http://drawger.com/richarddowns/ Wed, 16 May 2012 12:31:45 EDT FeedCreator 1.7.2 http://drawger.com/_images/drawger_leo_logo.gif http://drawger.com/richarddowns http://drawger.com/richarddowns/index.php?section=articles&article_id=13336

The Crocker art museum in Sacramento California holds one art auction every year. This is a juried event and for Northern California artists it is the annual competition not to miss. This will be the first year that my work has been selected and I am honored and thrilled to have the Crocker acknowledge my work. This year 130 works and artists were selected for the art auction 2012 and 100 of those pieces came from artists and estates that are in the permanent museum collection. The 130 pieces will be divided into 2 silent auctions and 1 live auction. My piece was fortunate enough to make the live auction and although it has the lowest starting bid of all of the work I would like to use this analogy to talk it up, "Always buy the cheapest house in the best neighborhood!". The auction is described as: "The Crocker Art Auction is the best opportunity of the year to collect works of art by the region's most distinguished artists. The casually elegant evening begins with a silent auction in the second floor galleries, followed by a gourmet dinner and an exciting live auction." Gwyn Stramler was also selected for the auction with one of her multi-dimensional works and it will be fun showing together at the same event. Big thanks from both of us to Museum Director Lial A. Jones and Chief Curator Scott A. Shields.  





Both Gwyn and myself will be donating works to another event at the Crocker called, "Big Names, Small Art". This silent auction will kick off the auction season a week earlier. This has become the party of the year with art, music, food and a fun night out. Proceeds support the exhibitions and education programs of the Crocker Art Museum. We both will be going to this event and we hope to see you there! Thu, May 24, 2012  6:00 PM - 9:00 PM  



]]> Tue, 15 May 2012 06:27:40 EDT http://drawger.com/richarddowns/index.php?section=articles&article_id=13309

Here are some recent DVD covers that I have created for Lynda.com. These pieces are always a fun challenge to design and graphically portray a software program with elegance. These assignments give me the opportunity to explore my personal interest in both Architecture, Industrial Design and M.C. Escher. This art will be used both as banners for the website and  printed covers for the DVD's. It was great to see Lynda.com as an event sponsor for the upcoming ICON7 The Illustration Conference, good job!. Big thanks to art director Heather Stallings.  



























]]> Tue, 01 May 2012 21:11:59 EDT http://drawger.com/richarddowns/index.php?section=articles&article_id=13265

"Memory"   group show Sacramento Temporary Contemporary May 10, 2012 - Preview Opening 6-9pm May 12, 2012 - Saturday Opening 6-9pm Exhibit May 4 - May 27, 2012   I will be part of this fun little group show. If you are in the area please drop on by!



I have moved my studio and I am thrilled with my new space. No longer will I be backing into walls or bumping my paintings against studio cabinets. Just in time with my new studio move is a new private commission for a large scale oil painting. The sketches above were the final favorites with the client picking #3 titled, "Cooking with Spices". The final  painting will be installed in the dinning area of a So Cal collector. I haven't started the piece yet but, hey! I have a nice space to paint it out in.  



Creating my piece for the "Memory" show I pulled some extra time to make some new Monotypes to add to my "Couples" series. I can't believe that I hadn't done a new "Couples" piece since 2011. All of these pieces will be placed into different galleries.













  On a professional illustration note I was honored to receive word that these 2 pieces have been selected for American Illustration 31.Thank you, to all of the judges!

]]> Fri, 13 Apr 2012 14:08:47 EDT http://drawger.com/richarddowns/index.php?section=articles&article_id=13194

This is a recent assignment for Steven Banks, Design Director at Los Angeles Magazine. Steve called me and some other illustrators to create the art for a special issue of essays exploring race relations in Los Angeles since the Los Angeles riots 20 years ago this month. Steve has been a big supporter of my work for the last 20 years and took notice of my recent acrylic and oil paintings and called for a painting for this special issue. Steve wanted to show a different side of my work and I was a very enthusiastic, "Right on!"  This is an illustrated essay by writer, Erin Aubry Kaplan. Erin reflected on her childhood in 1972 while being bused to a very white school in Westchester from her home in very black South Central Los Angeles, it was a touching and unique perspective from this very successful contemporary writer. Steve mentioned that the section opener had not been assigned yet so I took the opportunity  to create some designs that spoke to race relations in Los Angeles, I didn't get the cover so it will be fun to see who landed it!    Thank you for the fun assignment, Steve!













]]> Mon, 19 Mar 2012 19:30:45 EDT http://drawger.com/richarddowns/index.php?section=articles&article_id=13167

I landed this private commission after a couple had seen my,  "The 10 Senses" painting at a benefit auction for Trails & Vistas in Truckee,  California. They went on to purchase a few of my works on paper and a few months ago they contacted me and said, "We want a big painting in your style for our bedroom".  Cool!, but I had no idea what they were after. This couple is environmental, they have a fabulous Koi pond and enjoy specimen gardening.  With a bit of verbal direction I threw together some ideas to get us started and the overall response to my sketches was, "We love the Hummingbird and the Dragonfly". That was it, I worked out some redesigns and with some back and forth we agreed on the final concept and the size. With the final drawing approved I had just finished the easy part. I designed this piece on 8x11" sheets of paper and when I enlarged it to 52" I was shocked when the Hummingbird stretched out to around 2 feet tall. This 3" designed bird was now magnified to the physical size of a young Condor. Everything at this level of scale was new to me. Wings, feathers and texture, the entire painting was a learning process and I had a blast making it for them.  I am not a traditional easel painter and I have always painted flat on a table surface like I am drawing with a brush. This piece was so big that I needed to tape foamcore bumpers on my studio cabinets to keep the sides from getting beat up during the process of rotating it around to paint different areas. My arm wasn't even long enough to hit the center and many times I found myself standing on my tippy toes trying to achieve the correct painting angle to get certain areas rendered. It was a fabulous project and it pushed every bit of my aesthetic and it also maxed out a manageable scale of work in my current 10x30' studio. I am now totally stoked to be moving into my new studio that can handle any level of scale without me backing into things and putting bumpers on my cabinets.  























]]> Tue, 06 Mar 2012 23:35:19 EDT http://drawger.com/richarddowns/index.php?section=articles&article_id=13133

Are you ready for real time Google Glasses? They will go on sale to the public at the end of this year. They will be Android-based and navigation will be intuitive with a quick head joggle and available with both 3G and 4G data connections. A Google spokesman declined to comment on this secret project. I did this piece for the good folks at the New York Times and for the Business Section. Art Direction: James Best  Thank you, James!



]]> Thu, 23 Feb 2012 01:02:10 EDT http://downs-art.com/?section=news&article=24 Here are a few newly Illustrated DVD covers for the good folks at Lynda.com. The challenge of designing business application covers becomes the lack of tangible symbolism. Without the obvious metaphors and symbols of the real world I looked closely at the interface design of the applications and built my designs in a very architectural and structural manner. This set of pieces were both a challenge and a blast to create. Thank you, Lynda.com  

]]> Tue, 19 Apr 2011 19:18:45 EDT http://downs-art.com/?section=news&article=23 When: March 10, 2011 - Thursday Preview Opening 6-9pm March 12, 2011 - 2nd Saturday Opening 6-9pm March 10 - April 2, 2011 Where: Sacramento Temporary Contemporary

]]> Mon, 07 Mar 2011 00:50:26 EDT http://downs-art.com/?section=news&article=19 I was happy and honored to hear that these Sea Turtle Monotypes were juried into the Illustrators 53 Institutional Exhibit. These pieces were part of a series created through an invitation by the Sea Turtle Restoration Project to participate in a show and benefit titled, "Save Them All" to help restore habitat destroyed by the BP oil spill. Thank you, Society of Illustrators!

]]> Fri, 03 Dec 2010 01:19:20 EDT http://downs-art.com/?section=news&article=18 Here are some new DVD covers for my friends at Lynda.com. The most difficult cover to solve in this suite of Illustrations was Excel which is bundled with Microsoft Office. Not much to grab onto for graphic symbolism other than staring at the interface for inspiration, I was happy with my abstraction of the bar graphs. Art Direction, Heather Stallings

]]> Thu, 21 Oct 2010 14:20:15 EDT http://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 EDT http://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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