Josh Quick Illustration Blog

I created this art piece this week for my friends at Lewis & Clark Trail Adventures. It is a shirt you can get for battling the Great Lochsa River which means “rough water” in Nez Perce. Tricia and I tried L&C’s Lochsa Raft adventure out last weekend and it is a right of passage I suggest everyone go through. http://trailadventures.com/

This is an event poster currently in progress. When it’s large format I paste sketchbook pages together for the appropriate size. The under sketch is usually red. Most components of the drawing are pre-determined in my brain. But, the theme/characters/pieces are subject to change.

Recently I was hired to draw the promotional marketing collateral for “Shine: Intergalactic”. I took advantage of my trip to Southern Utah get some inspiration for the characters and life forms in the final artwork. Attached are a few of the sketches. Much of the ideas came from the petroglyphs of the Anasazi Indians.

Attached is a poster I did for my friends at Missoula Bicycle Works. They have a event that will help raise money for a local BMX track. I believe events that artists help out with should be for the arts. However, this event for me is an exception. I’ve had many creative ideas inspired by riding around town. In my opinion the bicycle is an artist’s best friend

The new Whizpops Album “Science and Wonder” is about to be released on Missoula and beyond (my artwork is all over it). Love you Whizards.

This comic was inspired by the book “Near Death on the High Seas”. This was a short story. I tweaked it to my own happy scenario. In the actual story the man loses his wife to a typhoon in the south pacific.

This is a visual depiction of Tricia and my weekend in Hot Springs, Montana. 544 people reside in the town of Hot Springs whose motto is “limp in and jump out”. The hot springs themselves were soothing and the rustic ambience stimulated my imagination. I believe towns like Hot Springs could inspire great artistic masterpieces, fictional novels or a song.

The Whizpops! are a educational, indy, folk, psychadelic, kid’s jam band from Missoula. This my drawing for their new album cover. Each character and natural element represents one of their songs. Songwriters and musicians are in my experience a joy to work with. Along with their audio super powers they are visually gifted and understand design aesthetics.

I recently watched the movie “Django Unchained” by Quentin Tarantino which I enjoyed. I especially appreciated his raw film making technique with rough cutaways and flawed colors. This poster I created for BSDFF 10 is completely hand drawn. A computer was utilized for color and output.

Sea monster illustrations were drawn on maps at the beginning of cartography. The lower right picture was drawn based on this historical fact. I read that these creature illustrations would increase a map’s selling potential. It’s possible mapmakers were not superstitious, but actually strategic about marketing. By the 18th century, scientific and geographical discoveries made the illustrated sea monsters on maps disappear.

This is my version of Shepard Fairey’s 1989 “Andre the Giant Has a Posse” sticker. If you were to replace my Yao Ming with your own cult hero who would it be?

We went to Lost Trail Powder Mountain <just outside of Hamilton Montana> on Saturday. This is a visual summary of that event. Tricia pointed out to me that there is more to a ski area than just skiing. It is a community center, a opportunity to be in the forest and a winter adventure. It was a beautiful, bright day.

This is a visual interpretation of my recent holiday visit to Mexico with the Opstad family. Each panel represents a day. On a side trip we visited ancient Mayan ruins - including a ball court. The Maya had a game where the players were stars, the court was the universe and the ball represented the sun. I would like to mimic nature this year. I could be a river or tree - what would you be?

My family does presents this time of year. I decided to keep track of some of them. Did you get anything cool recently?