OK... It’s been a really long time since my last post. Sorry about that.

This year has been nuts!

For the last several months, I’ve been working overtime trying to complete a huge project for Macmillan Publishing as well as two books for Benchmark Education and I’ve barely had time to keep my head above water. And as a result, I neglected the website updates and my portfolio.

As the next month or so progresses, I plan on adding a few more tweaks to the site in an effort to make it more interactive.

Again, my apologies for not keeping up with everything. I plan on being much more on people’s screens the year comes to a close and the new one begins...

Take care!

-G

Please for give the horrible lapse in my blogging these last few months. As soon as October hit, I got so wrapped up in other things that I just let it go and by the time Christmas hit I realized I hadn't bothered to post anything!

But happily, some of the distraction came from a series of projects that came my way!

One project came from Scholastic publishers in England for a 4-page story leaflet for young readers. It was titled The Giant's Smelly Feet, by Alison Milford.



This project was really fun as it marks the beginning of my foray into children's illustration.

It isn't the only children's project I was approached about since October. I'm currently beginning work on a project with Macmillan Publishers on a language workbook for kids. I won't be able to post any pieces from that project until it sees publication later in the year but I will keep you posted when it comes out.

I also was approached by a cool design studio in Seattle, Washington called Rocket Dog. They initially spoke to me about doing a few projects that fell through due to scheduling conflicts and such, but we eventually got together for a studio promotional they want to send to past clients.

Rocket Dog's look is retro space imagery and they wanted to do a series of cocktail drink coasters, each with a different pinup-style girl in a space theme. Here are a few of my faves...

On the opposite side will be a cocktail recipe appropo to the different glasses in each drawing.

Susan and Tim at Rocket Dog are the coolest and they really gave me a lot of latitude with this project!

Anyway, I hope you forgive me for not posting in so long. I hope to do better as the new year begins.

Take care and Happy New Year!

You've probably noticed that the site colors have been altered for Fall!

Fall is my favorite time of the year. I love when the sun is no longer directly overhead, I love the cooler evenings, I love the smell of someone's distant fireplace. And, of course, the explosion of color all over the landscape.

While I lived in South Florida, we had only two seasons: Humid and Less Humid. As a result, I missed Fall for about 9 years. But since moving to Colorado, Fall has become an Event! The aspen trees go nuts! Farmers cut mazes in their cornfields! Orange and red is everywhere.

Anyway, I hope you enjoy yourselves this season and get ready... Halloween is around the corner!

I just recently finished this illustration for Theatreworks USA, a children's theater company in New York City. Really fun project and the marketing coordinator was great to work with! The name of the play is THE PLANT THAT ATE DIRTY SOCKS. Based on the series of kid's books by Nancy McArthur, the play is set to begin production in 2008.

This piece will be used for promotional posters, flyers and ticket stubs.

I don't normally use such a strong color as the purple in the background but I wanted something that would make the green of the plant pop and also catch the eye of kids.

Finally!

The summer issue of Teen Magazine just hit the newsstands and inside is the Summer Fun Book! It's a removeable activity booklet with puzzles and games and most of the illustrations inside were done by yours truly. The art director gave me the opportunity to work on the cover and interior pieces and it was a blast!

If you get a chance, go to Barnes and Noble or Borders and pick up a copy.

I've just gone through the process of adding a new URL to my site: www.geraldkelley.com. It finally came available and I got it.

I'm always asked why I selected geraldoillustrates.com to begin with. Geraldo was my nickname given me by my brothers while growing up. Gotta love the era of Geraldo Rivera's talk show. I thought using it as my URL was a neat idea at the time but its gotten too cumbersome as I work at streamlining my online work. It also got too tiring to spell out every time I needed to give out my email address over the phone.

So for the time being, both addresses will get you here and my old email address will continue to work. But I will eventually ditch geraldoillustrates.com permanently so please update your bookmarks and email information.

Take care!

-G

Here's another piece I just finished for the activity booklet featured in this summer's issue of Teen Magazine.

I just finished working on a front and back cover illustration for a removable activity booklet going in the next issue of Teen Magazine.

This was a lot of fun to work on. The folks at Teen Magazine really are great to work with. Check out the portfolio and see the full piece.

Working with the local CW network affiliate, I created loose caricatures of Regis Philbin, Kelly Ripa and Martha Stewart for a spot promoting the station's programming lineup. After working out the basic drawings, I animated them using After Effects. Once I was finished, it was handed over to their producers and edited into the finished commercial. It's not massive animation but I'm happy with it!

I've done limited animation before with characters I created but this was the most involved work I've done to date. Normally, I would create the drawings in Adobe Illustrator and simply import the files into After Effects and proceed from there. However, this results in rather stiff looking animation with limited flexibility and I've never been completely staisfied with the results.

But this time, I actually did the drawings in After Effects using the mask tools which allowed me to freely animate any part of the drawing necessary. The biggest chunk of time came from actually drawing the characters in AE.

I'm really interested in doing more animated pieces in the future but I don't plan on using AE as the tool of choice. I might eventually teach myself Flash but the learning curve is a little daunting. I did find a program that seems to fit my skill set, called Anime Studio Pro. It's much more artist friendly and it seems to be gaining popularity as a decent animation program. There's an animation company called GreyKid Pictures that's using Anime Studio Pro to produce some pretty spectacular pieces of work. Check out this, this and this.

I'll never achieve their level of expertise but I plan on making some decent headway.

I know, I know... I redesigned the site only last year. Last May, in fact. But I wasn't happy with how some of the things were looking as I saw it in different computers and in different browsers. This design is supposed to hold up MUCH better across platforms and browsers. We'll see. If you notice anything a little wonky looking, please let me know. I'm not a web guru but I'll make an effort.

Over the course of the next few weeks, I plan on adding several categories to the blog. I plan on making available custom Photoshop brushes that I use in my work and I may include some tutorials if I get the chance.

You'll notice an RSS FEED link at the bottom of the page. So if you want to keep up-to-date on the latest info here, feel free to use it.