Illustration 

The Pearl - This piece is an illustration for the cover of The Pearl, a novel by John Steinbeck.

The story revolves around a poor Mexican family. The father earns his meager income by diving for pearls. When his son is stung by a scorpion he searches for a pearl to pay for a doctor to heal his child. He finds a perfect pearl in the ocean that brings optimism and joy to the family but it also places a burden on the family they don't know how to deal with.

This painting is available as a limited edition print in my Etsy shop.

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Mon, 23 Nov 2009 08:49:50 PST

Holiday Shopping - If you're looking for some gifts for your friends or family this Christmas I have prints, t-shirts, comic books and books for sale.

There are new limited edition prints in my print shop on Etsy. All of my prints are limited edition prints (once they sell out, that's it!) and are signed and numbered. And they're affordable!

My clothing shop also has lots of good stuff at low prices in time for the holidays. There are hoodies too, just in time to bundle up and keep warm.

My LeBron James comic book is still for sale at the price that you decide! It's relatively small in size (5.5" x 8.5") so it makes a great stocking stuffer, and each issue is signed.

And finally, my NBA portrait book, Portraits in the Paint, is available with limited quantities remaining. To ensure your copy arrives by Christmas, order by November 30th at the latest. Each issue is signed and numbered and comes with a 5" x 7" print of your choice from one of the portraits in the book (as seen in SLAM magazine). Get yours today as quantities are very limited.


Sat, 21 Nov 2009 12:14:38 PST

Buckets and Tanks -
As in my last post (see it here) where I painted a buried car, here is another painting of one of my fascinations - water towers. I've painted tons of these things in the last few years, but usually of the city variety. This is really my first time painting the good ol' rural variety (aside from my drawing of the Sudbury water tower) so I decided to go all out and paint 12 of them in one piece.

I love the water towers in the city because of their old, wooden plank siding, and for their appearance in comic books. I love this type of tank because they come in so many different shapes and colors- and sometimes they look like spaceships.

Prints of this piece are available in my Etsy shop.

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If you have my blog bookmarked, you can replace the current URL with this one: http://joelkimmel.wordpress.com]
Mon, 16 Nov 2009 08:27:02 PST

Excavation - I love old, buried cars. I've drawn and painted a few before. They have a lot of mystery to them.

The fascination stems from a childhood experience from when I was about 7 years old and living in Deep River. I lived just outside the town on a street surrounded by forest. One day I went exploring the woods across the street from my house with my brother and Sam.

The trees were tall and skinny and planted in rows and it was dark, with only some light shining through the leaves. Towards the back of this wooded area we came across a half buried Volkswagon Beetle, rusted and probably containing the body of its owner (or so we thought). I remember us running away as fast as we could. I never went back to the car and there's a house built on that land now, so I sometimes wonder if it's still there.

Driving through Northern Ontario you see a lot of farms and decrepit barns. Those things are good indications for me to keep my eyes peeled for a half buried car to photograph for potential paintings.
Thu, 12 Nov 2009 11:18:08 PST

Now On Twitter! - You can now find me on Twitter!
Thu, 29 Oct 2009 08:25:00 PDT

1970 NBA Champion New York Knicks - I received an email recently from someone who had followed my basketball player portrait work on SLAMonline. He was looking to commission a painting for his father's 50th birthday and wanted the piece to celebrate the New York Knicks' first NBA Championship in 1970 (prints available here).

I wanted to paint this piece like an old boxing poster and feature the two Knicks stars, Willis Reed and Walt Frazier. Willis was hobbled with a torn muscle in his leg and sat out the previous game against the Lakers but made a surprising and inspirational return to the court in Game 7, helping to elevate the Knicks to the victory and their first championship.

Above are a few process shots from start to finish. I stained the paper after masking out the area where the figures would be. I wanted the whites of the jerseys to really pop and didn't want them to match the tonal background color.

Getting the ellipses of Madison Square Garden's famous ceiling was tricky. It involved a lot of measuring and compass work.

I added the text by using a photocopy transfer method. I scanned the painting and arranged the text digitally in Photoshop to get the size and placement how I wanted it.

I then reversed the text, printed it on my desktop printer and then used a photocopier to make a copy of the printout. That step is important because the printer ink doesn't transfer with this method, you need to have a printout with photocopy toner in it.

I used a lightbox to place the printout exactly on the painting and taped it down with masking tape.

Then I used a Chartpak blender marker (after opening some windows first, that thing stinks) to go over each letter, one at a time, and used a burnishing tool to rub the toner off the copy and transfer the letters onto the painting. It takes a bit of practice to figure out how wet the paper needs to be from the marker. Too much of it will give the letters fuzzy edges.

I watched this Finals game on DVD to get an idea of how the game went to see if there was anything I could use for the painting. I was really impressed with some of the players (especially Walt Frazier), and watching the old game shows how different it is from today.

This NBA season marks the 40th anniversary since the Knicks' first championship. You can buy a print of this painting in my shop!
Thu, 22 Oct 2009 08:44:52 PDT