It’s celebration time as prolific client Michael Rankins reaches his milestone 50th commission at the Inkwell Gallery, second only to mutual friend and art collector Damon Owens (with 69)! More cake for me, please!

Like another recent piece, Michael picked up another Al Rio prelim page (for a cover) from Al’s agent Terry Maltos. But unlike the last one, there was no file at Terry’s website showing Al’s finished version to refer to. This meant that instead of doing a recreation, I had to approach the pencil work as breakdowns which I would need to add ink finishes to. Unlike the last one that I had to enlarge and convert to blueline on a board, this one came on 11X17 2-ply Al Rio Art Board and was sketched in blue pencil.

I wasn’t too fond of the board and it was hard to make out all of the details so I had to wing it. There are elements that I like and others that I wasn’t too proud of, like how I resolved her hair. I used markers and brush for this with some white paint spatter for the splashing water. It was completed on 10/25/12.

Al Rio Art: http://www.alrioart.com/

Al’s prelim cover sketch in blue pencil

Bob’s ink finishes