Artist Profile: Jeff Davis

3 Faeries: Photo background, digital manipulations

Artist: Jeff Davis
Business name: JD Savage Productions
Location: Carmel, NY

Websites:
JD Savage
JD Savage Zazzle store

Digital sketch for a painting. The fish in the tank are taken from a wall mural painting.

How do you describe your work?
My works tends to be dramatic in the sense that many of my pieces depict people looking right at the viewer. Life itself goes along at a regular pace until you look someone in the eye. For that moment, however long it lasts, time stops and you’re faced with a truly dramatic sense of self, and the other person. That electric moment is what I try to convey.

What is your creative process like?
When lightning strikes, I try to get enough of the piece done so that when I come back to it, my mind can conjure up the feeling that prompted it in the first place. This is true for both the works I do “out of the blue”, and contract or commercial work.

For me, everything starts with paper and pencil, thumbnail sketches and scribbles that won’t make much sense to others, but capture direction, composition and mood in a way that I can understand. My business affords me the opportunity to work on many different types of products, (website design, video, wearables, posters, etc.), but it also demands that I break my day into chunks of time devoted to this or that project. So, making sketches that allow me to find my way back to the mood of a particular piece is important. Music, too, makes a big difference. I try to listen to the same artist whenever I’m working on something. If I have Kate Bush playing when I start a piece, I’ll play something from her when I get back to it.

Look Again: Pen and ink drawing printed as a poster, then scanned, touched up and reprinted

What kind of training did you have which helped you achieve your current level of artistry?
I have no formal training. I have always loved being able to express myself creatively, so I’m an avid reader and student of culture past and present. In the early 90’s, I wanted to learn more about computer graphics, so I got a job at IBM, eventually rising to Art Director of Internet Multimedia in Southbury, Ct. I like to get paid to learn, if possible, and the key to that is to be upfront with employers.

One of the best training experiences I’ve had were the years I spent as a bartender. Nothing teaches you more about the way people move and interact than watching them in their downtime. Watching the way people express themselves, sitting, standing, casting shadows, etc. made a huge difference in the way I approach the emotional aspects of my work.

Is there a tool or material that you can’t imagine living without?
Adobe PhotoShop, a sketchbook and a good 4B pencil are all I need.

Website design with more photo and graphic layers than I care to count!

What inspires you to create?
It can, literally, be anything. Finding a perfect apple among hundreds of others in the supermarket, the shadow of a crow passing over a field of grass, the path a leaf takes when it falls…anything can spark that “Aha!” moment. For specific pieces, I tend to start with an emotion that I want to convey, often what I was chastised for as a child: impudence, arrogance, the need to be free. I find, however, that the most powerful pieces are those that express joy and appreciation of life around us. Once the chosen emotion starts to burn, the rest becomes a series of academic choices.

What inspires you to keep going when the work gets frustrating or tough?
The fact that the beginning is pure. If I’ve totally tanked a painting, it doesn’t diminish the emotional reason that I started it. If I can fix it, I will. If not, I go back to the sketchbook and try to identify where I left the path.

What is your best piece of advice for those who would like to rise in their level of artistry?
Be honest. Be honest with yourself about why you want to do something, and always be honest with the people that you want to pay you. In any field, trust is almost impossible to regain once it’s lost.

FireElf 2: Photo background, photo of a painting for the lion head, digital manipulations

What takes up the majority of your time besides your art?
My kids. We read together as a family every night, usually both my children get to read a book that they have chosen, and then I read a chapter or two from our “family” book. I’m also the president of the parent’s group at their school, so any free time I have goes there.

Original lion painting for use in FireElf 2. This photo shows it about halfway through.

What’s your favorite book?
Tolkien’s The Silmarrilion. I’ve read that more times than I can count. The fluidity of the language, the depictions of love, honor, pathos, evil…it’s all there. Pair that with a king size Butterfinger and I’m a happy guy.