Dan Kirchoff

Having worked in book design and layout at McGraw Hill for 11 years, one is bound to gain some experience.
How do you tell a story with images? How do you take a story and illustrate it so it engages?
These are important questions for any artist.
Also, how do you use the technology we have today to expediate and enhance what you're doing?
The pencil we use may change, but how we use it, doesn’t.
Aye, that’s the challenge.

In college, we all dreamed of becoming record album illustrators. Remember record albums?
At the time, I was told I couldn’t draw well enough to be an illustrator. That proved to be a blessing in disguise.
I resolved to learn to draw, and for the last 30-pllus years, have developed a style in both pen-and-ink
(color added in Photoshop) as well as acrylics, mixing my hues from the three primary colors and white.
My work in publishing has given me knowledge of printing processes, and how to illustrate for them.
But also how to tell a story, often from a different vantage point.
Click on the images below, or hover your cursor over them to see them larger.

There are many who see fine art as therapy. Not me. I see fine art as the ultimate challenge.
The challenge is not meeting the expectations of a client, but meeting my own high bar of achievement.
Is it good enough to paint an apple, or is it better to create a new way to see apples?
With portraiture, it’s the challenge of showing in individual from a different angle, not seen before.
All the while, working with realism, depicting objects exactly as they appear.
I work in pen-and-ink on paper as well as acrylics, creating colors from the primaries and white.
Click on the images below, or hover your cursor over them to see them larger.