dimension and life to his work. The realist and candid compositions of his subjects creates a voyeuristic mood relating the model to the painter and then to the viewer. Looking into Freud's work for me is like looking into art history. I see Courbet and Rembrandt in his brushwork and palette, as well as Manet and Cezanne in his stark presentation of the figure. Freud's work is also reminiscent of some of his contemporaries such as Alice Neel, Chuck Close and Eric Fischl.

Night Portrait
1978
oil on canvas

In the 1980's the advent of Post Modernism and the emergence of figurative art and Neo-Expressionism, made Freud extremely popular. He quickly rose to the top of the art world where his paintings remained big sellers for the rest of his life. In 2008 his 1996 painting Benefits Supervisor Sleeping (below) set a world record for a sale by a living painter, fetching almost $34 million, and in 2000 was commissioned to paint the portrait of Queen Elizabeth II.

In the past decade however, Freud's legacy has been debated. Was Freud a revolutionary painter who reinvented the medium of painting and the subject of portraiture? or was he merely an artist who's popularity exceeded his talent and spawned a thousand copy-cats? Only the perspective of time will tell. This debate always takes place with the death of a great artist who is great during his own lifetime. Picasso and Monet fared well, while others like Gerome and Bouguereau were cast aside. With his passing, Freud's place in the pantheon of the art history canon will be argued and discussed by much more learned academics than me.

Enjoy-

WOC

Benefits Supervisor Sleeping
1995
oil on canvas

©2011 William O'Connor Studios

Mobilis in Mobili

2011-07-27T19:01:00.000-07:00

"Mobilis in Mobili"
16"x20" oil on panel
©2011 William O'Connor

I have been working on an illustrated edition of 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea. This portrait of Captain Nemo began life as a study for a larger painting, but I thought I would share it. Trying to capture the dark and exotic aire of Nemo as he sends the capitol ships of the world's navies to the bottom of the ocean!

This painting will be on display at The World Science Fiction Convention in Reno Nevada in a couple of weeks.

I've got studies and schematics on the drawing board...hope to share more soon!

Enjoy.

WOC

2011/12 Convention Schedule

2011-06-21T10:02:00.000-07:00

Greetings Friends and Fans.

I entered this year resolved to not do any conventions, preferring instead to stay close to home and work. Well we all know how plans go, and it turns out I'll be doing at least three this year, and 2012 is shaping out to be pretty full! I love to see my old friends and meet fans, so I'm looking forward to an exciting convention season. I hope to see a lot of you at one of the following venues.

World Science Fiction Convention (mail-in). Reno, NV. Aug.17-21, 2011
New York Comic Con. New York, NY. Oct.13-16, 2011
World Fantasy Convention. (mail-in) San Deigo, CA. Oct. 27-30, 2011
Illuxcon 4. Altoona PA. Nov.3-6. 2011, 2011
Boskone. Boston, MA. Feb. 17-19, 2012
Lunacon. Rye, NY. March 16-18, 2012
Big Apple Comic Con. New York, NY. May 19-20, 2012
World Science Fiction Convention (Chicon). Chicago, Il. Aug.30-Sept.3, 2012

Have a Great Summer Everyone!, and I'll see you soon.

WOC

Artist of the Month-Hasui

2011-06-13T18:14:00.000-07:00

Being a traditionally trained American Art student, Asian Art never played an important part in my education. The Asian wing at the Met was merely a short cut to the Armor Room. I was familiar with Japanese art in as much as it influenced the Impressionists, and in my early work I illustrated extensively for AEG's Legend of the Five Rings.

In 2005 however, I was in Chicago and had the opportunity to see an exhibit of Japanese woodblock prints at the Art Institute. It was one of those formative experiences that you don't expect or look for, but changes the way you work for the rest of your life. Represented were Hiroshige, Hokusai and most importantly Hasui Kawase (1883-1957).

Directly influenced by his predecessors in the tradition of woodblock it was obvious that Hasui was also influenced by western modernism in his simplifying of forms, dramatic compositions and cinematic use of lighting. I was mezmorized by these alluring, beautiful and candid snapshots of an Asian landscape that straddled the 19th Century woodblock tradition and the 20th Century modernism.

Today Hasui's influence continues as evidenced by contemporary artists like Hayao Miyazaki (1941-present). Every time I watch Ponyo or Totoro with my daughter I see his influence, and his images are some of the few prints I have hanging in my home. I am glad that my daughter is being exposed to this amazing artist long before I ever was.

To view an extensive gallery of Hasui's work, and acquire one for yourself visit:

Hasui Print Gallery

Enjoy

WOC

Artist of the Month-Anselm Kiefer

2011-05-13T17:20:00.000-07:00

Dark paths wandering through ancient forests haunted by ghosts, barren landscapes scourged by a thousand years of armies, echoing halls filled with the voices of un-remembered stories. Lord of the Rings?, Wagner?, Grimm's Fairy Tales?

There is probably no living artist who has influenced my work more than Anselm Kiefer. (b. 1945) Embodying the essence of Post-Modernist ideals Kiefer's work discarded the modernist concept that art should have no ties to the past and that traditional story telling and painting should be abandoned. Surrounded in my college years by teachers who were steadfast devotees of Modernism, Kiefer for me was an unparalleled inspiration. He not only made paintings, he made Huge paintings, about epic subjects. War, Death, Religion, History, all shrouded in the mythological context of his German heritage.

Kiefer's moody and titanic works appear like massive relics of some ancient ruin which still inform my work today. His use of found objects, raw materials and the layering of text and surface to create tonal mood is echoed every time I overlay a texture into my digital paintings, or create a custom brush. His reverence of mythology encouraged me to read the Norse myths and Authurian Legends which furthered my love of Fantasy and works of Tolkien. Although I know that his neo-expressionistic collages are depicting Germany's dark past, for me, whenever I look at his paintings I am equally reminded of Tolkien's bleak descriptions of Mirkwood, The Mines of Moria and Mordor.
Enjoy.

WOC

at top: Varus. 1976
oil and acrylic on burlap
Royal Museum of fine Arts, Antwerp

Shulamith. 1983
mixed media on canvas 114"x 145"
San Francisco Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA)

Nuremburg. 1982
mixed media on canvas 110"x 149"
Private Collection, Los Angeles

POSTSCRIPT....
I assume that it is not by coincidence that the artists who designed The Ministry of Magic in the 2007 film Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix made the black-tiled walls look like Keifer's "Shulamith"...

The Art of The New

2011-04-28T12:51:00.000-07:00

Kings, Queens & Courtiers:Art in Early Renaissance France.

I had the privilege of briefly perusing the new exhibition at the Museum of the Art Institute of Chicago over Easter Weekend. This survey of French art during the Gothic and Early Renaissance was comprehensive displaying tapestries, sculpture, costume, architectural plans and paintings. Being a painter it was the these works that struck me the most. Reproductions do not do them justice, the detail and color after 600 years is breathtaking.

My primary fascination however is the fact that these were the first oil paintings. The workshops of the Gothic painters had to experiment with new pigments and mediums that had only recently been brought to Europe after the Crusades from the Middle East. They were making this up as they went along! Looking closely you can see artists experiment with medieval tempera techniques and then explore to use glazes and mottling and blending to create lustrous effects only possible in oil. There were no classes to take, it required a hundred years of trial and error to refine the techniques. These paintings must have been astounding new revelations at the time that challenged a thousand years of medieval training. Just as the camera effected painting in the 20th Century and the Computer in the 21st, I try to remember that in the 15th century, oil painting was a brand new and revolutionary medium, and the one thing about art that never changes, is that artists will always embrace The New.

Enjoy

WOC

Take a Flying Leap!

2011-04-20T10:42:00.001-07:00

Anyone who has lived within 100 miles of pop culture in the last twenty years has undoubtedly noticed the prodigious number of action heroes leaping to the rescue. Whether it is in the movies, video games or in illustration the most common aesthetic in art these days is what I call The Heroic Leap.

I think I began to notice the trend about ten years ago with The Matrix. Since then, the "Bullet Time", Slo-Mo, Heroic Leap has gone completely mainstream. In one 30 second movie trailer I watched recently, there were three heroic leaps! That's one every ten seconds! In the past several years the Heroic Leap has become so ubiquitous its hard to open a book or game without seeing it! As an artist working in the fantasy genre it is now a motif I use all the time, and is requested in most art orders.

So I wanted to know, where the Heroic Leap started. And I don't mean with Frazetta or Spiderman, but really far back, when did artists begin depicting heroes as leaping?

Since the beginning of time extraordinary human feats have fascinated us in the form of Dance and Acrobatics. In classical mythology flight has always been reserved for the gods. Nike, Apollo and others were supernatural and thus capable of flight, usually facilitated by the use of wings. But I'm not talking about flying I'm talking about leaping. Gods fly and heroes leap. There is an important distinction. The leap is the hero's brief ability to defy gravity like the gods, but then return to earth safely. The most famous example of course being Icarus, who attempts to fly like the gods, but is quickly put back down again. Ancient athletes were often depicted as god-like in their abilities using multiple poses to translate the stages of motion. This primitive technique was hundreds of years ahead of its time.

After the Renaissance the depiction of leaping in the visual arts art was limited. For centuries artists working in their studios with static models made leaping figures appear either like swimming or floating. The innumerable renderings of The Ascension of Christ repeatedly looks like Jesus standing in the sky.

For artists the great leap forward (pun intended) was in the late nineteenth century and the invention of the camera. For the very first time artists were able to see the invisible world that had eluded them for centuries and it wasn't like anything they had imagined. Motion blurs, lens flares, time lapse, depth of field, multiple exposures, and very importantly, high speed photography revealed motion in a new way. As one reviewer at the 1893 Chicago World's Fair wrote about the Muybridge Locomotion Photographs "...they reveal that everything we had previously understood about motion to be false." By the early twentieth Century artists in all the fields were adopting the revelations of the camera into their work.

The Modernist Movement embraced technology and new concepts. Futurism actually celebrated this new fast-paced world with works like Matisse's "Dance (1909), Duchamp's "Nude Descending a Staircase" (1912), Boccioni's sculpture "Unique Forms in Continuity of Space" (1913) By the end of the first half of the 20th Century the aesthetic of capturing movement in a single image had soaked into the artistic consciousness and was commonplace. By the 1940's Superman was leaping tall buildings in the comics and Flash Gordon was rocketing around film screens.

In the 1990's the advent of CGI and video games made swinging across a chasm in the Death Star look boring. New advances in 3D digital photography revealed motion in ways never seen before and changed visual perception again.
Today our heroes jump more than ever. Defying gravity in 360 degrees, killing aliens, and leaping off high buildings. Just as the camera redefined our understanding of motion so too has the computer. As long as there are stories to tell, and as long as heroes populate those stores, they will be leaping through our imaginations for years to come.

Happy Landings....

WOC

A Painting's Life

2011-04-15T14:12:00.001-07:00

"Merlin and Arthur"
18"x36" oil on panel
©2004 William O'Connor

The life of a painting is an interesting one. In 2004 I did an oil painting entitled "Merlin and Arthur". It was an exercise in my favorite palette, the white-on-white. I took it to a few shows, I think it may have achieved a few accolades from colleagues and clients, but that was all and it quietly was retired to the attic where is has hibernated for six years.
Recently this little painting has woken up. The original was sold to a collector, the usage rights were purchased for a magazine cover (Kobold Quarterly Fall 2010), and it will also be included in an upcoming book of art in 2011, all in the past few months.
You never know when those old paintings will need to be dusted off for a second life.

Enjoy

WOC

©2011 William O'Connor Studios

The Legend of the Golden Dragon

2011-04-10T07:03:00.001-07:00

"The Legend of The Golden Dragon (Tong Long Huo)"
12"x16" pencil and digital
©William O'Connor

click on images for larger view

The Legend of the Golden Dragon

A new Cover for a project coming out soon by the same name. Thought I would share some of the images and the process work. This was a great deal of fun because I got to play with Asian/Chinese design which I have always loved since my early work on Legend of the Five Rings.

Thumbnails:

Working in a sketchbook on thumbnail designs for the project is always the first step. The narrative was one that entailed great joy and celebration in victory. I wanted to denote this by a grand upward sweep in the composition. Confetti and balloon-like lanterns would give a frenetic and active element to the design to help enhance that sense of movement.

Finished Drawing:

Whether I draw digitally or traditionally is decided from project to project. I have been returning to more traditional techniques over the past year, favoring traditional pencil work.
This graphite on ledger drawing is 11'x14"

After doing some research I realized that the floating lanterns of china are not round but rectangular.

Painting Process:

Right from the start of painting I realized that I didn't like the square lanterns. They did not give the sensation of floating and appeared like bricks, so I changed them back to my original concept sketch with round lanterns. Although the lanterns are tethered, their balloon shape look like jelly fish and the perception of lightness and floating reads better.

The painting progresses in this manner for several days until complete.

Enjoy.

WOC

©2011 William O'Connor Studios. All Rights Reserved.

Chesley Awards

2011-03-21T12:59:00.001-07:00

Two of my paintings have been selected by the Chesley Award committee as suggestions for nominations this year.
The Chesley Awards are the annual awards selected by the Association of Science Fiction and Fantasy Artists. Only Members can vote, so join and vote early and vote often!
ASFA

"Dragon Song"
Unpublished (Rights Available)
oil on panel 24"x36"
SOLD

"Paladin's Charge"
Institutional (2011 Art Order Calander)
12"x16" digital

THanks.

WOC

The Cousins of Valinor: Radagast and Gandalf

2011-03-18T11:20:00.001-07:00

I'm working on a series of Lord of the Rings paintings. I was very inspired by the work of EA Abbey at the Boston Public Library, and recently some stunning stained glass windows I've seen. As well as the works of Albrecht Durer.
This Diptych is of Radagast and Gandalf that I've recently been working on in this continuing series. I hope to do more in the future, of other characters from the books. Larger and more complex paintings. For other paintings in the series see: Bard of Laketown.

Sketchbook #1

2011-03-18T10:35:00.000-07:00

Art in the Boston Public Library

2011-03-03T13:53:00.000-08:00

My February road trip to Boston to take part in Boskone 48 was a lot of fun. I got to visit with and see art by some of my favorite colleagues and spent the weekend in one of my favorite cities. Boston is a very exciting city for artists, with galleries, museums, art schools and one on the best artistic treasures in the US, The Boston Public Library.
The 13 panels of Edwin Austin Abbey's epic "Quest for the Holy Grail " is worth the trip alone, but the treasures also include a muraled great hall, and "The History of Religion" ceiling murals by John Singer Sargent, (currently closed for renovation), as well as sculpture and architecture that is the very apex of Victorian Gilded Grandeur. If you haven't been there yet, get yourself to Boston and see the library.
Enjoy.

WOC

Conquest of Nerath

2011-02-21T09:42:00.001-08:00

"Conquest of Nerath"
(2010) 16"x24" digital
©Wizards of the Coast

The most challenging compositions are when you either have to go extremely big or extremely small. In the instance of this painting I had to go very Big!! Juggling a two page long art description with dozens of image files of reference, leaving room for graphics and bleed is like running an artistic marathon...exhausting but very rewarding when finished.

"The Conquest of Nerath" (2010) was illustrated for Keven Smith at Wizards of the Coast for a D&D board game, of the same name, slated to be released in June 2011, and has been included in the Dungeons and Dragons 2011 Calendar .

A lot of students and young artists always ask when they see a complex work like this "Where do you start?" The answer is the same for every painting, at the thumbnail-design stage. Develop a simple design motif. In this example, the aspect of the art description that struck home for me was "Good vs. Evil". That was the heart of the image. As you can see by the attached thumbnail I quickly developed a concept based loosely upon a yin-yang symbol. This motif was reinforced by the idea that as a board game (similar to a chess game) the color coded game pieces of both sides should be given equal prominence. In this instance the description detailed Silver&Blue vs. Black&Red.

Once I have a design established I can start developing details like costumes. This is the part of the process I love the most and I think is the most creative. I often spend several days doodling in my sketchbook developing costume designs. As you can see by the attached sketch, the central figure was originally an elf on a unicorn, which got altered by the designers to a human on a warhorse.

The rest of the painting follows the stages that I have demonstrated in earlier blogs. The real work for this image was the hours and hours of rendering detail. There's no magic trick-just lots of time!

Enjoy.

WOC

©2011 William O'Connor Studios
www.wocstudios.com

I loved you not.

2011-02-08T08:57:00.000-08:00

"I Loved You Not"
©2011 William O'Connor

A study, inspired by the line of Hamlet to Ophelia that sends her over the edge, literally.
I wanted to sketch and play with the contrast of satin white and rough dark green grasses.

Enjoy

WOC

Artist of the Month-Corot

2011-01-31T11:07:00.000-08:00

Art historians have for over a century been writing on the impact and influence of Jean-Baptiste-Camille Corot (1796-1876). Leader of the Barbizon School, premiere artist of the Realist Movement, teacher to the young impressionists, and celebrated in his lifetime as one of the greatest painters of his generation. But unlike many of his successors, (Monet, Renoir, Degas, etc.) or his contemporaries, (Manet, Courbet.) Corot is not a house-hold name among the public, and does not usually adorn post cards or coffee cups in the gift shops of major museums, although his work is in almost all of them.

I think the reason for this is that Corot was the anti-artist artist. By the 1880s Victorian Academic painting was "Go-Big or Go-Home" (Gerome, Bouguereau, Alma Tadema, et al.), while the New Modernist art was Avante Garde, ( Impressionism, Symbolism, Art Nouveau, PreRaphaelite, Post-Impressionism, etc.) Corot wasn't any of these, he just made beautiful, little, unassuming paintings.

Whenever I visit a museum, there are invariably one or two Corots. These little canvases are like post cards. Many no bigger than your computer screen. Limited palette, no drama, no showmanship of craft or technique. Just flawless and zen-like composition of texture and form. They tend to get over-looked by the gawking tourists with guided head sets who want to see the Van-Gogh or the Monet, or the giant Seurat painting ("Look, Its just like in Ferris Bueller!" )

Next time you're in a museum, seek out the Corot. I promise that you will not be crowded or bothered. His little paintings will draw you in close and you can just stand as long as you like and quietly enjoy a master painter.

Enjoy-

WOC

©2011 William O'Connor Studios

Tropical Winter Landscape

2011-01-23T16:27:00.000-08:00

Nothing is more inspirational to the gardener or the painter than a trip to the Botanical Gardens. I'm an avid gardener. Ever since I bought my first house I began landscaping and found it very enjoyable. The thing that surprised me the most was that the vocabulary for the botanical artist and the painter was the same. Texture, form, color, balance, harmony. It was the same thing, but on a much bigger scale, and there was a living quality to the medium that couldn't be predicted. Times of day or year or different weather would make the designs change color and texture, even simply moving through the landscape changes the composition. Ever since, I've loved plants and gardening.

January for the gardener is a boring month. You sift through catalogs and plan out all the work you're going to do in the spring. So today my family and I took our afternoon and wandered through tropical jungles in humid 80 degree weather while outside it is in the single digits tonight. The New York Botanical Gardens in the Bronx is one of our favorites places to hang out on a cold day. As a painter I think of Monet and Gauguin. I would love to paint in there. A great way to great to break up the monotonous stark grayness of winter.

Enjoy

WOC

©2011 William O'Connor Studios

Artist of the Month-John Sloan

2011-01-20T06:02:00.000-08:00

100 years ago was a tough time to be an American Artist. The 1913 Armory show had just blown the roof off of traditional art and the blinding light of new modern European stars like Picasso, Duchamp, and Matisse changed 20th C art forever. Academic painting was practically cast aside over night for the new avante garde movement. It would be over 30 years before America would lead the way in the art world and over 75 years before representational art returned to the main stream during the Post Modern Movement.

Into this depression era of art in America one of my favorite movements took place. The American Realism and Ashcan Schools. Artists like Hopper, Wood, Bellows and my favorite, John French Sloan (1871-1951).

Sloan's paintings are fantastic in many ways. Part illustration, part documentary, part sketchbooks of the life he saw around him every day in New York City. Reminiscent of Daumier and Rembrant's sketches they capture the grime and the dirt of the real world outside his apartment window. The faces in the crowds each unique, but indistinguishable, as when glimpsed on a crowded sidewalk or a bustling subway platform. Contrasted against these crowds he illustrates the extreme isolation that exists in the city. A world of towering spires and brick with thousands of windows looking over empty green-lit canyons, or clouds of laundry hanging from tenements. This was the real America, not the glossy, Madison Avenue depiction of America.

Looking beyond his ability to capture this unvarnished reality of life around him Sloan was a master composer. His designs are breathtaking, each framed as if looking out a window or through a doorway. Dramatic abstract designs that I believe influenced many future American painters like Hopper, DeKooning, Motherwell and Still.

Today Sloan, and his contemporaries, are held in higher regard than in the past, but still are overshadowed by the European pre-war modernists. Finding these artists can be challenging, usually displayed in smaller regional museums, but are well worth discovering.

Enjoy.

WOC

POSTSCRIPT:
As a keen commentary on how the Victorian artists were lost in the 20th Century art world, Sloan did this parody of the Cubists in the 1913 Armory Show. Sloan participated in the show, but as illustrated by this cartoon, his comprehension of the future of art was far from contemporary, which is a shame because he had a very Modern sensibility.

©2011 William O'Connor Studios

Artist of the Month-Tiepolo

2011-01-17T17:01:00.000-08:00

One of the oldest influences in my career has been Giovanni Battista Tiepolo. Although he is largely overlooked because of his garish rococo murals I regard him as one of the finest draftsmen of his generation. His mixed media sketches are inspiring and look almost like Rodin sculptures reminiscent of Rembrandt and are completely different than his paintings. His sketches have an emotional immediacy that his paintings lack, with a very expressive quality lost in the scale of his mural-sized finished work. What I find most educational is his dramatic compositions. Grouping figures into forms and balancing design with architecture effortlessly.

An artist worth a second look, and under appreciated for his sketches. I've attached a few of my favorites, but explore him for yourself.

Enjoy

WOC

"Flight From Egypt"
Chalk, Ink and Wash on paper

"St. Ambrose Addressing St. Augustine"
Pen, Chalk, Ink and wash on paper

"Ecco Homo"
Pen and Ink Wash on paper

©2011 William O'Connor Studios
www.wocstudios.com

Sketchbooks Past and Future

2011-01-12T18:55:00.000-08:00

"Sketch-booking" is a vital part of the artist's life. Like many of my peers I sketch and doodle voraciously and almost never go anywhere without my book. Part journal, part diary, part scrapbook, part sketchbook, I realized this month I started my 70th sketchbook in an unbroken continuous line since September 1988 (First semester of art school). All seventy of the hard bound, black covered 8.5x11 books are numbered and dated on their spines and archived. It is actually possible to randomly pick a date and find the volume, open to the page and see what I was working on any day for the past 22 years. I almost only work in pen so every thought and idea is permanently and indelibly archived, not because I think it so important, but I don't want to erase what I was thinking about. I want to save all the unvarnished mistakes.

I was running some numbers. 70 books is about 7000 sheets and 14,000 pages. It works out to a little over 3 books a year, and almost three sketches a day, 365 days a year for over 22 years. This does not include the innumerable preliminary studies, preparatory drawings, reference sketches and actual paintings I've painted which would easily double the output. These seventy sketchbooks are also merely my primary sketchbooks. Over the years I have taken up the habit of starting a new sketch book for any particular long term project that I might be working on, such as a book or concept project, so that those sketches are separate and organized from the others. (For example I filled four sketchbooks for Dracopedia) Also, in the past two years almost all my preliminary work has been done digitally, so my sketch-booking has dwindled substantially.

It has me thinking about why artists sketch. I'm sure the same kind of voluminous output is similar for authors and musicians. I find sketching to be the most rewarding and creative part of my work. 90% of the material is not fit for public consumption, but it is an interesting thread to watch the evolution and changes in an artists life as you look back through them. Doodles, notes, poems, lines from novels, sketches in airports, ticket stubs, phone numbers, art notes, pressed flowers and convention badges. Its very possible that the sketchbooks will tell more about an artist than any painting. Hard to believe that in another 20 years I will have filled 100 books. I've already instructed my wife that once I'm gone to build a pyre and never allow anyone to read them.

Be Well.

WOC

©2011 William O'Connor Studios
www.wocstudios.com

Painting Inside The Box

2011-01-04T07:09:00.000-08:00

As an illustrator the demands of the commercial art client usually fall within a very strict format. Although art directors request originality and creativity, this request is usually couched within fairly rigid guidelines. The format of the illustration, placement of text and graphics, placement of gutters, as well as the demands of the art description combined with style guides and brand aesthetic, not to mention the personal taste of the art director, all challenge the artist to work within a fairly standardized creative box. Its what you do within this box that makes the difference.
So, where does personal expression and artistic individuality allow itself to be explored then? As an artist who was trained in the modernist school, I find my greatest creativity in composing abstract forms. Making interesting designs is one of the most expressive parts of my painting process, and never more than when I'm allowed to work outside the traditional rectangle of illustration. Below Ive included a few examples of my own where I was given a very demanding format in which to compose. Nothing helps me keep my creative juices flowing better than simply changing the shape of the box. It forces you to go back to abstract basics and just concentrate on composing forms. Try it yourself, and see what you come up with.

Be Well.

WOC

at top:
"Race to Minas Tirith"
20"x48" oil on panel
©2011 William O'Connor

"Anorouch"
©2007 Wizards of the Coast

"Flight over Candlekeep"
©2008 Wizards of the Coast

"Winter Elves"
©2009 William O'Connor

"Ardent"
©2010 Wizards of the Coast

©2011 William O'Connor Studios
www.wocstudios.com

Caravaggio ArtNotes

2010-12-15T07:29:00.000-08:00

Recently discovered art notes from Caravaggio's famous
"Crucifixion of St. Peter"...

Dear Caravaggio-
Sorry this is getting to you so late, things have been hectic around here and we're all playing catch-up.
First of all everyone here loves your painting, we think its really cool, great lighting and the drama is excellent. There are however a few changes we'd like you to make.
1- The Art Description says that the crucifixion is in a colloseum, and the designers feel thats really important. It doesn't have to be much, just maybe a crowd with a touch of classical architecture and maybe a tiger or two-totally up to you. The black is just too flat.
2- R&D says that the Roman soldier's costumes do not match the style guide. If you need reference let me know and I'll send it to you.
3-Please turn the foreground soldier around so we could see his face instead of his butt?
4-The colors are a bit muddy and dark, would it be possible to brighten up the palette and add some color?
5- St. Peter needs to have some glowing rune tattoos or a halo or something to make it obvious he's a high powered priest.

Thanks a lot, Could you get the changes in by friday, You Rock :o)

Dracopedia Wall Calendar from Zazzle.com

2010-12-15T07:13:00.000-08:00

Dracopedia Wall Calendar from Zazzle.com

Now available for the Holidays.

WOC

Redcrosse Knight and the Dragon: Part1

2010-12-03T18:12:00.000-08:00

The Redcrosse Knight and the Dragon: Part1

Few stories are more captivating than that of the Redcrosse Knight and the Dragon. The epic verse of a brave young knight who battles a titanic fire-breathing dragon for three days is one of the most dramatic conflicts in English literature. To read the text click here: (Faerie Queene. Book1, Canto 11)
I have always wanted to illustrate the scene for some years but have never found the opportunity. A recent private commisssion has allowed me to explore this story again and I am using the chance to post its evolution on this blog.

This first part shows the sketching stage of the project as I explore different possible compositions and angles. This is by no means finished, and as a work in progress I hope to show all the false starts and corrections that an artist makes as a project develops.

Keep checking back for updates and evolutions....

WOC

Yes, Samantha, there are unicorns....

2010-11-28T17:08:00.000-08:00

My daughter, Samantha (4), is going through, as most girls do, a Unicorn phase. Possessing the beauty of horses and the magic of fairies unicorns have become her new "thing". Everything we draw and almost all the stories we tell have to include a unicorn.
I suppose I could buy a "My little Pony" and a copy of "The Last Unicorn" and be done, but Samantha is the daughter of a fantasy artist, and that just wouldn't do!
Fortunately for us we live not far from the most beautiful Unicorn art in history. The famed "Unicorn Tapestries" of the Metropolitan Museum of Art are housed in The Cloisters, which in itself is a work of art. Five unicorn tapestries are the centerpiece of this medieval art and architecture complex overlooking the palisades of the Hudson River, and are one of the best art destinations in NYC.
As a young man fascinated with medieval art and culture I would beg my parents to go to the Cloisters, but now living so close we go several times a year. This Sunday my family and I decided to see the "Unicorn Castle" again. Strolling through the halls of art and the stone cloisters on a cold November day, we had the museum to ourselves. We went from room to room finding griffins and dragons, and a whole bestiary of creatures carved into capitols and frescoed on walls, glazed into stained glass, gilded in candelabras and, of course, woven into tapestries. From the point of view of a four year old (and a forty year old) it was magical. I don't think I'll be taking up weaving or unicorns anytime soon, but a trip to the Cloisters is always an inspiring day!

Enjoy!
WOC

to learn more about The Cloisters visit:
Metropolitan Museum: The Cloisters

©2010 William O'Connor Studios
www.wocstudios.com

Illustration Process "Centaur"

2010-11-08T07:19:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting to show more of my work process than I have in some of the more recent posts. The finished drawings are fun, but I've like to demonstrate the steps that I go through before I get to that finished stage, as well as many of the steps that follow the finished sketch.
For this demo I'm using my Centaur painting "Valkyrie of Pelion" as an example.

Sketchbook Thumbnails.
At night, after I've retired from the studio, my work usually continues. Almost every night I sit with my sketchbook, either watching TV or falling asleep and doodle in my sketchbook. Sometimes these doodles are for a client, sometimes for myself. These quick design sketches are almost always done in pen. I like pen because it is very graphic and doesn't allow for me to make corrections. If I were allowed to erase or fudge a sketch, I might not be willing to abandon it and move on to a better idea, also, I love the graphic starkness of pen. When I'm fleshing out a design, I don't want subtlety , I want bold graphic design elements, they either work or they don't. 90% of these imaes are never seen, and never amount to anything. Maybe I'll do a post on my vast slush pile of misfit thumbnails....
In the two doodles above the 1st is a simple design comp with no detail, the second is a costume design sketch to work out the mechanics and aesthetics of the wardrobe. These are like shorthand notes to myself before write a first draft.

Finished Sketch:
Once I've settled on a strong design I move to my sketch phase. This is either done in pencil (as in this example) or in digital. At this point I try to work out as many of the details as possible. This makes the painting process easier since these decisions will not have to be made later, and its very important that the client see exactly what they are going to get.
It's at this point that sketch revisions happen with the client. The art director may have aesthetic or design alterations and the other departments will usually have detail corrections (such as: "She should have a long sword, not a sabre",) One or two rounds of corrections should be plenty to make every one happy.

Under Painting:
At this stage I begin to flesh out my lighting and under painting. I limit my palette to a very muted color. This allows me to focus on form and light. This image is done in photoshop, but the technique is identical when I'm working in paint. When working with a client I usually do not present a color comp unless its requested or if I'm presented with a stark difference of options. (like sunshine vs. moonlight) but again, the lighting and color is often dictated by the setting or details in the art order. (If the description says the character is in a swamp carrying a flame sword, your palette is pretty much decided for you.)
For this piece I've chosen a muddy earth tone palette that will allow me to "pop" bright colors later on.

The Finished Painting (Top Picture)

I render the finished illustration using lots of consecutive layers of texture files. Some of these are home-made and some are from texture libraries. I love to experiment with what layer modes and effects can do. Like glazes. Some are Multiplied, others are Color Dodged and others are lightened. This goes back to my early years as a multi-media and photography student.

The rendered detail and color just takes time and patience with lots of brush strokes. Working digitally gives you the opportunity to create an infinite number of brushes. Experiment to find which work for you, and don't just use the default brushes, (Or someone else's). Popping highlights, and laying in dark shadows brings the finish into focus.

Have Fun!

WOC

©2010 William O'Connor Studios
www.wocstudios.com

WOC at Illuxcon

2010-11-04T11:29:00.000-07:00

Thurs. 11/11/10 - 11/14/10 I will be at Illuxcon in Altoona, PA, showing off my work, signing my book and making merry with all the other artists.
Come on out to see the menagerie....

Go to the Illuxcon website to learn more

The Astral Sea

2010-10-30T07:48:00.000-07:00

More Dungeons and Dragons Stuff!
Here are a couple of interior paintings and the cover from:
"The Plane Above-Secrets of the Astral Sea"

There a couple of images here that were inspired by some classic paintings. My good friend Jeff Menges is doing a seminar on the influence of Golden Age illustrators on contemporary artists and it reminded me of these, so....

Enjoy-

WOC

"Pirates of the Astral Sea" (Cover)
12"x16" digital
©Wizards of the Coast

NC Wyeth

"Battle in the Astral Sea"
12"x14" digital
©Wizards of the Coast

JW Waterhouse

"Armada of the Astral Sea"
6"x8" digital
©Wizards of the Coast

©2010 William O'Connor Studios
www.wocstudios.com

Dragon Song

2010-10-30T07:24:00.000-07:00

Sketches for a new private commission. This one's been knocking around the studios for a few months. Since I own these projects I can share the work as I go , where-as with commercial commissioned work, I'm under a NDA and can't share, and at the end of the project will usually toss out all of the sketches.

WOC

WOC Sketchbook-Centaur WIP

2010-10-13T07:35:00.000-07:00

This image I created expressly to use as a demonstration of my technique. A fun little character design and painting. Attached below are the sketch and painting stages .

Enjoy

WOC

"Valkyrie of Pelion"
pencil and digital 12"x16
©2010 William O'Connor Studios

Thumbnails from my sketchbook.

Finished drawing and under painting.

©2010 William O'Connor Studios
www.wocstudios.com

Post Comic Con Report

2010-10-11T13:54:00.000-07:00

Recovering from four days in NYC at Comic con! Great to see all the fans, thanks for coming out and saying Hi. Also great to see some old friends and make new ones!
Sorry to anyone who couldn't get a signed copy of Dracopedia. The crowd was very large (100k) and I ran out of signed copies by Saturday afternoon! Please go to my Dracopedia blog or my personal website to purchase your copy from Amazon.

Next up on my show schedule is Illuxcon in Altoona in November. Hope to see a lot of you there!

WOC

NEW YORK COMIC CON

2010-10-01T12:18:00.000-07:00

One week to the New York Comic Con, the biggest gathering of costumed fans in Manhattan outside the Greenwich Village Halloween parade.
Yours truly will be there signing his book, autographing cards and making merry with all the other hobos in artist's alley so come on down and say "Hi!"

See ya

WOC

Practical Guides

2010-09-28T13:45:00.000-07:00

I realized recently that I have worked on three of the "Practical Guide" books from Mirrorstone and have yet to share any of the images. Practical Guide to Fairies, Practical Guide to Vampires, and most recently Practical Guide to Dragon Magic. I'm including one image from each book. I'm interested in showing these because one of the common printing effects of the three books was that they were all printed on a natural colored, course paper stock, and the color and contrast of these images was drastically effected in the process, and one even got flipped horizontally. (C'est la Vie). This will be the first time the public has seen them as I painted them. I hope you enjoy!

"Dragon Gazing"
8"x10" digital
Practical Guide to Dragon Magic
©2010Wizards of the Coast

"Olly Olly Oxen Free"
9"x12" digital
Practical Guide to Vampires
©2009 Wizards of the Coast

"Fairy Waltz"
10"x7" digital
Practical Guide to Fairies
©2009 Wizards of the Coast

I really have fun working on books with a younger audience in mind, there is a playfulness that is encouraged, and the work is not so earnest! I've always wished to illustrate a children's book and this has been a wonderful opportunity to explore my children's/YA style. I actually have two children's picture books in development in my free time (which means I haven't worked on them in months), but I hope to be able to put more images together here and on my website.

Thanks.

WOC

©2010 William O'Connor Studios
www.wocstudios.com

Oil Painting Set

2010-09-13T07:08:00.000-07:00

These are two paintings I did last year as a set, but never showed them before.

Enjoy-

WOC

"Star Oath"
oil on paper 11"x14"

"Star Slayer"
12"x17" oil on paper

©2010 William O'Connor Studios
www.wocstudios.com

Dracopedia Blog

2010-09-11T14:14:00.000-07:00

Don't forget to check-out and follow along on
Dracopedia Project.
I will keep current dragon sketches and news on Dracopedia up to date.

Thanks.

WOC

Bard of Laketown

2010-09-07T07:07:00.000-07:00

I don't get to oil paint as much as I would like, so when I do I try compositions and designs that wouldn't normally make it past the editorial process. The heavy impasto is why I oil paint in the first place! This is actually what I would call an oil sketch, perhaps a study for a larger composition, and a companion image to my 2005 painting "Fire and Water".

Enjoy.

WOC

"Bard of Laketown"
12"x24" oil on panel
©William O'Connor

Dark Sun Monsters

2010-08-30T05:52:00.001-07:00

I have some new monster illos for the Dark Sun Campaign Setting from Wizards of the Coast & Dungeons and Dragons.

Enjoy-WOC

"Megapede Battle" 10"x12" digital

"Air Drake" 5x7 digital

"Dragon Lady" 5x7 digital

"Water Drake" 5x7 digital

For more information visit William O'Connor Studios

White Dragon-Sketch Evolution

2010-08-09T05:18:00.000-07:00

Check out my new Sketch Evolution.
A two hour sketch condensed into one minute. I will post more sketch and painting videos soon!

THanks

WOC

Father's Day Paintings

2010-06-20T08:56:00.000-07:00

The imagery of fathers and children has always fascinated me. Whether its Hector and his Son, Arthur and Merlin, or Anakin and Luke, its a powerful iconic narrative that has always captured artists and story tellers. Below I've put together a few images of fathers(teachers) and children (pupils) that I've approached over the years....

Enjoy and Happy Father's Day

WOC

Paladin's Charge
2009 digital

Merlin and Arthur
2004 oil on board

Chiron and Achilles
2005 oil on paper

Spectrum 17 contribution

2010-04-20T08:07:00.000-07:00

I'm happy to announce that the Spectrum 17 judges panel selected my image "Ardent" from the Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook 3 to be included in this year's annual collection of the best fantasy artwork.
Thank you to the jury and especially to Kate Irwin, who always inspires her artists to go the extra mile.

WOC

©Wizards of the Coast

C2E2 Appearance

2010-04-05T14:58:00.000-07:00

Greetings!
I will be attending this years first C2E2 (Chicago Comics and Entertainment Expo)
April 16-18.

Hope as many of you in the Chicago land area will come out to visit! I'll be signing cards, books and looking forward to seeing lots of fans and artists!

WOC

Player's Handbook 3

2010-03-28T13:35:00.000-07:00

I've got some fun illustrations I did last year that just came out for Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook 3. These Player Class portraits have been an exciting challenge, and I really enjoyed the designs...
Enjoy.

WOC

images ©Wizards of the Coast.

Dracopedia Signing

2010-03-22T17:28:00.000-07:00

William O'Connor will be signing copies of his book, Dracopedia, at the East Coast Art Expo, on Sat, 3/27/10, in Summit NJ. I hope to see you all there!

WOC

2010 ArtOrder Calender

2010-02-08T08:13:00.000-08:00

I'm very excited that one of my paintings was selected for inclusion in the
ArtOrder 2010 Calender
by Jon Schindehette.

There are a limited number so gets yours fast!!

Cheers.

Bill

"Paladin's Charge"
©2009 William O'Connor

Fantasy Art Now 2

2010-01-26T19:13:00.000-08:00

I'm excited to announce that my painting "Nexus" was included in
"Fantasy Art Now 2" on sale now at bookstores and online.
Thanks

WOC

©Wizards of the Coast

Imagine FX Dracopedia

2009-12-13T11:25:00.000-08:00

In the Christmas 2009 issue of ImagineFX magazine
Dracopedia:
A Guide to Drawing the Dragons of the World
by William O'Connor

received a five out of five "magnificent" review from the editors, calling it:
"A great idea Masterfully realized." with "...stunning paintings."

Take a closer look at the book to order one for the holidays!

Amazon.com/Dracopedia

DRACOPEDIA

2009-09-08T11:21:00.000-07:00

DRACOPEDIA
The Guide to Drawing the Dragons of the World

"A Great Idea, Masterfully Realized, with Stunning Artwork."

ImagineFX Magazine

Dracopedia is now available at Barnes and Noble and Amazon in Hard Cover.
I'm very excited about this book, and all the hard work put into it.
160 full color pages, over 500 illustrations and a full color fold-out poster all about Dragons, their nature, habitat, behavior and a guide to drawing them.
I hope that artists and Dragon enthusiasts alike will enjoy the book.

Thirteen chapters divide the dragons of the world into 13 distinct families, and explain how they live and shows their wide range of forms, colors, environments and species.
Enjoy a brief sneak preview of some of the art, and take a look at the websites for more details and to purchase a HC copy before they're all gone!

Also be sure to follow along at my Dracopedia Project Blog, where I explore many of my dragons and techniques.

Thanks.

William O'Connor

©2010 William O'Connor Studios
www.wocstudios.com

Welcome

2009-07-30T08:21:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the William O'Connor Studios Blog.

I hope to be able to use this site to better interact and discuss art with friends and fans, and to share my work in a more timely way. I'm looking forward to sharing ideas and suggestions on what you would like to see in the site.
My interests hopefully will span from sharing ideas and sketches, to subjects more tutorial and educational.

My personal website is still available at: www.wocstudios.com

Thanks.

WOC