Every Rusty Sherrill paintingstarts with a thumbnail idea sketch. Working small helps him get thecomposition and feeling of the piece right. Then he enlarges the best sketch,adds detail and transfers it to canvas. The artist prefers working in acrylics,but using the Old Masters’ oil painting method of doing a monochromaticunderpainting before adding washes of color. Rusty also loves working inPhotoshop. This medium allows him to manipulate photographs creating whole newdirections in art.
Every Rusty Sherrill paintingstarts with a thumbnail idea sketch. Working small helps him get thecomposition and feeling of the piece right. Then he enlarges the best sketch,adds detail and transfers it to canvas. The artist prefers working in acrylics,but using the Old Masters’ oil painting method of doing a monochromaticunderpainting before adding washes of color. Rusty also loves working inPhotoshop. This medium allows him to manipulate photographs creating whole newdirections in art.
Rusty’s aspiration is to make people think in a way theymight not have before by reaching out and grabbing them with powerfulimages. The onlooker enters hisimagination which is filled with symbolism, some obvious, some verysubtle. Pulled into his world, viewersare then free to find their own way, explore and discover new things and wallowaround in this place for a while. He strives to give the viewer a fascinatingjourney so each time he or she can delve into a piece and find something newand unexpected.
Rusty Sherrill, 60, has exhibited throughout SouthernCalifornia, Florida and Las Vegas for the last two decades. The artist lives inBig Bear City, CA, with his wife Cathy and their two cats.
Like Norman Rockwell, Seuss personally created every rough sketch, preliminary drawing, final line drawing and finished work for each page of every project he illustrated. Despite the technical and budgetary limitations of color printing during the early and mid-twentieth century, Dr. Seuss the artist was meticulous about color selection. He created specially numbered color charts and elaborate color call-outs to precisely accomplish his vision for each book. Saturated reds and blues, for example, were carefully chosen for The Cat in the Hat to attract and maintain the visual attention of a six-year-old audience. By the time Seuss’s book career took off, sharp draftsman skills were evident in drawings. His ability to move a storyline ahead via illustrations filled with tension, movement and color became a hallmark component of his work, and the surreal images that unfolded over six decades became the catalyst for a humorous and inspired learning experience.
Artist Leo Rijn, the inaugural sculptor for the Dr. Seuss Tribute Collection I, was selected to launch this project due to his prized work with some of today’s top talent in the world of film, entertainment and the visual arts (including Tim Burton, Ang Lee and Steven Spielberg). Rijn has been identified as one of today’s brightest sculpting talents because of his ability to breathe life into the written word and successfully transform two-dimensional ideas into three-dimensional works of art. Universal Studios commissioned Leo to develop and oversee the creation of numerous maquette scale models for the Monumental Dr. Seuss Sculptures at Seuss Landing in Orlando, Florida. Leo was instrumental in the art direction for many of the sculpted characters and buildings now on display at this permanent Seuss attraction. His strikingly accurate Seuss works embody a masterful and intuitive Seussian sensibility, establishing him as a leading talent in interpretive sculpting.
Seuss embarked on an ingenious project in the early 1930s as he evolved from two-dimensional artworks to three-dimensional sculptures. What was most unusual for these mixed-media sculptures was the use of real animal parts including beaks, antlers and horns from deceased Forest Park Zoo animals where Seuss’s father was superintendent. Unorthodox Collection of Taxidermy was born in a cramped New York apartment and included a menagerie of inventive creatures with names like the “Two Horned Drouberhannis,” “Andulovian Grackler,” and “Semi-Normal Green-Lidded Fawn.” Shortly after Seuss created this unique collection of artworks, Look Magazine dubbed Seuss “The World’s Most Eminent Authority on Unheard-Of Animals.” To this day, Seuss’s Unorthodox Collection of Taxidermy remains as some of the finest examples of his inventive and multi-dimensional creativity.
Illustrator by day, surrealist by night, Seuss created a body of irrepressible work that redefines this American icon as an iconographic American artist. Yet, the Secret Art often shows a side of the artist that most readers, familiar with him through his classic children’s books, have never seen. This collection, created over a period of more than 60 years, encompasses the entirety of Seuss’s multi-dimensional talent. The artistic golden thread highlighted throughout this collection is apparent in each wildly imaginative and surreal Secret Art image. The Secret Art of Dr. Seuss is an inimitable collection of artworks created at night for his own personal enjoyment. These works were rarely, if ever, exhibited during his lifetime and provide a deeper glimpse into the art and life of this celebrated American Icon.
Signature Gallery Group a Managing and Accounting company.
