James McRae Slow Down
James is a good friend of mine who I also helped develop a website for years back. He enlisted my help in the creation of some CD artwork, which was a process that taught me a few things, and was perhaps one of my first really intense graphics assignments.
We started conceptually with the idea of him sitting on a bench with his dog. But the idea was to have a sketch of him, and an actual photo of the dog. Here's the original photo of james:
I took this image and made a pencil sketch by hand.. but the results were not very favorable since it's been many years since i even touched pencil art, and it was never really my thing. So i decided to start over with my best friend, the pen tool.
Then i used my own photo of Dallas road beach as a backdrop for the rest of the image.
The idea for the inside cover was to contrast the bright daytime feel of the cover, with a warm dark feeling on the inside cover.
It was great to work on this CD project, and the graphics got a lot of positive feedback from everyone.
The CD is currently for sale on iTunes, Amazon, CD Baby and fascinating rhythm:
http://itunes.apple.com/us/album/slow-down/id417299507
http://www.amazon.com/Slow-Down/dp/B004LBX128
http://www.cdbaby.com/cd/jamesmcrae