Sign Painters...

Sometimes we get an assignment around the studio that requires we do a portrait of a particular person. This is an illustration of John Downer, who's one of the few people left carrying the torch for the art of hand done sign painting. Sadly we live in a world where crappy rectangular vinyl signs with lousy fonts on them rule the day, but that's another story. Back to John, I had to rely on photo reference for this one in order to capture John's likeness. That sometimes brings up the question as to whether or not drawing from photos is a good thing, I think it's fine as long as you don't let your drawing skills erode because you begin to use photos as a crutch. If we must use photos let's learn something to further our skills while doing it and in this case I tried for an illustration style reminiscent of the great Charles Dana Gibson and others in that vein. I think it's reasonably successful.