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Text Menu: Art Portfolio 1Portfolio 23D and Game ArtChildren's ArtSpotlightArt Artchive 1Art Artchive 2Diablo II GallerySketchesPrints Downloads Tips Links All images copyright (c) Michael Dashow Page last updated on October 25th, 2007 |
Welcome! This is the section of my portfolio that hilights art aimed at children and other images that are on the lighter side. Some of it is digital, but I've also been developing a lot of it with pencil and watercolors. (That means that in many cases there are original paintings of theser images. Please let me know if you're interested in purchasing an original painting.)
Two friends are taking a romp through the forest, going exploring, after school one day. This piece was done for my baby boy's room. Originally I only had the next piece, 'The Gorilla at the Zoo' in the to-be-the-baby's room, but decided that I wanted a "boy" piece for the room, not just a "girl" piece. But essentially, they're pretty similar. I consider this a companion piece to the other. (It matches the curtains better, too.) You can see details and some work in progress shots here.
Every month or two the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators hosts contests on their site for both writers and illustrators. In May 2004, the theme of the competition was "capturing a child's sense of wonder at the County Fair, the Zoo or the Circus." This was my entry, for which I came in second place. You can see the other notable entries at their contest site. I liked the idea of the zoo so I showed a girl being shown around by a big, friendly gorilla. There are other animals around too, but you it's hard to see them here. You can see the entire thing and the details in a larger version of this image.
Another large piece that you're only seeing a part of here. It's actually a really long and there's a whole bunch more of the forest that she's already run through... Heck don't take my word for it, just see the larger version of this image. That's the nice thing about doing images that aren't necessarily for book covers: I have the luxury of working in some interesting proportions. In the full piece, you still don't know exactly what she's running for... but it's clear that it's glowing green and not all that far behind her!
This is a personal piece, not for a book cover or poster, despite the fact that it looks like a literacy program advertisement. I'd had the idea for this piece for a long time before I really got to work painting it. I'd had the sketch scanned in but got sidetracked with something or another. When the 2001 WorldCon rolled around, I found myself wanting to do one more new image for the art show. I started working on something else but then stumbled upon the finished sketch for this illustration and decided to work on it instead. You can't see it here - it's even hard to see it on the large, printed artwork - but all of the book titles are fantasy books and childrens' classics. Talia and I had a lot of fun picking out the titles to use. Some of them are pretty obvious (James and the Giant Peach, Alice in Wonderland, Arabian Knights to name a few) but others are more obscure (like The Talking Parcel and Nobody's Son.)
Not too much to say about this particular image, as it pretty much speaks for itself: Like 'Olympic Games' (See Portfolio 2) it's a reimagining of a Greek myth in a modern setting. Only this one is Medusa as a little girl. (Yes, I know in the actual myth, Medusa was a beautiful woman cursed by the gods and she didn't grow up like that. But I got tho thinking, what if she had grown up with her curse? She'd be accidetally turning playmates to stone. Awwwww. :( You can see the details a lot better here.
Another fun piece, a little dritter roasting marshmallows over the flame of a possibly disgruntled dragon. My wastercolor class was really enthusiastic about how soft the light in the background is, especially in comparison to the more sharp foreground rendering. There is, of course, a bit more of the background in the larger painting, which you can see here.
Sometimes I start work on a painting because I have some grand idea in my head. For the 'Skeleton Forest,' it was the idea of the background itself and the wide composition. For 'Impromptu First Contact,' it was the whole concept of communicating with aliens using a sock puppet. But for other paintings, simpler things are the inspiration. Here, I had sketched a kid with his hand resting on his cheek and was wonderring what to do with it. What did his expression convey? A sort of rolling of the eyes, a sardonic smile. I have no idea where the Barbarian who is bad at checkers came from. Sometimes it just happens that way!
This was another piece done for a contest sponsored by the Society of Children's Book Writers and Illustrators. This particular "assignment" was to do an illo about a children's fort or secret hiding place. .. not that I grew up with cardboard spaceships, mind you: Mine were made out of woden bookcases and Giant Tinkertoys, one of the coolest construction toys of all time! Anyhow, I was once again a runner up. All of the winners can be seen at the SCBWI site. And by a fun coincidence, my wife Talia and I were also runners up the same month for the site's sponsored writer's contest! anyhow, you can see the larger painting here.
An illustration for another contest from the SCBWI. The theme was, not surprisingly, Valentine's Day: Specifically, to do an illustration of any Valentine's image from any time in history. There was also a writing contest for the same time period, on doing a Velentine's Day card for some animals. In my head, the two got shuffled and I did an illustration of the animals. It worked out better this way.
Two travellers pause on a forest pathway to debat which way to go next. The challenge of this piece, and the reason I wanted to tackle it, was to convey both the boy and the dog as engaged in an intelligent debate. Not without a touch of acrimony perhaps, but you have to get the idea that each of them has his mind set and is arguing his point. I really wanted to convey, without resorting to words, that this is a talking dog. I'm just happy it looks kind of like a dog. This is a full-fledged watercolor painting, not digital. You can see more of the details in a larger version of this image.
A medium-sized watercolor painting, done for no other reason than to get the image out of my head and onto paper. I wanted to mix the two worlds, the old full of magic and witchcraft and familiars and inexplicable wonderment, and the new magic: stuff like iPods and other amazingly cool technology which would also pass for magic in some other world or time. As Arthur C. Clarke said, and sufficiently advanced technology will be indistinguishable from magic. So are we sufficiently advanced yet? Anyhow, at this small size, it's really hard to even tell she's got her iPod on. Zoom in to see a larger view.
After years of doing childrens' illustrations for others' kids, it's finally time to have some of my own. On January 27th, 2007, my wife Talia and I welcomed our son Zachary into the world. This is my wife's and my birth announcement and thank you card for our baby shower.
One of the pieces in my portfolio is of a rhinoceros speaking with a philosophy professor. It's an illustration from the Peter Beagle collection The Rhinoceros Who Quoted Nietzsche," which I did for Jacob Weisman of Tachyon Publications, with whom I have had a very long acquaintance and have done a lot of covers for. (In fact, at the time, I was doing all of his covers. Jacob was so happy with the illo that he also commissioned me to create Tachyon's log, which is a rhinoceros at a typewriter. When Jacob and his partner Rina got married, I knew exactly what my present would have to be: A rhinoceros painting. Inveterate book lovers, Rina and Jacob together had so many books that when they moved in together, they needed to rent extra storage space for their collections. So it seemed entirely appropriate to put them in a bed surrounded by novels... Not just any old books, but all of their favorites. Click here to see a closer view of some of the titles. Continue on to the rest of my portfolio. |
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