http://www.downs-art.com Mon, 09 Jan 2012 19:16:44 FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://drawger.com/richarddowns/index.php?section=articles&article_id=12990

Here is one of my latest illustrated Fables for young readers. This story and many others will be included into a broader reading program for kids. This assignment was commissioned by 3CD Chicago. This is a story about a little bird with a broken wing and a challenging Winter fast approaching as he journeys out looking for shelter among the trees while all of his winged bird friends fly south to warmer climate. As the story goes, some trees shoo the little fella away while others take him in. Mother nature has the last call in this tale about,  "Evergreen Trees". Moral of the story, help the little guy or freeze your trunks off!. The folk up here in Northern California are experiencing the driest and warmest months in the last 30 years, bring on some weather and snow so we can fly south in our own style!      









]]> Sat, 07 Jan 2012 04:57:04 http://drawger.com/richarddowns/index.php?section=articles&article_id=12953

20 years ago I started my "Couples" series. This week I hit 200 pieces between paintings and works on paper. The beginning of the series was inspired by Henri Matisse and his incredible, "Back" sculpture series. You can see the influence in my first "Couple #1" piece. When I saw his "Back" series I thought, "I gotta do that", well, I tried at least!  My latest commission has been for a collector  who wanted a specific "Tango" inspired Monotype of mine that was gone so I made a suite of  small "Tango" pieces for them to pick from. It took me 17 years to create the first 100 pieces in this series and the last two and a half years to create the other 100. I think that I am getting a little faster and a little better at this!  Have a Creative and Happy 2012 Ya'll!  

















]]> Fri, 23 Dec 2011 00:20:23 http://drawger.com/richarddowns/index.php?section=articles&article_id=12876



These days my fine art career is looking and behaving more like my illustration career. I have been getting more and more private commissions for my personal work. Yesterday, one of my galleries called me saying that a guy came back to the gallery to  purchase 2 works on paper for his wife's birthday but they had sold them last weekend. As I was talking to the gallery the guy is texting me to see if I could help him out with a deadline of 5 days to be shipped and delivered? He mentioned that they love my work, that was all that he had to say, I'm in! So, I made him the 2 pieces "in the spirit of" what he wanted. It is getting really fun thinking of personal work becoming so deadline driven. Here are the 2 pieces that I made for him. (above)



I made this Monotype the other night after I had finished all of my commercial responsibilities, I needed to let off a bit of artistic steam. In game like fashion, I time everything that I work on, it doesn't matter if it is a painting, printmaking or digital work, everything gets timed, it makes work seem more entertaining for me. I started this piece at 7:46 pm, it took a few turns from the sketch and was finished at 11:17, I like that it didn't follow the sketch. Last week I started a very fun and large oil painting commission of, "Hummingbirds and Insects" and it feels great as an artist to be challenged by the scale of this painting, although my poor little 300 sq ft studio is having a hard time adapting to this large format!  Get with it studio, No turning back!







]]> Wed, 30 Nov 2011 01:43:09 http://drawger.com/richarddowns/index.php?section=articles&article_id=12848

Here are some recent pieces that I have made. I continue to enjoy the challenges of creating identity artwork for lynda.com and I continue to be a huge fan of M.C. Escher, his work just speaks technology to me. I heard that M.C. Escher was a mathematical genius almost like a Stephen Hawking guy, he could visualize his compositions in his mind and draw them out effortlessly. No matter how hard I try to be influenced and apply his thinking into my technology work I just cannot do it but this will never stop me from trying as you can see in my work below. Over the last couple of years I have wanted to work big but could never afford the time to work on speculation for more than a couple of hours at a stretch. I lucked out recently by showing the little 8x8" painting below in a group show which landed me a commission for a 6' tall oil painting. This will be the first time in my career that I am able to spend a few weeks undisturbed on a painting without worrying about the electric bill and others piling up, yea. I am really looking forward to starting this painting next week, time to push scale and have a little fun.  



























]]> Sat, 19 Nov 2011 01:58:22 http://drawger.com/richarddowns/index.php?section=articles&article_id=12793

When I was a younger artist I looked with admiration to the few commercial artists with some stylistic range that could handle the serious and the comical in narrative material. Now closing in on 30 years of image making I have become one of those artists and,,, I like it that way. The mental and motor skills involved in solving technology, editorial, gallery work or teaching mixes it up enough for me to make it fun and not the continuous and never ending 9-5 routine. Here are a few recent pieces.  























]]> Thu, 03 Nov 2011 23:40:07 http://drawger.com/richarddowns/index.php?section=articles&article_id=12510

  This was a fun technology assignment for Art Director April Montgomery at Computerworld. With YouTube's ease of use, compatibility and cross-platform relevance corporations and their employee's are now using the YouTube interface for most in house video. This has become one of latest IT challenges in creating a safe and accessible network for all of this video. We had discussed one design direction being the taming of a YouTube Hydra beast. The Hydra research was so much fun that I have included some of the creative images that I found. Thank you, April for picking my favorite design.

On a personal note I looked back on the amount of Illustration that I have created for the fine folks at Computerworld. Peering back was a sweet walk through the dot com era up to today and It could be safe to say that Computerworld has supported a bit of the Downs style since 1997. My antiquated record system shows jobs for Janell Genovese, Nancy Kowal, Amara Harari, Susan Cahill, Julie Quinn, Owen Edwards and Stephanie Brockway. I enjoyed every minute of creating this piece for you, April! I have had a great history of collaboration with Computerworld, thank you guys!





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]]> Thu, 21 Oct 2010 14:20:15 http://www.downs-art.com/?section=news&article=16 I was on a big M.C. Escher kick while designing this title, here are todays sketches for a new Lynda.com DVD release, Revit 3. This application can be purchased within the suite of AutoCAD. Revit is purpose-built for building information modeling (BIM), Autodesk® Revit® Architecture building design software that helps architects and designers capture and analyze early concepts, and then better maintain designs through documentation and construction. Users will enjoy a more collaborative, integrated building design process by sharing essential BIM data with the partners, and use BIM workflows to help drive more efficient sustainable design analysis, clash detection, construction planning, and material fabrication. Hmm, I wonder which sketch they will pick?

]]> Tue, 29 Jun 2010 02:46:57 http://www.downs-art.com/?section=news&article=15 The New York Society of Illustrators informed me that this piece created for SooJin Buzelli at Plansponsor Magazine from the Editorial show has been selected for this years Illustrators 52 traveling show. This exhibition will be touring different galleries and schools across the United States. The tour dates are from September 2010 through July 2011.  

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