Kyle Poling Illustration

Food Groups

2012-01-07T13:32:00.000-08:00

I did a partial series educating kids on the food groups for Picture Window Books: the Vegetable, Dairy, and Grain groups while another artist did the others. They turned out really well so I'm including a couple spreads for each book, also I put the links to purchase them along the side with my other books

The Incredible Vegetable Group:

Interiors:

The Amazing Milk Group:

Interiors:

The Great Grain Group:

Interiors:

Spooky Boo!

2011-08-15T13:59:00.000-07:00

Here is a new book that I finished awhile back thats just been released from Scholastic - Spooky Boo! Its an interactive book with mirrors, flaps, and other fun parts as you follow a ghost through a haunted house. I had a lot of fun working on this as I had a big chunk of freedom on characters and overall design in it, with only the flaps that I had to work in.

Cover:

Interior 1:
This one had a door that opens to reveal characters inside, I included the door open and closed

This one has a mirror attachment:

THis one had a sticky patch on the piece of gum stuck in the werewolves hair

The final page is a party with the viewer being included, there is a mirror attachment on the green monster in the middle

There are a couple more pages inside, but you'll have to buy the book to see :)

A Little Kindness

2011-07-22T19:37:00.000-07:00

Here are some illustrations I did for Pockets magazine, a Christian magazine for kids. Its a subscription magazine that has activities, short stories, and games. I did a couple illustrations for a short story called "A Little Kindness" which deals with teaching kids respect for their elders and have a loving heart for others. I really enjoyed doing this and hope to do more in the future.

Cover (I didn't do this but wanted to include it) for the July issue:

My illustrations for the story:

Welcome to the Jungle

2011-06-16T20:16:00.000-07:00

Wow, forgot to post this awhile back - this was my self promo ad that I did for Directory of Illustration back in january. I was happy with how it turned out, didn't have much time to work on it due to other freelance projects. I'd like to do more in this style as it has a smoother render and texturing than some of my other projects.

Summer Has Arrived!

2011-06-04T07:35:00.000-07:00

It seems like winter here in Cleveland lasted a lot longer this year along with months of nonstop rain. I'm definitely looking forward to getting out and enjoying the summer. I've started to modify my technique and started to soften the character faces - I felt that the large cartoon eyes I was using was too jarring. Enjoy the summer!

Easter Bunny's Basket

2011-03-25T14:44:00.000-07:00

Here is a new book that Illustrated for Scholastic that was just released. It is a small board book that is a "Lift a Flap Adventure" trying to find objects to make a basket for the Easter Bunny. It was a cute concept that I had fun doing. The flaps became a challenge because they couldn't overlap the flaps on the previous or next page - otherwise there would be a hole from one page to the next. After the technical side was figure out the art became rather easy. I'm including the page as it would appear and then a second image of the same page so you can see whats under the flaps and the dicuts. I'm showing 3 of 5 of the interior spreads - Enjoy :)

Cover:

Spread 1:

Spread 1 - Flap art:

Spread 2:

Spread 2 - Flap art:

Spread 3:

Spread 3 - Flap art:

Tiger Talk

2011-03-15T12:50:00.000-07:00

The past couple months have been extremely busy - I've completed 3 new books, suffered through a bad case of bronchitis, and turned 30. I'm hoping to start updating the blog here a little more from now on. I did want to share this, back at Christmas I was interviewed by my hometown newspaper about my early start and career in art. Its was nice to sit and talk about it for awhile and to to see my first art teacher Suzie whom I hadn't seen since I left for college about 10 years ago (wow, time flies!) Anyway, I was interviewed by Lisa Sims, a principle in the school district - I think she did a great job writing the piece, so here you go for all those people out there who want to know more about me :)

Corey Parker

2011-01-07T18:37:00.000-08:00

A friend, Corey Parker, whom sat in the cubicle next to me at American Greetings for the 2 and a half years I worked there, recently passed away on December 30th after a short fight with cancer, he was only 34. While its been some time since I've seen him, he was, for lack of a better word, just a really nice guy and a wonderful, dedicated artist. My thoughts and prayers go out to his friends and family. You can view some of his work here.

Merry Christmas!

2010-12-17T11:08:00.001-08:00

Things are getting a little busy around here so I thought I'd go ahead and post this - hope everyone has a very Merry Christmas!

National Geographic: Rocks & Minerals

2010-11-18T12:09:00.000-08:00

I'm excited that this book has finally been released, it took about 8-9 months of work from start to finish and I think it was well worth it, I'm really happy with how it turned out. NGS was really open with my ideas and most of them made it to the final product. They pretty much said "lets see what you can do" when I first got the script, I was allowed to really come up with my own page layouts and go from there. Of course they changed some things in the sketch stage, but for the most part these are mostly my concepts and layouts - which makes this extremely satisfying, not just some cookie-cutter "just do this" attitude, it was a real creative process for me. Here is about half the books interior spreads...

Interior Title Page:

Interior Spreads:

Happy Halloween!

2010-10-30T10:29:00.000-07:00

This is a faux book cover that I worked on, I've been working on a story to go along with it but I'm not sure if I'll take it to final or not. For now this is just a concept piece.

Halloween Cards

2010-10-12T14:56:00.000-07:00

Here's a set of cards I did that came just came out at Walmart. These were A LOT of work as the technique called for a colored pencil kinda look. I was drawing grass for days (literally) - but they turned out nicely and it was good to see the detail actually print on the card.

Here's some detail shots:

Back To School

2010-08-30T08:27:00.000-07:00

Since its that time of year, I thought I'd do a back to school piece. I switched up the style a bit and went a little younger but still kept the texture that I normally do. I had fun with this piece and will probably use this style again in the future.

Tips For Green Living - Community

2010-08-23T07:35:00.001-07:00

I saved this book for last because it is my favorite in the series. This one deals with how to be green in your community, I liked this one because I wasn't stuck in one location like the other books. It had a lot of variety and most of the settings were outdoors. Community also took the longest, having around 85-90 characters total throughout the book. While I had a system of doing a character in about an hour, either reusing one from a previous book and changing the clothes & pose, or doing a completely new character. When you say "it only takes an hour per character" that doesn't sound bad, but when you get around 90 characters it takes awhile, thats not even including backgrounds - which were the most complicated in this book.

I loved working on this series but it took its tole on me. I tired keeping track of how long it took me but I lost count after awhile, but it took around a week of sketching each book, then around three weeks to do finals per book, if I had to guess around 300-350 hours per book, and that is probably conservative. I had a lot of late nights including several all-nighters to finish, but I'm extremely proud of these and would do it again in a heart beat. Its great to finally be able to show these.

Here is the cover:

And some of the interiors:

I think thats the most updates I've had in one month :) Hope everyone likes them as much as I enjoyed working on them!

Tips For Living Green - Shopping

2010-08-16T07:04:00.000-07:00

Book 3 in this series dealt with what to buy that is eco-friendly. It took a long time to put all the background stuff on the shelves and I wish I had a bit more time to make them a little more diverse, but the effect looks really good. The challenge for me was they wanted a department store, so I had to make the walls and shelving a uniform look, which limited what I could do with it, but I think I was able to add enough details in displays to give each spread a different look.

Here is the cover:

And here are some of the interior spreads:

I thought I would include a sketch as well. This is pretty rough, but my style is simple enough I didn't feel the need to do a lot of details on the sketch. Naturally, the sketches for the first book I did a lot more cleaning up and made it more refined, but as the books progressed I loosened up a lot. Once I submitted the final illustrations for book one, the art directors had a clear idea as to the style and the direction for the next tree books, so the sketches became more about the layout and making sure I had all the facts included.

Tips For Green Living - School

2010-08-09T06:54:00.000-07:00

Here is book two in the series, which deals with ways to be eco friendly at school. The first book - home, was a testing ground for how I wanted the overall look to be. Some of it was a bit flat in terms of perspective so I wanted to push it more in this book and the remaining two books. I also was able to lock down a system of how to do the characters and also a color palette that I'll use for all the books, to give a uniform look.

Here is the cover:

And here are some of the interior spreads:

I loved the chance to put in a lot of little details and giving the kids different looks and personalities. While it caused some late nights of work, it added a lot to the book and payed off in the end. Two more books to go in the coming weeks...

Tips For Green Living - Home

2010-08-02T11:22:00.000-07:00

Today is a very exciting day, the release of my first set of children's books from Picture Window Books, they are also available on amazon here. My career has had some ups and downs but this is a highlight for sure. There are 4 books in the series, each 20 pages - over the next month I'll be posting spreads from all the books. The sets are aimed to teach kids about how they can be more eco-friendly in their Home, School, Shopping, and Community.

Book 1 focus is on the home. There was a big learning curve from what I normally do. Usually I don't do art that carries the same style throughout, I like mixing things up - so to stick to one technique for 80 pages was sometimes difficult. The first image is the cover, I only did the characters that they pulled from the interiors of the book.

Here are some of the interior spreads - these are 2 pages split down the middle. I won't be posting all the pages but will show at least half of the books. I should also note that the word boxes are temporary ones that I put in to make sure that the art wasn't conflicting with where the publisher was going to place them, they redid them and made them a little more colorful.

This was a huge undertaking, many times I would be doing finals on one book and sketches for the next, with the occasional correction on a previous book. I'm really happy with the result, I may post some of the sketches in a later post to show progression. Stay tuned, will be updating every week this month...

Illustration Friday: Trail

2010-06-10T09:19:00.000-07:00

Had some time this week to participate, this was a fun one because I really enjoy doing nature scenes.

Graduation Time

2010-05-29T14:00:00.000-07:00

Here is a card I did for kindergarten graduation

Summer Time!

2010-05-01T20:05:00.000-07:00

After a long, bleak, cold and snowy Cleveland winter, its finally summertime! Will soon be time to head to the beach...

National Geographic: Rocks & Minerals

2010-04-27T07:19:00.000-07:00

This is exciting, I've been given permission to announce one of the projects I've been working on for awhile now - National Geographic's Jump Into Science children's book Rocks & Minerals. While I can't show anything from the interior yet, I can say that I've illustrated this 32 page book from cover to cover and its available for preorder on amazon here. It will be released on November 9th, I'll be able to show a lot more then...

Volunteer & Charity Work

2010-04-21T07:23:00.000-07:00

I've tried to keep this blog as my portfolio and not make any personal posts, but in the past couple weeks I've done some stuff that I'd like to share.

First off, I've been extremely busy with my freelance work but I was lucky enough to be able to rearrange my schedule and due dates to go on a week long volunteer trip with some members of my church. We traveled to Cedar Rapids, Iowa to help rebuild houses that were damaged & nearly destroyed by flooding about 2 years ago. We volunteered with a group called Hands On Disaster Relief, you can visit their website here. HODR worked with an organization Block By Block, what they do is go in and buy homes after the flood that people don't want to repair, fix them up, then resell them so that large chunks of neighborhoods won't die. Here is the crazy crew that went, I'm in the center in the back...

The group was broken up into smaller groups and different houses on the street, but as a whole we managed in 5 days to drywall a kitchen, hallway, half a living room and dining room, a bedroom and attic space, tape and mud a finished basement, and paint the outside of a house. "Team Awesome" was me, Dana, and Ricky - we worked on drywall the whole week. Pictured below is the house that my team worked on and some of our handy work. From what I understand, the water was up about 6 feet on the first floor - which would make the water around 8 to 10 feet deep, but other areas were around 12 feet deep.

There we are - Team Awesome! coming up with our strategy for the day, you can also see the kitchen that we had just finished dry walling.

While the work was tiring, everyone had a blast and would have stayed longer if we could. It was a blessing for me, not only to do something for someone else, but to go and get out and not focus on my artwork, I just needed a breather and to do some physical work felt great - not sitting on a chair all day at a computer. I also wanted to include a sketch I did, we stayed at a church at night which at times felt like camping. Anyway, the toddler room was called "Noah's Ark Nursery" so I thought I'd sketch out this:

All in all, a great trip and for a good cause as well. Another cause I've also done is donating my hair to Pantene Beautiful Locks, an organization that makes wigs for women and kids that have lost their hair to cancer and other illnesses. It took about 22 months to grow to the right length, but it was something I wanted to do. I had an aunt that my parents and I helped take care of when I was younger and when she passed away from a rare form of bone cancer, she left me some money that helped pay for my college education. I was extremely grateful for this gift and wanted to do something in honor of this and I felt this was the best way to do it. Here is a pic just before I cut it, around 10 inches long here...

If you'd like to donate anything to Pantene Beautiful Locks, money or hair, you can visit their website here. Its a great cause that helps a lot of people that suffers from this terrible disease. This was a long post and not much art, but I think its important to help others and being a freelancer means that I can set my schedule and volunteer - I encourage anyone who reads this to try and do what they can, through their art or by volunteering their time. Thanks! Hopefully will be posting new art soon....

Blog 2nd Birthday

2010-03-28T20:33:00.000-07:00

Well, its been 2 years since I've started this blog and a lots changed, and for the better. I posted last year a "birthday" piece that had a retro look so I decided to do that again this year. I kinda went for a hanna-barbera cartoon look. I had a lot of fun doing this and I really pushed to do a really different color palette than I would normally do - more of a pastel look. I tried to make the elephant trunk look like the number 2.

Sunny Day, Chasing Those Clouds Away...

2010-03-04T22:47:00.000-08:00

After the rough and incredibly snowy winter, I'm ready for spring! This is a piece I did last year as a promo piece for Picturebook, an illustrator advertising book published every year. It just came out this month and you can see, or order, the book here:
http://picture-book.com/

While my style now is slightly different, I really feel that this was the "ground" piece for me, I really liked this style and it fit for the age range I was aiming for. When I came to American Greetings, I had a good foundation of cartooning and drawing, but didn't have a set personal style. AG forced me to work in many different techniques, which is good for learning and experimenting with, but hurt the fact that I couldn't stay in one style for long and develop it. Most of the work I did in my off time was usually sketching geared towards a card I was preparing to work on. Now that I'm on my own and have a rep to promote me, I had to sit down and really think about not only a technique that I wanted to be known for, but my ultimate goals that I wanted to achieve as a professional artist. The last 2 years have certainly been a big change but I feel that I'm on the right path. While the deadlines that I've had lately have been tight and I've lot a lot of sleep, I wouldn't change a thing about it, I love what I do!!! Ok, enough talking, back to work :)

29!?!

2010-02-24T17:33:00.000-08:00

I'm 29 today, where has the time gone? It feels like yesterday I was playing with legos and laying on the floor watching cartoons....wait, actually that WAS yesterday. I ain't ever gonna grow up! Somebody awhile back called me a "busy beaver" as I've been buried under freelance lately - which is a good thing, but I can feel burnout coming. I've said before that I want to post more, but I have to wait until I've been given permission to as I'm still under contract - I'm sitting on a couple hundred illustrations that I'm not allowed to post and I haven't had time to do personal illustrations the past 6 months. Sigh, maybe when I'm 30....

Valentine Robots

2010-02-01T07:42:00.000-08:00

Here are a couple of Valentines Day cards i did awhile back. There are 3 cards in this set, the first one was designed by an in-house illustrator, he didn't have time to do the other two so they sent them to me. While I roughly kept the same head design and hands, I changed the bodies in each cards - kind of like they were all built by the same manufacturer. The color palette was tough as the purple was dark and I would have liked to add some lighter colors - but thats what they wanted. Haven't seen these out yet, they should be at Walmart.

Happy 2010!

2010-01-01T09:19:00.000-08:00

Wow, 2009 has come and gone, it feels like it went super fast and super slow all at the same time.

2009, for me, has been a lot of growth - not only personally but professionally as well. When I was at American Greetings, everything was pretty self-contained, now that I've branched out and freelance, I feel like my world has expanded and I'm learning a lot about the illustration business. The projects that I've been working on the past few months I've been very excited about, while I can't announce what they are yet, someday I'll have a TON of stuff to post here. 2010 looks to be a big year for me as I accomplish several goals that I've wanted to do for years, including some charity work and the release of the previously mentioned "big projects." A quick thanks to Liz, my rep, for jump starting my freelance career and bringing me onto her team, and to all my family and friends for all the support through this transition year.

My thoughts and prayers go out to all of you who visit this blog, that you have a safe and happy 2010. The world is in pretty bad shape right now, my goal is to try and make it better - through my art, charity, or any other opportunity that might come along. I hope that you will do the same. Stop by my blog for updates, there's a lot more to come!

Merry Christmas!

2009-12-22T09:10:00.001-08:00

Just wanted to wish everyone a Merry Christmas! I'll be taking a couple days off to visit family but will be back by December 28th. This piece I did fairly quick, experimenting with a softer, less vector background and more reflective light.

Tis The Season

2009-12-17T13:51:00.000-08:00

I love Christmas, its a time to let others know how much you appreciate them, whether its friends or family. Times have been tough for the past couple years and being an artist I thought I would try and make some of my gifts this year.
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This first one is for my former boss at American Greetings, Brent did a lot to help me when I first started and was the best Art Director a guy could ask for - he always gets a kick when someone does a caricature of him, well I took it a bit further and made a custom Mighty Mugg toy, and to my surprise he collects them, which made it an even better gift.

and the box...

It was hard to get the paint right, but overall it turned out great and he loved it.
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The next one is for my friend Jason Dove, you can visit his blog here. I wanted to make a custom toy for him as well but decided to do a plush toy instead. Yes- I can sew, not a well publicized fact- but true. I took one of his cards that he designed for AG and was able to make a template off that. Its about 6 inches by 6 inches and 1.5 inches thick. I wanted to maintain the feel of the card but make it plush.

The box was completely custom to fit the toy. Once I was done with the sewing and knew the size, I measured out the box to fit. The art designed on it was taken from one of his other cards - the whole idea was to make it look like he designed it. I had it printed on a heavy, glossy cardstock paper, cut and then I pieced it together.

This is the first plush I've made that wasn't a kit, and I enjoyed it enough that I've started working on doing some of my own characters, I won't be posting those for awhile as work is slow on these...someday I'll share.
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This last one is for Oz who also works at AG, who helped me out quite a bit. I did a calender of caricatures of him - my favorite being the care bear (since AG owns them, I found that fitting) He didn't care much for the obama poster but I had to jab him a little :)

Obviously I didn't do all the characters, I ripped off a lot of stuff but it was good for a laugh. This is a great personal gift for artists, if you don't draw maybe you can pull off of their websites and make it personal to them. I uploaded this to webshots.com (although you can go to office max or other websites) and do the same thing for your friends and its something they can keep the whole year and only costs around $20.
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This last one is a card I did for AG that is now out at Target. Its a pretty raunchy humor card so I didn't post the lettering - but I still like the art.

Will try and post more before the end of the year, more to come so stay tuned...

Thanksgiving Cards

2009-11-23T07:59:00.000-08:00

Here's a two card promo that I did for Thanksgiving. The boat and flowers are seperate from the card and are attached by a spring.

Trick or Treat

2009-10-30T19:27:00.000-07:00

Its that time of year again to get sick on all that free candy, happy halloween!

Illustration Friday: Fast

2009-10-24T11:46:00.001-07:00

As the total eclipse draws near, its a race against time to save their coloney from total destruction!

I've been itching to do a space scene the last month or so and when I saw the this weeks topic was FAST I had to do a space ship. This is the direction I want my personal art to go, I've always loved doing dramatic lighting and I'm going to incorporate that into future illustrations. This took about 13-15 hours - I worked really "fast" :)

Illustration Friday: Frozen

2009-10-20T13:45:00.001-07:00

Greedy humans! Yeti's like hot chocolate too, you know?

Its been a long time since I've gotten to an illustration that I've wanted to do and when I saw this weeks topic I decided to take half a day and crank this out, I had a lot of fun and it turned out pretty good, given the short amount of time I could put into it - ok, enough fun and games, back to work...

Halloween Cards

2009-10-03T16:49:00.000-07:00

I haven't been able to post anything lately so I thought I'd go ahead and put these up since halloween will be in a couple weeks. Hopefully I'll have time to put up some more sketches in the next couple weeks, until then...

This first one is a set that came out last year. They had large button attachments -the witch and scarecrow was on their hats and the pumpkin and cat were on their noses. I was happy with the way they turned out and thought they really stood out in the store racks

This one is a concept that I turned in. I did 4 of these and have posted a couple of the others in previous posts.

Here is a set of 3 that I did that will be out this year. I was happy with these because they were my concept that got picked for production. These are the flattened versions, they actually fold to create a shadowbox and the characters in the center of each are hanging by a string.

This last one is a sound/music card that is at Walmarts right now. I enjoyed doing something a little different - this is the front and inside illustration. The joke is something about "the thing that will never die" and you open it up and some disco song plays. Well- it's supposed to be funny... :)

Good Ole' Days

2009-09-15T15:06:00.000-07:00

I've been super busy lately with freelance so I haven't had time to do any more sketching so I've decided to post this test illustration I did a couple months ago. I hadn't planned on posting this, it was more of a test to work on new photoshop brushes and some different style characters. I wanted it to be even value and not too contrasty - anyway, would love some feedback or crit.

Friendly Turtle

2009-08-27T10:24:00.000-07:00

Gotta say, its been sooo much fun to be able to sketch like this again - this one took about 20 minutes. For a long time I was focused on getting the styles and techniques right at AG, then doing a bunch of art for self-promotion that I haven't been able to draw like this for a long time, I will for sure be posting more like this in the future...stay tuned.

Chicken Nugget Lemon Tooty

2009-08-25T20:35:00.000-07:00

I've been hearing about this blog Chicken Nugget Lemon Tooty and recently saw it on DRAWN! website. A gem of a blog that features the art of three talented little kids (Isaac, Grace, and Lily) asking for other artists to interpret their drawings. After going through their archives I found one that I liked and decided to take an hour or two to participate in all the fun.

Here is the original done by Grace:

And here is my version:

I had a lot of fun doing this and wish I had time for more. For more of their work click here.

Meet Albert...

2009-08-19T08:47:00.000-07:00

Albert is a nice seal, he just gets...confused...

a lot...

Big Bear

2009-08-18T10:12:00.000-07:00

My warm up sketch for today - about 10-15 minutes.

What Hiatus?

2009-08-16T16:45:00.000-07:00

I had originally thought I would be taking a blog hiatus because of the large amount of freelance that I've been getting, but as contracts and due dates are starting to come in, I realize that even though I have a lot of work, I'll have several months to do it. Breathing a sigh of relief, I don't want this blog to go too long without updates. Since the majority of my work is vector based, I thought I could (try) and do a quick sketch once or twice a week. This one took about 10 minutes, I actually like how it turned out, and will probably use the single color line background again in future illustrations...

Summer of Fun 1

2009-07-07T14:38:00.000-07:00

I've been working on a new series of summertime activities: cookouts, swimming, games, etc. I thought about posting them as a group, but I feel I need to start updating more so I'll post them as I finish them. This first one I had a lot of fun doing, I think I remember building a "robot" out of some boxes and a milk jug. Anyway, I've also been working on not only nailing this technique, but also on a color palette that will be a "signature" for me. While I won't use it all the time, I do want it to be recognizeable as my work - you can start to see it in some of my outdoor scenes. Many more to come...

Happy Fourth of July

2009-07-04T14:12:00.000-07:00

Hope that everyone has a great Fourth of July weekend, that you can spend time with family and friends and enjoy the outdoors. Prayerfully our country will be in better shape this time next year - remember the troops and military men and women that are overseas and that aren't with us anymore, they provide us protection and allow us to have the freedom that not everyone in this world has. This piece was a challenge to get the lighting right, which I thinks it works.

Fun With Dad

2009-06-17T22:06:00.000-07:00

Since Fathers day is around the corner, I thought I'd do some illustrations that focused on dads. Fathers day seems like a time to rip on dads for being lazy and clumsy, but I know a lot of dads that are great and always make time for their kids. I'm really happy with how these turned out, I wanted to work on environments and lighting on these and I think they're pretty successful. Happy Fathers Day!

A walk in the park...

Helping dad with some building project...

And finally, getting that bedtime story...

Card Samples #10

2009-06-07T11:24:00.000-07:00

As I'm finishing up some new illustrations, I thought I could post a couple more cards I did while at AG. I think I ended up doing around 260-270 cards while I was there over a 2 1/2 period but I'm starting to wind down on the ones that I'll be posting here, I think I've got a dozen or so left to show and that will probably be it. I had a great time at AG and I still freelance for them, but this blog - for me - is about progression and evolution, and I need to look forward in my work and freelance career. I've done a lot lately but won't be able to post that for awhile until those projects are released, until then, keep checking back for more...

The first one is a boy birthday card thats been available at walmart for awhile. I had fun doing this, the technique was pretty simple but had enough texture to make it interesting.

This was for baby birthday. It had several paper attachments so there is a little more to the design than what is shown here.

These are a couple of characters from a large fathers day card. There was a lot of text so I decided to show parts of it. This is actually a card I did early when I started AG, but I still liked how they turned out.

This is the inside of a music card for a 5 year old boy. Note the five balloons, presents, and portholes on the ship. There are only 4 pirates here, the fifth is on the cover.

Cute card for grandpa - I believe. This was a quick one, did this in a day. Wish I had more time to work on it, but with big companies, everything has a deadline and it would have been nice to have another day to tweak it a bit. Still turned out alright.

Back Online...All Systems Go

2009-05-21T11:26:00.000-07:00

Its been a long month, but I've finally got moved and now have everything setup. After a couple freelance projects, I've got a little bit of free time to do some updates to the blog, hopefully I won't have a big gap of time without updates like I just had...

April Hiatus - Moving

2009-04-14T22:24:00.000-07:00

I'll be taking a short hiatus for the rest of this month as I have freelance projects and I'll be moving to a new apartment here in Cleveland. I finally found an affordable two bedroom place so I'll be able to setup a proper studio / workspace. I'll still be checking my email and still open for new freelance, but won't be posting for the rest of the month - so much to do....back in May

Happy Easter!

2009-04-12T13:21:00.000-07:00

Here's a couple of illustrations for Easter. I wanted to do a cartoon and a traditional illustration for the holiday, hopefully kids realize that Easter is about more than candy, just like Christmas. I had fun doing a traditional cross, while I won't be doing a lot of traditional work, it was a good to get out of my comfort zone...

Also thought I'd tack on a couple cards I did at American Greetings, these came out for Easter 2008, the lamb was a concept that I submitted that was accepted then they added the duck for a 2 card promo...

Educational Tests

2009-04-05T10:16:00.000-07:00

I've been trying to do some educational illustrations lately as another field for me to freelance in. These are the first test pieces that I have done with an activity for the kids to do - I think they've turned out pretty good, will probably be doing some more in the coming months...

Blog Birthday

2009-03-28T09:59:00.000-07:00

I noticed the other day that a year ago was when I started this blog, doesn't seem that long ago, but a lot has happened since then. I've been happy with the fact that having this site has pushed me to do more work constantly. Here's a little illustration I did, this has a very different look for me and one that I definately want to continue working in - I really like the color for this piece - so much of my work has to be so colorful and bright, that it was nice to do something with muted colors. I try to update every week so keep checking back so onward to year two...

Kids Aged Up

2009-03-23T16:17:00.000-07:00

After talking with my art rep, I realized that I needed to age up some of my kid characters to hit a bigger target audience - especially if I want to get into the educational market. Most of my art tends to be in the preschool through first grade age range - here are some test illustrations to make them more of a 'tween design. Would love some feedback...

Inspiration Series - #3

2009-03-22T16:38:00.000-07:00

Inspiration #3- Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles
While this might seem like an odd choice, this is probably one of the first things I was obsessed with as a kid (other than legos) and it really got me interested in several things. While I liked the action and fighting, being an only child - it made me think of what it must be like to have brothers, the good parts and the bad. It also got me interested in science, I didn't know what a "mutant" was and I was intrigued. When I started reading science books to figure that out, it really opened my eyes to science, nature, history, mythology, space and technology, martial arts - the list goes on... It was more than an obsession to say the least, one that my parents were happy about when I outgrew (its just an act, I still love the turtles :) I mean.. they're "Mutant" "Ninja" & "Turtles" - what an awesome combination!
Anyway, I thought since they came out in the 1980's it might be fun to try an older airbrush look - while its not an exact look, I tried to inccorporate some of the old retro blues and purples that were so popular in the 80's. Probably won't do this technique again but had fun doing it. Cowabunga Dudes!

Happy St. Patrick's Day

2009-03-17T17:31:00.000-07:00

This recession's so bad even the leprechauns are outta luck...

MAN: A History of the Human Race

2009-03-01T11:06:00.000-08:00

This became a much bigger series than I thought it would be. For the past several years I've really wanted to illustrate a childrens history book - a lot of history books can be dull and make learning not as exciting as it should be. This could have a lot of fun facts, timelines, etc. but for now I've only illustrated different eras in history. I chose to have the backgrounds as a short bar in the hopes that all the illustrations could connect into a pullout timeline poster. This is my third practice book, it won't be published - but this is the first series I've done where I feel like it could be published. This is a different look/technique for me but one that I'm really happy with, I'd love to get some feedback...
Cover

Prehistoric Age

Viking

Egyptian

Samurai

Roman Empire

Crusades

Conquistador

Wild West

The Age of Science

Hippy Rock n' Roll Era

The Technology Age

Future Space Age

Whew, thats it. I had a lot of fun doing these and of course there are so many more eras and cultures that I could have included but felt that I hit the main ones.

28!?!

2009-02-24T17:56:00.000-08:00

Wow, today's my birthday and I turn 28 - I never thought I'd be 28, time seems to fly - 30 seems to be sneaking up on me quickly. Anyway, here's some cake...

Liz Sanders Artist Rep

2009-02-23T19:01:00.000-08:00

I'm very happy to announce that Liz Sanders will now be my art rep and that I'll be joining her team of very talented freelance artists/illustrators. Its an exciting time for me as I venture out beyond the greeting card world and into other ventures. I'm hoping to get into kids magazines, educational publishing, baby products, childrens books, and any other fun project that might come along. I'd like to thank Liz for bringing me onto her team - if you would like to contact Liz about any possible freelance, I have updated my contact information and I'll also include it here:
Email Me: kyle_poling@hotmail.com

Email Liz: liz@lizsanders.com
Website: www.lizsanders.com

Inspiration Series - #2

2009-02-15T16:16:00.000-08:00

Inspiration #2 - Calvin & Hobbes
When I was young I liked reading the daily comic strips (I still do), and while I enjoyed Calvin & Hobbes and thought it was well drawn, I didn't "get it" - a lot of the topics Bill Watterson discussed I just didn't understand. Things like politics, social and environmental issues, and so on - but I did get the slapstick humor. By the time I got to college I rediscovered C&H and was not only blown away at how he handled his topics, but the true art form of his illustrations - loose yet precise, the angles, the perspective, the line work, how animated the poses were - everything was handled with care and great thought. My illustration is something you might find on Calvin's desk, as he is known to draw from time to time...

This was a fun technique and it gave me a chance to pull out some of my C&H books and laugh awhile. I wanted to include the very last strip of Calvin and Hobbes that was published - it was so simple yet summed up the entire series: A boy and his best friend out having adventures...

As an artist, art really is a blank sheet of paper, full of excitement, magic, and exploration - Bill Watterson understood that and I can't thank him enough for this unique, beautiful, thought-provoking, and always hilarious comic strip.

Happy Valentines Day

2009-02-14T18:27:00.000-08:00

My first card at American Greetings had a similar concept as this illustration, but looking at it the art was pretty bad so I decided to do a new version. Happy Valentines Day!

Card Samples #9

2009-02-09T12:08:00.000-08:00

Since Valentines Day is coming up, I thought I'd post some cards that I did awhile back - American Greetings works over a year in advance, so its a little weird to see cards just now coming out that I did a year ago.

First up is a princess card, the color has been changed from what will be in the stores, a lot more reds now - but I liked this first version better. Keep in mind that some of the blank spots are where the lettering goes.
Front:

Back:

This was in the same series as the castle, again, most of the colors have been changed to pink and red - and again I like this version better. I wish that each holiday didn't have a set color palette - I get tired of pink and red for valentines day, then red and green for christmas, pastels for easter, but I guess thats what the general consumer wants, but it would be nice to take a chance once in awhile.

This was a cute humor card - I don't do a lot of humor but I thought I'd include it here. I think this was a friendship or general card.

This last one was one of the first concept cards that I submitted when I first started working at AG. I also did a brown, polar, and koala bear as well - but I liked the panda the most.

Kids At Play

2009-02-03T22:36:00.000-08:00

As much as I love to draw animals and wacky characters, I know that my portfolio really needed more kid characters. I'm pretty happy with these, my technique is where I want it to be (for now) and I feel that I can just concentrate on subject matter - I'll probably do several more kid illustrations before moving on to different subjects.

Jump rope...

Skateboarding...

Hanging out at school...

And last, building a sand castle...

Sketchbook - January '09

2009-01-31T14:56:00.000-08:00

Awhile back I had started sketchbook saturday, a way for me to get back to sketching on a weekly basis. At the time, I had a lot of freelance and wasn't putting much effort into it and I really didn't want this to turn into a sketchbook blog anyway, but to keep it a portfolio site. So after a couple months off I decided that I would do one post a month starting this month and on. For the past couple years, I sketch right in photoshop then to finish, but I really want to get back to sketching on paper, so here is the first batch, they're a little rough but it was good to be sketching again.

Inspiration Series - #1

2009-01-29T18:37:00.000-08:00

Since I've started this blog, I've been wanting to do a series of illustrations of subjects that have inspired me over the past twenty-some odd years. I don't want these to be considered "fan art" but more of a way to explain some of my influences. I'm hoping that with these I can kind of experiment with technique and color and just have some fun while drawing some of my favorite characters. I'll be posting one a month over the next year and giving a brief explanation of why I like that particular subject. These are in no particular order...
_________________________________________________________
Inspiration #1 - Star Wars
Yeah, every guy that's 18-35 years old will give you this answer, but from an artistic point, no one can deny that Star Wars has had a tremendous influence on film and pop culture. For me, its not so much about the characters and plot but the world that George Lucas created- from the robots, aliens, ships, environments, costumes, and how much he was influenced by history and myth. Vader seemed like an easy choice to draw, but I like the fact that he was based on ronin and samurai, and the force is loosely based on zen and meditation. I didn't really care much for the prequel movies, but the design work is amazing - if you haven't seen the "art of" books for any of the Star Wars movies, definately check them out.

Snow Snow Everywhere

2009-01-20T16:28:00.000-08:00

I live in Cleveland Ohio, while I like it here, the weather can really stink at times. I think we've gotten a foot of snow in the last week and it just won't stop, it feels like it takes a half hour to take out the trash...

As a kid, snow was awesome, with no school you could go out and play, sledding, skiing, snowball fights, build a snowman, it was great...

But as an adult who needs to get to work and run errans, it can be the biggest pain...if you live someplace warm, please send some of that sunshine here, please!

Card Samples #8

2009-01-09T22:19:00.000-08:00

Thought I'd post a couple more cards I did while at American Greetings...

This one is out now at Target for Valentines day, an aquarium diorama. I like the fact that they didn't want the whole thing pink and red, nice color palette.

This is actually the inside illustration, the front was a lettering design which I didn't do. Halloween werewolves - it is a music card but I forget the song that it's supposed to play, some kind of haunted dance party song.

These are birthday playsets, the characters on the first page are punch outs and the inside are popup scene playsets. I had fun doing these adding a lot of little details.

The last one is also a valentines day card, I ended up having to change the colors to mostly pink, red, and aqua to match the holiday - but I'm posting this version because I like it better...

Happy 2009!

2009-01-01T13:25:00.000-08:00

Another year is done, what a rough year 2008 turned out to be, not only for me personally, but for several members of my family, some of my close friends, and for the world in general. I'm certainly looking forward to getting my life back together and hopefully start a new and happier chapter for myself. My prayer for anyone that stumbles on this blog is that 2009 will be a year full of happiness, to be with family and friends, to accomplish things that you want to do, and to create art that inspires and brings you and others joy. I also hope that you might take the time to volunteer or help others less fortunate - which there are many, we need to unite because that is the only way we'll get through these tough times. While some of you may not have faith, I pray for any of those who haven't found God to recieve him, he has been a blessing to me in my time of need, and I hope that he will be for you as well. Many blessings and Happy New Year to all!

Late Christmas

2008-12-29T23:47:00.000-08:00

Due to having the flu and traveling home to see the family I'm just getting around to posting some Christmas designs I did while at American Greetings. Hope everyone had a great Christmas and is ready to start a new year

The first one is more of a traditional card, it had a lot of glitter and metallics on it so the flat version here isn't what you got in stores, but still a nice simple design.

The next couple illustrations were part of a series that the inside had a lot of popups - I tried to make a flat version of the insides but it was a mess so all you get is the cover and some pieces...

The Santa was on the cover and the reindeer characters were part of the inside

This one is also a cover, the inside had a popup fireplace with the dog sleeping waiting for Santa.

The last couple are ones that I sculpted, its a snowboarding gumdrop and a ice skating peppermint with photographed backgrounds. They used fake snow and those little trees for trainsets, fun idea.

Tearsheets

2008-12-19T19:49:00.000-08:00

For anyone who might be interested, here are some hi-rez versions of my tearsheets. All of these illustrations are on this blog, its just for any potental freelance. Both are 8.5 x 11

Tony the Stormchaser

2008-12-13T23:50:00.000-08:00

I just wanted to congradulate my close friend, Tony Laubach, who graduates this weekend double majoring in Meteorology and Technical Communications out in Denver, Colorado. We met way back in kindergarden and we're still really good friends today, and his dream of becoming a meterologist/storm chaser is finally becoming a reality. Its been a long road, but I'm really proud of him, congrats!
http://blog.tornadoeskick.com/

What Are Opposites?

2008-12-06T21:53:00.000-08:00

Here is my second practice book - What Are Opposites? I've really enjoyed doing these and have several more ideas to develop. I may even try my hand at writing a short story and illustrating it. The learning books that I've done have been good practice, not much writing involved - just art. I think I've nailed my technique that I'm going to use for now, though I will contine to experiment with other styles, this is the one that I will promote. Would love some critiques and feedback, thanks

Joyride

2008-12-01T16:39:00.000-08:00

Another quick illustration. I'm still working on technique so this was a practice piece, I've got another book idea that I'm going to try and finalize a technique on so that will be posted later. I've always wanted to ride one of those swamp boats with the big fans on the back, they look like so much fun...

Happy Thanksgiving!

2008-11-26T17:54:00.000-08:00

Whether you have a little or you have a lot, be thankful for what you have. Happy thanksgiving everyone - this was a card I did while at AG.

Simplify 2

2008-11-19T20:18:00.001-08:00

I had fun doing the first group so I thought I'd do some more, I think they'd be great for preschool age kids. I probably won't do any more of them unless I can come up with an idea to tie them all together, like a learning book of some kind. Enjoy...

Gone Fishin'

2008-11-14T20:12:00.000-08:00

Just a fun illustration - a day with dad. Still playing around with technique but I think I'm getting there. Will probably try to push the background to be a little more cartoony in future illustrations, but its getting there.

Monster Count!

2008-11-07T13:41:00.000-08:00

I've been wanting to get into childrens books for awhile but haven't done anything that looks like a book. This isn't something that I intend on having published, just a fun practice run. I wrote and illustrated this little counting book, it was a chance to do some fun monsters and work on a cohesive style - I wanted the technique to look like my self promotion piece a couple posts back. Anyway, would love to hear some feedback

Election Day

2008-11-04T12:25:00.000-08:00

who will it be?

Happy Halloween!

2008-10-31T21:13:00.001-07:00

This was a concept that I turned in and and was picked up, I liked the idea of designing the character to fill the entire card. I was also very excited to find out that they turned it into a small plush toy

Dino Sketches

2008-10-25T11:32:00.001-07:00

Something must be funny...

Self Promotion Piece

2008-10-22T21:34:00.001-07:00

I've been working on some self promotional work to try and get some more freelance, my goal is to get into childrens books and magazines. This is a style that I developed some cards in at AG, and its something that I'm really enjoying, hopefully in future illustrations I can expand the style further. I'm planning on having this one printed on 5x7 postcards to send out and would love to get some feedback

Sketchbook Saturday 5

2008-10-18T13:37:00.000-07:00

Another batch of doodles

Card Samples #7

2008-10-12T19:04:00.000-07:00

Just a couple more cards for today

This was a fun, simple birthday card for a boy

This was a concept that I submitted that was picked up. The windows are cut out and the characters are showing through from the inside of the card. The characters can be punched out and the inside of the card is a playset

Last one is a humorous graduation card for a high school kid going to college, its a beer joke...

Sketchbook Saturday 3

2008-10-04T18:39:00.000-07:00

Another batch of doodles...

Simplify!

2008-10-01T10:00:00.000-07:00

I've challenged myself to really simplify my designs, sometimes I tend to over work my characters. Starting with circles and basic shapes, I tried to design them and see how much character I could get - I think they're really cute. These were a lot of fun to do, I've done a couple more that I will post later.

Card Samples #6

2008-09-17T19:39:00.000-07:00

I'm back with another group of cards...

Here is a set of three cards that was very simple, flat, and graphic animals. The sea animals are for girls, jungle is for boys, and the farm animals are for general kids. They also turned the jungle animals into a sticker sheet.

This is one of the few humor cards that I have done, I got to play around with texture and the thick linework on the character was different for me. I also did the lettering which is something I don't normally have to do.

I sculpted the bunny and basket and painted it. Fun card that was a money holder.

I had previously posted an owl that was a concept that I submitted. Here is a cat from the same series.

This one I'm really happy with. Its a fathers day card about the different moods of Dad. Almost all greeting cards have happy characters, so it was a nice change of pace to draw some emotions.

Card Samples #5

2008-09-08T19:05:00.000-07:00

Its been awhile since my last post, I've had a lot going on in my life and haven't been keeping up with the blog. Here is another group of cards that I've done...

The first card is a christmas card that will be out later this year

This was a quick one, but I liked working on the water

Spy cards don't come around very often, when doing kids cards it always seems like you're doing puppies, kittens, etc. This was a fun break and allowed me to try a different technique. Another fun part of the card is you can record your own "secret message" with a recordable soundchip

A fathers day card with a sports theme. The wood background gave it an good look for dads and the big foam finger on the last two pages is on a spring so it pops up when you open the card

An older card, but a fun one. The dinosaurs can be punched out and used as stencils. The thing with greeting cards now is sound and "play value" I think it is a good idea, the more fun the kid can have, the longer they'll keep it (and not throw it away)

A fun cat witch for halloween

I had a good time designing some of these characters, this was a back to school card

The last one is a big one, the layout you see is difficult to explain, but it kind of unfolds and makes a centerpiece that you can setup on a table. It comes out next valentines day

Card Samples #4

2008-07-17T09:28:00.000-07:00

Just a small update today

First up is a collage of spots from a Mothers Day booklet, it was 16 pages, I just selected some of my favorites to post

Sound card that plays Frosty the Snowman

Birthday boy scrapbook card, I really enjoy doing spot series because its like telling a short story. They are a lot of work, but also a lot of fun

Alien stickers, the aliens on the side are actually on springs over the space ships. I don't get to do a lot of alien/space theme cards so this was a lot of fun

Last one for today is a monkey valentines day card

Hunters

2008-07-01T11:57:00.000-07:00

I also wanted to post personal work on this blog as well. Its been awhile since I've had the chance to do any, this is an older one, but I still like the way it turned out - it was a great chance to work on lighting in a scene.

Card Samples #3

2008-07-01T10:18:00.000-07:00

Wow, it's been awhile since I've updated, I'll try and update more often.

This was a Fathers Day theme that I did, I enjoy doing the cut paper look, even thought it is all digital, I think it still has a hand made look.

A dinosaur fun facts card with punch-out trading cards.

This one took awhile, but was a lot of fun to do - a jungle growth chart. It will also come with stickers to add to the chart.

Baby scarecrow, I would have liked to have rendered this a bit more, but they really wanted to keep it flat and graphic - but I'm happy with the results.

Witch with a popout light switch cover.

This is more of a cute, conventional card. I had submitted a sketch for this and it was accepted. It was a fun one to do - even with the tight deadline.

One of my biggest challenges to date are doing sculpy cards. I sketch out the characters, then I sculpt, bake, and paint the characters. The photo studio then takes the photos, then I get them back, do any digital touch up that are needed and that pretty much finishes the card - someone else does the lettering. When the card is folded, the small characters overlap the big characters. They turned out great, I was really happy with them. I've done a couple more which I'll post later.

The last one for today is a simple one, a single fold birthday card for a boy.

Card Samples #2

2008-04-14T11:02:00.000-07:00

Here is another group of cards that I've completed. I'm not sure why but the color is being affected when I post them on the blog so some of the colors are a bit flat - will try and fix that soon.

The first is a cat couple - the wife always gets the blankets...

This set took some time, it was a series of snow globes that was a sticker activity set as well. This was based on an idea that I submitted and was developed further into a set of four.

This was a concept that I turned in and was picked for production

This is a sticker set that also has lights and spring attachments, I haven's seen the final version that will be in stores but they should be pretty cool.

Another sticker set, for Thanksgiving

I was really happy doing this one, it is a coloring card for kids to send to their parents who are away serving in the military. Great idea and the characters that I got to design were fun too.

A mothers day card, from kid to Nana or Grandma

This last one is an Anniversary card, pretty different from what I normally do, I had fun experimenting with texture on this

Lots more to come, hopefully the next post I can include some personal work, check back soon!

Card Samples #1

2008-03-29T10:13:00.000-07:00

Here is the first batch of card samples I have completed. I try to include a lot of different looks and style in my work, which is very important in the greeting card industry. I work almost competely digitally (photoshop) because it is a lot easier to experiment with a drawing, color, layout, etc.

This first one is one that I completed recently. It's a birthday card for a 1 year old. They wanted the animal characters to look like stuffed animals - which is why they all have stitching.

This was a fun one to do, a boy with a birthday machine.

This is an older card but one that I still enjoy. It was a take of "I see London, I see France" joke.

This was a challenge, a card for an older child - tween. The style was different than what I was use to but I finally got it right. It also has blinking lights.

This was a cute one, a valentines day card. The art directors liked this technique and used it as art reference for other cards.

You can't go wrong with a burping hampster...

This was an open illustration that I was experimenting with. They were wanting different looks, you see so much green and orange for halloween that I went for a monochromatic look. I also did a spider, cat, and bat which I'll try and post later.

The last one is a recent card for Grandparents day. This is the kind of style that I've started pushing myself in. I don't paint as much as I use to but this still has the same look.

That's it for today, just a small sample of the 200+ cards that I've done so far. Working at American Greetings has really pushed my art skills to places I didn't think I could go. It's a demanding job but one that I have really loved - I've got a lot more to show so check back soon!

WELCOME!

2008-03-28T20:08:00.000-07:00

Hello all and welcome to my blog! This is a place where I will be posting professional and personal work, feel free to look around and please leave comments and critiques. I am hoping to use this site as a promotional tool to start freelancing in childrens books, magazines, and any other opportunties that may come along. I am currently a juvenile card designer at American Greetings in Cleveland, Ohio - so most of my work that I be posting will be card designs (at least for now). If you would like to contact me for possible freelance, please send me an e-mail and I will get back with you as soon as possible. Thanks!