Cliff Knecht Artist Representative

Baby Santa Children’s Book by Phil Wilson

Cliff — Mon, 20 Feb 2012 18:25:42 +0000

Baby Santa and the Lost Letters – a delightful children’s book illustrated by Phil Wilson. Baby Santa, the youngest member of the Claus family, was introduced in a previous Christmas book that Phil also illustrated. In this story, Santa and his elves are ready to finish making presents when they discover that the mailbox is empty – the last delivery of children’s letters is lost!

Baby Santa relies on his quick wits, his winning attitude, and endless energy to solve the problem with help from remarkable animal characters around the globe. It becomes an amazing race with friends on every continent to save the holidays. Published by Greenleaf Book Group with author M. Maitland DeLand M.D., the story is a remarkable Christmas adventure for all young children. Here are a few of the illustrations that appear in the inside of the book.

Puzzlemania by Peter Grosshauser

Cliff — Tue, 07 Feb 2012 18:10:53 +0000

During the past year Petter Grosshauser created numerous illustrations for Puzzlemania Magazine – a creation of Highlights For Children. Each magazine contained chances to solve puzzles, navigate mazes, and find hidden pictures among many activities for young children. Peter created “hidden picture” illustrations where kids would look for hidden objects, items that should not be in the scene, etc. These are a few of the illustrations that appeared in the various issues. Click on the images to see the entire scenes.

Road Runners Logo by Bob Scott

Cliff — Thu, 02 Feb 2012 17:47:18 +0000

Bob Scott’s assignment was to create a logo visual for the Steel City Road Runners Club. This was to be part of the annual Pittsburgh Marathon to be held in May, 2012. The client asked for a 1930′s “socialistic” style – stylistic & graphic. After a series of concept rough sketches Bob came up with this illustration and the client added the typeface.

Website Art by George Schill

Cliff — Tue, 24 Jan 2012 15:32:57 +0000

ShowClix is an online ticketing system that provides event ticketing software to help manage all aspects of ticketing operations. Venues and event promoters around the world work with them to manage their online ticketing, telephone support and sales, box office operations, admissions, and event promotion. They were looking for a new concept illustration for their website home page and commissioned George Schill to illustrate the idea of Millions of Tickets Delivered…Events Powered by Innovation. After a series of concept rough sketches George came up with the idea of a ticket contraption.

Cover Art by Tim Lee

Cliff — Thu, 19 Jan 2012 19:16:01 +0000

Tim Lee received an editorial assignment from Strategic Finance Magazine – his goal was to illustrate the cover using the theme of an article – A Cost-Benefit Tool For Sustainability. His solution was a nice conceptual illustration featuring a scale.

New Digital Style by Larry Jones

Cliff — Mon, 09 Jan 2012 18:19:28 +0000

Larry Jones has created a series of new illustrations that digitally show a nice clean design look. The art is built in Illustrator and then textured in Photoshop. Something to think about for your next project!

The Legend of St. Nicholas

Cliff — Sat, 17 Dec 2011 16:20:34 +0000

As most of us know the legend of St. Nicholas goes back hundreds upon hundreds of years to various European countries. He had different names depending on the country and some historians believe that a Bishop in Asia Minor became St. Nicholas as far back as 325 A.D.! Legend states that after his death on December 6 he was adopted as the patron saint of children and this became St. Nicholas Day. For centuries, children were visited on that night by a gift bearing old man with a long white beard who rode on a horse. Over the years he went through many name changes – Father Christmas, Pere Noel, etc. depending on country and religion and he also developed a split personality or alter ego – meaning he could either reward or punish. That brings me to my name – Knecht – and German heritage! In Germany, St. Nicholas’ alter ego was Knecht Rupert who rewarded good children with fruit but in most cases arrived to frighten the naughty ones. Maybe I’m related to him! Many years ago I acquired this original newspaper illustration of Knecht Rupert from the December 25, 1880 issue of The Queen – notice the frightened looks of two of the children!

Our modern Santa Claus is a composite figure, drawn from the history, legends, and folklore of many countries. He evolved from a Saint, was demoted to a somewhat evil gift bearer at times, and finally became the jolly, robust character that children know and love today. Over the years our artists have illustrated many Santas for Christmas projects – here are a few of them. Enjoy them – they will bring a smile to your face during this holiday season!

Media Bullpen Website by George Schill

Cliff — Tue, 06 Dec 2011 13:38:08 +0000

George Schill’s assignment was for the Media Bullpen, the Center for Education Reform’s website which brings accountability to national education reporting and “scores” stories across the media. The site redesign was to have a baseball theme, and George was called upon to create a series of banners and spot art using education, baseball, and media metaphors. Here is a typical sheet of idea doodles sent to the client.

After approvals and working with their color palette, the final art was created in Photoshop. Here is a sampling of banners and spot art that is used throughout the site. Click on the thumbnails to enlarge.

Old Testament Mural by Peter Grosshauser

Cliff — Tue, 15 Nov 2011 12:15:13 +0000

We were approached by the Central Lutheran Church of Minneapolis, MN concerning a very exciting mural project. Peter Grosshauser had illustrated a beautiful bible story book for young children for Augsburg Fortress Publishers and the church wanted a mural created in the same art style that would be exciting for children to view. The theme would be the Old Testament. The wall space for the mural would be 56 feet in length by roughly 8 feet high! We explained to the client that it would be impossible to paint the mural on site due to the sheer size, amount of time to complete, travel restrictions, cost, etc. Peter came up with a great idea of illustrating the mural digitally in three sections after approval of sketches.

Peter then sent the digital files to a supplier in California who printed the art on flexible canvas. The “rolled-up” canvas panels were shipped to our client and they mounted all three on frames and secured them to the wall. They were delighted with the end result – a great solution for the project! Enclosed is a picture of the mounted murals that was sent to us – not a great picture but at least you get an idea of the sheer size!

Digital Portraits by Garry Colby

Cliff — Fri, 04 Nov 2011 15:02:22 +0000

In an earlier post I discussed how Garry Colby created an oil portrait of Donald Trump – a different approach from his normal digital style. Obviously, painting on canvas is time consuming. In the real world we are well aware that clients want artwork created quickly due to tight deadlines. So…back to portrait illustration created digitally!

The stylized portraits of Barak Obama and Sarah Palin started with a pencil sketch and then a comp in acrylic. Final rendering was completed in Photoshop.

Using another approach for the portrait of Ron Paul – Garry created a sepia of the b&w sketch and “toned” the paper. Final rendering again completed in Photoshop. The advantage of creating these illustrations digitally? As opposed to a traditional oil painting – all of these portraits can be accomplished in 1-3 days!