Marc Scheff's Illustration

Surprise Gift

Marc — Sat, 31 Oct 2009 05:47:43 +0000

I got home today and found a mysterious gift on my doorstep. On the mat was a hand-made envelope and two pieces of folded paper. Inside the note there were hand-cut hearts decorated with designs in pencil. Folded on top of that were two portraits, one of me and one of Chloe. It would have taken me ages to figure it out, but thankfully the mystery artist signed her name. My seven year-old neighbor, who has come over to draw on occasion, has hit a streak of inspiration and has left us a few original pieces. We’re very touched, and we hope she enjoys seeing them on our door when she walks by each day.

iPhone double down

Marc — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 14:39:40 +0000

Last night I went to the kickoff for the NYC AAU (Academy of Art University) chapter, and then hoofed it over with Piya to the Figure Drawing for Illustrators session. I forgot my glasses (doh) which made working a challenge but all the more interesting to see what came out.

I also found this piece, which I don’t think I’ve posted yet.

NERD cast

Marc — Thu, 29 Oct 2009 07:21:21 +0000

Jordu Schell is a brilliant sculptor, and has a dirty mouth. Ok, truth be told, Scott Brundage has the dirty mouth. Jordu runs a podcast called NERDcast and one night up at Racebrook we recorded a session with Jordu, Scott, the legendary Boris Vallejo and Julie Bell, Dave Palumbo and Dina, Tony Palumbo and Winona Nelson, Lars Grant-West and his wife, Ben Foster, Dan Dos Santos, Arkady Roytman, Dave Seely, Justin Gerard, and the man only known as “Cyril.”

Wow, what a roster! It was an honor to geek out with these brilliant illustrators.

Hear it here, and I’m not kidding, it’s not clean. You’ve been warned.

http://schellstudio.com/blog/2009/10/20/n-e-r-d-cast-19/

Note: All of these folks have web sites with their work. Their sites are listed at the end of the podcast.

Phoenix Splash

Marc — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 15:46:36 +0000

Another exercise. I liked the style of the last post, and it felt good to do, so I did another.

Staying loose

Marc — Tue, 27 Oct 2009 03:13:10 +0000

Sometimes painting feels like trying to run through a swimming pool of Elmer’s glue. When things get sticky, I try to break things up, maybe go for a run with the dog, break for food, walk around, something. When that’s not enough, I’ll switch pieces that I’m working on. Tonight, when everything was getting mucky, and just not coming together, I started something new. I set out to

create something fun
obey no rules
be done in about 20 minutes, and not go back

This is what happened.

Back to iPhone

Marc — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 04:36:13 +0000

I’ve been busy with work and personal projects, but I made it back to a figure drawing session, and back on the iPhone.

Spirit Gallery Show

Marc — Sat, 17 Oct 2009 14:00:16 +0000

I’m currently showing some work at the Spirit Gallery.

207 Bank Street, New London, CT

My apologies for so few posts lately. I’ve been working mostly on client work, but I have a personal piece I’ll post progress on soon.

Figure drawing, with character

Marc — Thu, 01 Oct 2009 03:38:42 +0000

At tonight’s figure drawing session, I asked the model to think of a character for each pose. Here is his final pose.

Drawn Today

Marc — Tue, 29 Sep 2009 21:22:47 +0000

I participate in a group blog called Drawn Today. A group of artists post sketches, works in progress, and some final pieces. This image is the kind of thing I post over there.

This image is a “frankenstein” image. It’s a collage of photos and paint that I’ve put together as a map for a final illustration. I’ll take this and draw it on a gessoed panel next week and paint.

Here is the story:

Branwen’s Sword

A girl in a small english village, who loves ocean has a long eel/fish/dragon tattoo. One night, she finds a sword washed up on beach. she takes it home, and marvels at how well-preserved it is for having been in the ocean for who-knows-how-long. Over the course of the story she discovers that the sword has great power, and was sent to her by Branwen, the goddess of the sea. A dark force has risen and slain all of Branwen’s kin, and imprisoned her (motives TBD). Just before she was trapped, using the last of her power she sent her magic encased in a sword to her one remaining kin: our heroine. The girl finds out that she is not her mother’s daughter, but was in fact adopted by her parents after Branwen seduced her father. The story tells a little of the girl’s mother’s feelings on all of this, and we learn about the girl via her mother’s devotion and resolve to take her husband back after his tryst with a goddess. By way of learning all of this, she discovers her latent powers to speak to not just sea-creatures, but the sea itself, and her tattoo becomes a vessel for her real mother, Branwen, to speak through. With all of this, she realizes that she is the only one who can go and save Branwen, and in fact the world.

Figure Drawing

Marc — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 15:28:43 +0000

I organize a figure drawing session in Brooklyn. These are a few of the drawings from the past two sessions. The ones of Jamie are 2 and 5 minute poses, and the one of Lior was about 40 minutes.