dantat.com

Wall Street Journal

One of the reasons why I don't pursue editorial illustration more intensely is because most of the freelance jobs I get were pretty boring. "Draw a picture for an article about hedge funds." or "Do an illustraiton about family benefit plans at Fortune 500 companies."

Blah.

Meanwhile I see Roberto Parada busting out some super amazing illo of some fun caricature of an actor in Men's Journal or Entertainment Weekly. I'm sure if I had those kind of jobs I'd be way more pumped to do them. This was one such project. It was a Wall Street Journal article about the current state of our economic affairs and  they even requested for a caricature of Ben Bernanke.

I think I spent way more time on this than I normally would have. Look at that bear shine!

The Homework Machine- Repackage

Hey, life isn't all just doing fun paintings for a gallery show. I still have a mountain of freelance work I have to tame. Meanwhile
, my own graphic novel
is only getting 5% of my attention *sigh*

This is a painting for a repackaged Dan Gutman book cover I'm doing for Harpercollins called "The Homework Machine" I did the original cover about 5 years ago and then they wanted a unified look for the whole series and asked me to repaint a bunch of covers, this one included. They were looking specifically for a single character on each cover. The Homework Machine was about 4 kids and read like a police report which is why I originally went with a police file cover. I liked the execution of this piece but I liked the concept of the old cover better.

The Monster That Ate the Stars

Yet another piece for the Gallery 1988 show. I took a simple digital
photo because this was too big to scan.

A work in progress

For the Gallery 1988 show.
I'm not really diggin' the black so I thinkin' I'm gonna go back into it and fix 'er up.

El Oso (The Bear)

Just whipping up more paintings for the Gallery 1988 show in May. This one is my biggest painting yet 19 X 24 inches on bristol paper stained with coffee and painted with black ink and acrylic. The paper still reeks of coffee so I get a good buzz just smelling it. I haven't scanned this sucker in yet so for now it's just this photo.

Myspace: Our Planet

I should mention that Myspace: Our Planet was released a few weeks ago and it has spot art all done by yours truly. This is one of Brenda Bowen's first releases from her new imprint at Harpercollins.
If you'd like to purchase the book you can go here.

I don't get any residuals but, hey, nothing wrong about promoting a more "green" lifestyle.

By the way, I DID NOT DO THE COVER

A Wedding Gift

Well, I clearly had to get something out of my system because this was the fifth painting I completed this week. I'm going away to San Diego this weekend to attend my old college roommates wedding and since I know they'll soon try to have kids I figured this little number would go well in his/her room.

Rosie Palms

I'm not sure if I conveyed the message I wanted to in this painting so I may or may not put it in the Gallery 1988 show.
Overall I'm pretty horrible at drawing women because I'm always drawing monsters and animals. Anyhoo, if you think you can figure this piece out you can help me out by leaving a comment and taking a guess. The title of this piece is - The Women I Have "Loved" Oh yes, we children's book illustrators don't always paint ponies and rainbows.

NOTE: If anything, I think I was fairly successful with my color choices.

Beware of Bears and Flying Wagons

I have to say, I totally forgot how much fun it was to paint whatever I wanted to with real brushes and so I ended up spending the whole day painting yesterday. The bear piece is for a show at the Nucleus Gallery. The wagon piece is for Gallery 1988.

Hmmmm..... With all the new painted work I've added lately this site is getting pretty colorful!

Hope

I haven't told anyone this but I'm going to be in my first big gallery exhibition here in Los Angeles in May at Gallery 1988. I'm going to have ten pieces in the show and I'm looking forward to taking this opportunity to expand my career into gallery art. It's one of those things where I want to have more of an opportunity to paint whatever I want. Keep visiting the site and you'll see more pieces as they are completed.