08/06/2025
“Son, Father, Grandfather Time”
1979, Acrylic on Paper, 24”h x 20”w
I created this work when I was a freshman in my first year of college at Florida State University in 1979. I had just started using acrylic paints in high school, and I had been developing a technique that combined acrylic paint, applied in thin layers, then finalized with color pencils. This was one of my first assignments in class at college where I employed this technique on a larger work.
I was already thinking like an art director, creating a narrative image. The typographic elements were a challenge I threw into my composition to make this more like a magazine cover illustration. I had been working with typography as a young freelance designer while in high school, creating designs for menus and business cards, using “press-type” to assemble words and phrases in my layouts. This was in a pre-digital era, when so much of this work was done by hand.
I have to say, looking back on this. I see how I embedded my own thoughts and feelings about my own family ancestry. While these faces don’t look like me, or anyone in my family. I do see them as stand-ins for myself, father and grandfather. I still get a good feeling of continuity when looking at this piece.
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I’m still available for commissions. However, I work digital now, and create animations as well as digital versions of my signature styles of illustration. Feel free to contact me about commercial work: [email protected]
This work and 17 other traditional illustrations from my career during the late 1980's and 1990's are on view at the Narrowsburg Union, in Narrowsburg, New York from July 5th - September 30th, 2025.
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