two hundred eighty-three

an early sketch

What would my artwork look like as a t-shirt design for an airplane mechanic shop?  One way to find out.  Flying Leaf Aviation, owned and operated by Lou Pugliese is an outfit located in an Asheboro airport hangar.  He specializes in maintenance of three types of airplanes.  They're all Beechcraft.  Two are Bonanzas: the classic v-tail and straight tail.  The other model is the twin engine Baron.  These planes look super dope.  And Lou wants a dynamic image in my hand-rendered style of all three planes.  Heck yeah!  The scope is defined, the price is set, we shake hands and I take off.

-- to the local library (hi, Megan!) to find out more about these planes.  The first book I checked out had lots of interesting humor on civilian plane owners and the culture often populated by physicians and other suit-types for an uplifting hobby.  I think it was humor.  This is also the research segment of the project.  The plane history books were intriguing too.   Lift, pitch, yaw, and roll -- that's how planes move through the air.  A plane's age is judged by how many hours it has logged in the air.  30 year old planes are relatively solid machines.  And -- when the first civilian planes started coming out they were built so solid, they are the ones you'd oft see doing the crazy, stunt maneuvers.  I also read up on the history with the Wright brothers (bicycle mechanics!), the Red Baron, and other wartime tidbits -- and the international race to develop and patent airplanes.  Also, if I am to create an image

flying with Bob

of three distinct planes in 'believable' flight, I need a better understanding of what parts of the plane are in which position to achieve the realistic position in flight.  I do love logic problems.  Research also included a trip to the Pick N Pig smokehouse down in Carthage.  Yep -- in a 1957 V-Tail Bonanza with Bob, one of Lou's mechanic pals.  What?  Yep -- man, did that plane shimmy in the high winds as we crossed over the Uwharrie Mountains.

All this goes into the design of a commissioned art project.  The viewer may not see all of it, but any artist worth his pencils should invest a bit into the research of the project.  That is if the client is paying the artist money.  If you are anticipating free art in trade for exposure or beer then the artist should work as fast as possible to derive your finished project with whatever photoshop, stock images, and other quick, cheap-o methods available.  You hack them, they hack you.  It's just business, right?  Yay, capitalism.  

all graphite, all day

Ahem, so, yeah back to the drawing board.  With all that research and development, lots of sketches ensued.  And part of the challenge was to figure out how to get each plane model (the Baron, V-Tail & Straight Tail) into the single picture frame in a dynamic, believable manner and also happily coexisting with the details of the business name, address, and phone number -- all in one color.

Visual artists specialize in communicating with pictures - well maybe not all visual artists, but this little white duck does.  At least that's what I'm billing you for -- and that's why when people look at your custom shirt, they say - "damn, I hate flying, but I gotta have one of those shirts, Lou."*  Having a structured review process of the design progress is also why my clients enjoy their finished products. 
They give me their time and input.  We make sure we're on the same page and together something is created that didn't exist before.  This is a logic problem that eventually enriches others' lives.  I'm a creative problem solver and I aim for win-win results.

tail end fin

Lou was rather pleased with the  final drawing (as was I).  We critiqued over a few elements of the design.  He provided help on a few portions of the design that could use further definition here and a correction for accuracy there.  He had them printed up in a lovely array of colors and sizes over at the local printshop, The Wearhouse.  These shirts are now flying high in the sky as Lou gifts them to each of his clients upon completion of servicing their beautiful, flying, works of art.  Thank you, Lou!  

*true story