Before I start explaining this piece I should start by explaining where this piece comes from. Although Illustration Friday is a great motivation to do some artwork and play with styles I wouldn’t normally feel comfortable playing with on a clients piece, I feel it’s also a little to easy to fall into one’s usually safety nets with these self motivated assignments. This week, in order to push myself, while waiting for the illustrationfriday website to refresh and for the new theme to be announced I laid out a few ground rules; no mater what the topic, my illustration would include at least three people and a complex background.

And so it is, with at least three people and a background, this weeks topic is ‘Twirl’. The theme for this piece is grounded in the hair twirl. The concept for this piece based around body language, the flitting hair twirl, the ‘social mirroring’, and the couple who are obviously disinterested.

My sketch for this started off really rough while I worked out the composition.

From there I cleaned things up a bit before blocking in some color.

Then the next step is to destroy everything and paint over, then paint over again and again until many hours later, voila! except for some details to make it pop, it’s finished.

As always, I’m just trying to experiment and to learn something new. Comments and feedback are always welcome.

all images ©jeff szuc Jeff Szuc illustration

I found a two for one motivation to create something today. I’ve been really busy with the paperwork side of things ever since I got back from the holidays and felt like I needed a creative break this afternoon so I turned to illustration Friday for an excuse for a little sketchbook drawing. This week’s topic was ‘prepare’. I racked my brain on it for awhile until I thought up my two-for-one concept of pairing it with a flickr ‘what I wore today‘ post.

It’s cold out now and this is what I have to put on to prepare for the winter outside. From the toe up: Black Sorel boots, black Naked and Famous jeans, black Kennith Cole jacket, black Banana Republic fingerless hobo gloves, black wool scarf from UniQlo, a black wool tuque that was a freebie from the last place I worked, a black leather messenger bag for my laptop and sketchbook, and finally, my black AKG headphones to keep my ears warm.

all images ©jeff szuc Jeff Szuc illustration

This is my New Years eve NYC promo card for 2012. Please share, enjoy, and all the best in 2012, cuz  It’s NYE in NYC and there ain’t no party like a hipster party.

This piece is also the inaugural post marking the launch of the new URL for my blog, the redesign of my site, and the display of much new work. The New Year’s resolutions have started early this year so update your bookmarks if you have them, 2012 will be the year of updates and promo.

all images ©jeff szuc Jeff Szuc illustration

This is a reworking of my figure drawing from my last post. I thought I’d bring it into Photoshop and try out some new style.

all images ©jeff szuc Jeff Szuc illustration

An Illustration Friday creation based on the theme ‘Fuel’. Stylistically, this like all my Friday pieces is a complete departure from what’s in my illustration portfolio, though this one somewhat less so. In discussing style, it was Joe Sorren who once said to me that medium dictates style, that if he did charcoal drawings he would do something completely different. That being said, Here is my newest installment in my quest to find my digital voice: Crossing Swords.

And, as always, my favorite part of a piece is the closeup details:

all images ©jeff szuc Jeff Szuc illustration