Jeremy Ruiz Illustration

My how time flies...

2010-09-02T09:22:00.000-07:00

Where has this summer gone, between being a new father and being buried in concepting and display work for P&G I have neglected my poor blog. Been doing a few things in what little free time I have. I been doing some logo concepts for a client of mine and have been doing a lot a sketching for my next painting. I have been testing a few new things with how I work. I live in digital all day, but my personal stuff is always traditional so I'm trying to merge the two. Here is a character I sketched which will most likely be the focus for that new project. Hopefully will some some final art to show soon....until then.

My Latest Masterpiece

2010-06-21T11:42:00.000-07:00

Liliana Roni Ruiz, born May 30th @ 8:05, 7lbs 6oz.

Latest project published!

2010-04-13T08:56:00.001-07:00

Its been way too long, been knee deep in toothpaste displays and getting ready for the baby to come. Here is a link to Cobblestone Magazine: http://www.cobblestonepub.com/magazine/COB/ I have 6 baseball illustrations in the April Issue. Later

I'm Back Baby!

2009-12-17T20:48:00.000-08:00

Well, I getting settled into the new gig and loving it. It's a lot of work but its fun being in a creative environment and getting to do what you love all day. As with most corporate jobs we are pretty much shutting down for two weeks for the holidays and it could not have been better timed because I got a new freelance gig that consists of 6 spot illustrations for an issue of Cobblestone Magazine. Its a children's magazine for ages 9 and up. I just got my sketches approved today and I'm told the issue will be out in April...I keep you posted until then. Later

Oh What a Month

2009-11-29T19:25:00.000-08:00

Well a lot has changed in the last month. Me and my wife are expecting our first child, so needless to say we are very excited but, it has changed our lives dramatically. Then to top it off I got offered and excepted a job as an Art Director for Arc Worldwide, which is a promotional design firm in downtown Chicago. I am doing Illustration and Design work for Procter and Gamble's Oral Care line, including brands like Oral-B, Crest, Scope, Vicks and Fixodent. So just when I was about to freak out about having to support and pay for a baby as a freelancer I was handed a early Christmas gift in the form of a Salary, Benefits and a 401K. So I am going to have to pause for a moment and switch gears and get comfortable with the new gig, but I will keep pursuing the freelance work that I love. I think my work will become more focused and I can perhaps now labor over it a bit more knowing I don't have to rush and do it to survive, I feel it will probably get better in the process. So here I go down a new path that will hopefully be great for me and my new family and I will hopefully post some new sketches shortly. Until then...

Quick Illustration Tutorial

2009-10-25T19:39:00.000-07:00

As I promised in an earlier post, here are some process images from the last book cover I did "Wrong Way Hayes". I work on 100 series cold press illustration board by Crescent, it has a nice tooth to the paper for the drawing steps and also accepts the washes nicely. I always start of by cutting my board down to size and taping off a boarder with blue painters tape, that way there clean edge for people to handle, this is especially important if I am not photographing it and other will be handling it.

Step 1. After I get the drawing where I want it I reestablish the most important areas in color pencil so I can see my drawing most of the way through the painting process. 2. I coat the backside with Gesso to prevent the board from buckling while painting. 3. I block in my main tones, knowing that I will eventually wash them with one uniform color, so right know they tend to look a little weird. 4. I wash the board with a thin oil and thinner wash, which is about five to one thinner. I dry the the board with a hair dryer until it is dry to the touch.

5. The thinner has completely evaporated at this point but the oil is still workable. I then remove the oil wash with a needed eraser, shaping the paintings light and darks. This is usually a good stopping point so the oil can completely dry, which only takes about 5-6 hours. 6. Now the painting is dry, I go in with Prismacolor pencils and develop the details. Starting with white I draw into the painting getting the look of the character down. 7. Once the white is complete I burnish in other colors over it developing the different tones of the face getting it to look more realistic. 8. Is pretty close as far as the face colors go, I will go back in with acrylic paint and reestablish the lights.

9-10. I do a similar process on the jersey and background, using a little more paint them pencil to give it a little more variation from the skin. 11. Is the painting properly photographed. 12. With text. Well hope I wasn't 2 long winded, enjoy and be back soon.

Wrong Way Hayes Cover Finished!!

2009-10-12T12:39:00.000-07:00

Finished the cover for Bill Reamers Epic Poem, "Wrong Way Hayes". I'm real happy with the outcome, it definitely has that vintage feel that I was going for and my friend Justin Paris ended up being a perfect model for Wrong Way. The final illustration is 15x24" and was done in my usual mixed media technique. I did take some photos of me working a long the way but I have yet to sort through those yet. Enjoy and I'll post some more soon.

Wrong Ways Hayes Cover Sketch

2009-09-27T20:21:00.000-07:00

I got my cover sketch approved for my latest gig "Wrong Ways Hayes" By Bill Reamer. Wrong Way is a lanky, not so talented baseball player from the early 1900's. I photographed my model on Friday and with a little love in Photoshop I exaggerated some of his features to fit the description of the character. I was real happy I was able to find a period baseball glove and uniform shirt and a local prop rental place. The pants and hat I bought at Wal-Mart, the pants are just baggy grey sweat pants to match the bagginess of the old time uniform bottoms and the hat was a standard ball cap that I cut down the bill length and Sharpied in some pin strips. The costume came out better than I had hoped and I am sure it will come through in the final Illustration. I plan on documenting this piece as I go so I'll try to post some more as I go. Later

I can add modeling to my resume....

2009-09-22T20:46:00.000-07:00

Red Lobster came back to the studio this week to shoot there winter menus. It was crazy busy as always but this time I ended up in some of the images. I made my modeling debut as a hand model for the grill shot you see above. (this is an uncropped version) We usually hire in professional hand models, but this shot was added at the last minute. A chef coat was prop up in back to look like I was wearing it and I came in from the side to hold the tongs, which were rigged to the grill so we could get the placement just right. The grill is fake and the flames were provided by the always entertaining Geoff Binns-Calvey, who rigs up all the flames and special effects needed to make our shots believable. I was a little toasty holding my hand above those flames for almost an hour and the flames that were under the grill were shooting out between my legs...but overall it was nice change of pace to be on the other side of things.

New Project!

2009-09-10T21:17:00.000-07:00

Just got another book project called "Wrong Way Hayes" by Bill Reamer. Its an old time - turn of the century baseball story. The book will consist of 1 color cover illustration and 3 black and white interior illustrations. I'll post some progress pics when I get going. Well now its time to start sketching... Later.

Crazy couple of weeks!

2009-09-04T23:05:00.000-07:00

Wow was the last half of August crazy! I was booked two weeks straight at the photo studio (including the weekend) shooting packing shots for the new line of Quaker Oats bars and crisps. I was getting up at 4:30 in the morning and wasn't getting home till Midnight, it was a pretty intense job. And to top it off that was suppose to the weekend me and the wife were going to move into our new home, so needless to say that didn't happen. So last Tuesday, Quaker was finally done and then we shot Macaroni Grill ads on Wednesday and Thursday. Thursday night we raced to Home Depot and got paint as they were closing and then I painted all day Friday, Saturday and moved on Sunday. I finally finished painting today, so hopefully I can finally get back to my studio and get some actual work done, that is if I can find which box has all my brushes in it!

HOT OFF THE PRESS!

2009-08-17T09:43:00.001-07:00

"How Jill Learned to Read Using Phonics" by Betty Davis and Illustrated by yours truly is now available for purchase. I just received my copies this weekend, and am pretty happy with the end result. I did a full color illustration for the cover and 5 black and white illustrations for the inside. The story is about 40 pages and explains one girls journey on how to read using fun and alternative methods. The book is available at Barnes and Noble and Amazon.com.

Lollapalooza

2009-08-13T11:29:00.000-07:00

My wife, Annemarie got me a 3 day pass to Lollapalooza this past weekend. I had an amazing time and got to see some really good bands. Friday's highlights included: Fleet Foxes, Decemberists and Kings of Leon, who put on a ridiculous show. Saturday was even better, for one it didn't rain and I got to see a really good Norwegian punk bank called Ida Maria, Coheed and Cambria, Rise Against, and the headliner was the always amazing Tool. Tool has been a favorite of mine for a long time and to be within 25 feet of the stage in a crowd of almost a 100,000 was ridiculous. Tool, as am I are huge fans of the painter Alex Grey, and there show was silhouetted by these massive screens playing all kinds of 3d animations that were heavily inspired by Alex Grey. The show was absolutely amazing. After Saturday I was pretty drained but still managed to catch some pretty good shows on Sunday by Cage the Elephant, Silver Sun Pickups, Snoop Dog, Lou Reed and Jane's Addiction. After a long weekend in the sun it is about time I get back get back to work, I have a few much needed days away from the photo studio so time to get cranking.

Zombie Killers and Golden Corral

2009-07-27T11:32:00.000-07:00

Got a busy week a head of me. Just finalized the sketch and color comps for my latest painting I have been working on. I shot the reference photos for this way back in February, then ended up getting swamped with more time sensitive work. So I am glad to get back to this one. I had hope to have this completed by the end of the week, but I got booked 3 days on a photo shoot for Golden Corral. Hopefully it wont be too long of days, so I can get back to the studio and crank on this one....got at least 1 more painting I want to squeeze in before the big move in September.

Animals Anyone?

2009-07-17T21:02:00.000-07:00

Here is a quick painting I finished the other night. I always enjoy drawing animals but more often then not, I get distracted by other projects with people and more complex ideas, so it was nice to do a little illustration like this. This was a little less mixed media then I normally work, but I thought it would better off sticking with the acrylics rather then the Prismacolors. I also experimented with using a gloss finish and was really happy with the way it saturated the colors. Well back to work I go....

Sorry its been a while, but heres a new painting!

2009-07-13T20:35:00.000-07:00

My how time gets away from you. I've been real busy with photo assisting work over at Stephen Hamilton Photographics. After a horribly long period of seafood retouching and pure chaos that is Red Lobster, and then a quick trip out to Arizona(I'll post pics later) I'm back and able too get some work photographed. My latest piece is of a statuesque crusader, it's mixed media on illustration board and is about 30 inches on the long side. I really wanted to explore costuming and playing with some more elaborate detail in the architecture with this one. I really had a lot of fun thrifting for some interesting items to make up the costume. A lot of the architecture was composed from photos I took of old buildings in and around Chicago. Overall, I am very happy with the outcome and I know it will work nicely in the promos I am putting together. Well, back to the grind...just a few more days at the studio and back to more painting.

richardlonghi.com

2009-06-14T10:57:00.000-07:00

Hey all, just finished up doing a website for Richard Longhi. He is a food stylist for advertising photography and film work. He's got some great stuff up there, that everyone should check out.

New Illustration

2009-06-09T19:05:00.000-07:00

I have been very busy these last few weeks, I had some down time away from the photo studio this past week, which was much needed. I finally got to wrap up the book I have been working on. It's an informative book on how to teach kids to learn using fun and alternative methods. "How Jill Learned to Read Using Phonics" By Betty Davis, should hopefully be out by summers end. As of now it will be available online at barnesandnoble.com and amazon.com. I had the cover illustration finished well over a month ago but then they decided to add some black and white interior illustrations as well. For the cover, I had explored quite a few options for the author and she ultimately chose this fun/fantasy-like idea which made me happy because it makes it a lot more fun to draw. The final image is a mixture of oil, acrylics and prisma- color pencils.

IT BEGINS!

2009-05-16T13:45:00.000-07:00

Alright, I officially have my blog up and running. I am going to do my best to keep continually updating this with finished illustrations, sketches, ideas, and all sorts of stuff that gets my creative juices flowing. I have added a link back to my website, with all my latest work, as well as links to things that I frequently visit to help me get into the creative zone. Hope everyone enjoys, and hope to hear lots of comments.