Happy Halloween !

New promo brochures

I often produce promotion brochures on my computer which are sent out to prospective clients, art centers and friends. It's very important for an artist to promote and show his or her work to as many people as possible. This applies to the fine arts as well as to the commercial art field.


Here's the cover of a brochure that promotes my new painting series. The painting shown is SWEET PURPLE NUDE.


I usually start with small sketches and a few notations which sets up the way the design will work. From this rough sketch I can determine what typography will be used and also how to relate the brochures to each other.


I wanted to use some interesting hand lettering on the covers so I sketched out a few different versions of the words and picked out the ones that worked the best.



Here are two of the other brochure covers in this series. I will show you how I progress on this project in upcoming posts. The computer can be very helpful on getting your work out there whether you send it by snail-mail or send it by E-mail. I like to send printed pieces as often they get hung on a bulletin board or shown to other people.




My painting, RECLINING NUDE from my new series, is now hanging in the Soe Cafe in Sawyer, Michigan in case you are near the area, have a look.

Dinner party poster

Craig is having another invitational dinner party in November and I did a couple of sketches hoping to design an interesting poster for the event. These sketches were done while having lunch at my favorite restaurant in Sawyer, Soe Cafe. You'll have to try it if you are ever in Southwest Michigan, it's just off of I-94 on the Red Arrow Highway. You should also visit the Craig Smith Gallery, also on the same highway in Harbert, the next town over from Sawyer.


Here is the final poster which was done on the computer. I photographed the brush, wine glass and fork with a digital camera, outlined the images and assembled them on the computer using Photoshop Elements 2.0


I decided to try another poster design in case he wants to show an image of one of my new paintings which he is featuring in the gallery. My experience in the ad biz comes in handy for Craig's promotions.


Above is the finished invitation, I'm not sure which one he'll finally decide to use. He'll probably use both of them.

Birthday today !

One year ago I began this blog and a week before that my other blog, Harry Borgman Art, was launched.
All in all, it's been an interesting and enjoyable experience. Check out my other blog where you can see a lot of the assignments that I did while working as an illustrator and graphic designer in Detroit, New York and Paris, France. You'll also see a lot of my fine art projects.

Still more posters

Four posters for various exhibitions I've had. I enjoy doing this type of work very much.


A poster for a proposed typographic exhibition.


This was designed for the TEXT AS ART exhibition that was held at the Krasl Art Center in St. Joseph, Michigan last year.


Four more exhibition posters. The Gallery Sakiko in New York exhibited my acrylic abstract paintings a couple of years ago.


A poster for a recent opening at the Craig Smith Gallery.

More posters

The Loft Galeria represents me in Puerto Vallarta, Maxico. They show my Comic Book Cover Parodies and I plan to send some of my paintings to them soon. The EROTO exhibition was at the Craig Smith Gallery in Harbert, Michigan. The Box Factory in St. Joseph, Michigan also had an exhibition of my Comic Book Cover Parodies. I usually design posters for all these events.


This poster for the Craig Smith Gallery listing all of the artists that are represented.


A poster for a proposed digital art exhibition.


A few other posters I've designed.


A poster done for a local beauty salon. My experience as a graphic designer comes in handy for these projects.

Posters that I have designed

Throughout my very long career (I started in 1943) in the art business I have worked as a graphic designer, illustrator as well as a painter. Here are a few posters that I have designed which were all created on the computer.


These were done using high contrast black and white photographs to which color was added.


Photos of leaves were used in this design.


I do a great deal of promotion work for the gallery that represents me, including posters and direct mail pieces.


Craig pretty much gives me a free hand and I do enjoy creating his posters.

Another paintimg in my new series

A few days ago I began another painting in my new series of works based on computer sketches and experiments. I started by first sketching the drawing on a 30 x 30" canvas. Using a proportion wheel helped me scale up the computer sketch accurately. Then I began painting in the background color. The color turned out to be too red, so I repainted it a lighter value orange tone.


Following my computer sketch I paint in some of the other shapes.


As I progress I change some of the color values. I don't actually copy my sketch, using it only as a basic guide, often deviating quite a bit from it.


I have the colors pretty well established at this point. Often, at various stages, I will stop working and get away from the painting, coming back to it later with a fresh eye.


The finished painting which I titled THE TENTH MUSE.

Scarlet Macaw celebrates

Above is a postcard postmarked 1909, it's a photo of M. Z. Norton's store in Sawyer, Michigan. Below is the building today which houses the Scarlet Macaw Community Art Center. Last weekend they decided to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the building.




The Executive Director, Nifodora Krumrie, really got into the swing of things with her old hat and dress as well as playing ancient records.


Here's her husband David with a Macaw perched on his shoulder, not a scarlet one but pretty colorful.


Another shot of David with the Macaw. Boy, these birds can really be loud !


I've designed a number of posters for the gallery, here's one of them.



These are a couple of posters for an exhibition that I had at the gallery a few years ago. The exhibit consisted of some of my paintings, wood carvings as well as my digital art.

Cropping photos

Using the computer and Photoshop anyone can recrop or add more area to their photographs. Here are a few examples of what can be done.


While this photo is an interesting scene I felt it could make two interesting photos if it were recropped.


I decided to create one photo of the section with just the people.


Then I cropped the photo showing only the trees for the other version.



This photo of the interior of a Mexican hotel lobby became more interesting when I added more dark area to the lower section.




Here is a shot of Gloria on the beach, I made a vertical composition by tightly cropping the photo which I though was more interesting. With Photoshop you also have a certain amount of control over the color and tone values in your photos.

A new promotion brochure

On my October 3 post I showed some of my promo brochures. The Craig Smith Gallery in Harbert, Michigan is having an opening today and I decided to do a promotion brochure featuring my new paintings. Whether you are in the fine arts or commercial field it is important for an artist to promote oneself.
Below is the poster that I designed for Craig's opening.



I felt that I should design a brochure for the opening since my new paintings would be featured, something for the guests to take home with them. These very rough idea sketches were enough to get me started. I visualized a large brush on the cover with very strong typography and a simple interior and back cover.



I took a photo of one of my brushes, outlined it on the computer and then added the type.


I kept the interior rather simple with a just couple of blocks of bold type.


On the rear cover I showed four more of the paintings as well as a group of computer sketches that will be used for future paintings.


I also printed up a number of my cards promoting my website and blogs. These would be placed near the brochures for people to pick up.