excerpt from 'lovejoy'
~ note: above gallery contains pieces completed through 2015; updated gallery (coming soon) will add pieces from 2016-17 ~
in 2012, after thirty years as a nasa aerospace engineer and technical manager, i was fortunate enough to stumble into my dream job: being full-time artist for the international space station (iss) program. below you'll find a representative sampling of the work i've done for the agency since then. my hope is that i can, through my art, connect with people who wonder why we endeavor to establish a human presence beyond this cradle we call 'earth' at all. there are numerous publications which defend this use of tax dollars on the basis of the manifold return on investment the space program yields by way of spinoff product lines and industries; my goal is to explain the intangible driver behind our efforts: that nearly spiritual need to explore, to be challenged, and to overcome those challenges knowing full well that even greater ones await us once we succeed. i want to convey the grandeur and cosmic beauty of the places we strive to explore, and therewith engender excitement among space enthusiasts and heretofore skeptical members of the general public alike; perhaps even to entice more of them to join us in our grand adventure to strive, to explore, to learn... in short, to live!
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featured space image of the day - a 2017 hand-drawn poster, titled: devourer of sols:
featured space image of the day - a 2017 hand-drawn poster, titled: devourer of sols:
~ click on images below for enlarged views ~
artwork
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photoartistry
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videos
instructional
creating photorealistic drawings in powerpoint, 2013
note: video will appear to be stretched vertically due to weebly's video format conversion algorithm. click the youtube button above for a half-length (3 min.) but dimensionally correct version of the movie, or download and watch it full-screen for the best experience. click the button labeled 'mj article' for a related nasa story on me and my space-related art.
Click 'play' on any of the tracks under the album cover below to hear some of the music I've begun
composing to accompany my NASA videos... |
artworks from beginning-to-end ~ a glimpse or two into my creative process
here's a work-in-progress glimpse into the creation of one of my professional works, 'walking on the air' (inspired by my colleagues' amazing video 'walking on air,' featuring howard blake's haunting music 'walking in the air'); further insights into my techniques can be seen in slideshow & video tutorials on the potpourri page
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...and another concept-to-product look, this time at the development of a poster...
the challenge levied on me by my management was to draw a poster that embodies the concept of 'pride' - an intellectual concept not easily depicted using concrete subjects/images. the first panel below most definitely shows a work in progress; it is only a mockup at this stage, with the sole major drawn element being earth, and that's merely a rough sketch. successive snapshots added since then chronicle the addition of a star field, global features, and minor elements depicting some of the many designs conceived and discarded en route to the final configuration orbiting overhead today. i'll let you decide if the final product met the challenge! :)
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