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Twenty Years of Illustrations
	The Fan Girl Airbrush and gouache The illustration is a good example of what can be accomplished with flat color. Airbrush involves cutting hundreds of small stencils out of acetate and spraying paint. Only in the small touch ups did I touch the surface of the work with a paint brush. Winsor Newton Designer Gouache and a Thayer and Chandler Airbrush were used on cold press illustration board.
	Saturday afternoon at the park Graphite The only pencil needed to do illustration is a sharp HB. With plenty of force and quality paper all that is needed is this one simple tool.
	Jazz in the time of Art Deco Airbrush and gouache Working in Detroit for ten years sharpened skills in drawing, illustration, composition and it all had to be finished with the airbrush. The airbrush ruled the illustration scene in Detroit for years.
	Vermeer Rocker? Acrylics Up time in the studio meant doing samples, sharpening skills and trying out new tools and mediums. Of course what sold was airbrush. Art directors rarely tried out something new preferring the tried and true.
	Back to Bach Acrylics A very early example of illustration. I think this dates back to a class at the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit. Long before dinosauers roamed the earth.
	Drawing and Wash Charcoal, watercolor wash on gessoed board One of the best surfaces for drawing I have found over the years is to coat the surface of a hot press or cold press illustration board with gesso. The gesso gives the surface a super bite to charcoal and allows the watercolor wash to float around before it dries.
	Up close to chrome Colored inks and dyes If you are in Detroit you do cars, you go to car shows new and old, you learn to paint chrome and how to make it shine.
	The Tucker - ahead of its time Colored inks and dyes If you have great ideas for reinventing the mousetrap or perhaps a car don't go to Detroit to sell your idea. They only sell what they know as the maker of the Tucker found out. Great ideas die in Detroit.
	If it is red it must be a Ferrari Colored inks and dyes No other car has the history of this line. Imagine spending the entire day with nothing but vintage Ferraris around you. And not just sitting there. All the cars were driven to be shown. And the sound was as if heaven were on earth but for a brief moment.
	Make the hood as long as possible Acrylics A study of greens and blues with a dash of red thrown in for good measure. Is it possible to park this car without someone to guide you?
	Mercedes Airbrush and gouache Primary client of Art Staff for years. How many hours was spent making the chrome shine?
	Thinking Gerry Airbrush and gouache A little bit of paint, a little bit of drawing.
	Jeep - Fifty Years of History Airbrush and gouache Entered a contest and actually got a piece accepted. This piece appeared on a poster for the 50th anniversary of the Jeep.
	An adventure in cars and islands Acrylics Imagine a wild adventure on some distant island with your favorite car. Now imgine that as a poster.

About Me
It all started with an Illustrator's Annual sitting on a library shelf. Flipping through the work I realized for the first time what I wanted in my life. Grad school followed and quickly a job in the commercial art world of Detroit. Cars and more cars. Ten years of this was enough. Off to teaching. Fifteen years of teaching and freelancing has brought me to this point in my career. I love to solve problems. I love the creative process. I am comfortable with all types of mediums with sports photography a passion. Living in the mid—specifically in southern Illinois—where it is hot and muggy in the summer—perfect weather for cycling.

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©2011 Dan Kistler and Dan Kistler Studios

Passions: sports photography, typography, graphic design, music, backpacking, cycling, motorcycling, Photoshop, Illustrator, InDesign, fonts, type, drawing, travel, Turkey, Greece, films, reading, my children, printmaking, bookmaking, paper. illustration, Adobe Creative Suite 5, small government, low taxes, f/2.8 lenses, V5 pens, Wacom tablets, Macs, iPad, books on type, beautiul type, concerts, mountains, long and straight roads, twisty windy roads, hills, yogurt and honey, the color of the Aegean Sea, Gotham and Tungstun tpyefaces…what more could you want to know?

Art has always been a part of my life. My earliest expereinces in art were drawing in grade school, not paying any attention to the teacher or what was going on around me. Being so engrossed in my drawing that I would make the noises of the objects I was drawing. At that early age it was often scenes of war so I sat in class making the sounds of bombs and machine guns. All of which entitled me to a trip to visit the principle. We became friends—sort of.

As I grew older my art changed from war to signs (graphics) to everything around me. College got me started in new mediums—screen printing, oil water color…etc. But it was not until after collge that I found what I was looking for. Commercial ART specifcally illustration. I found out for the first time that there was such a thing as illustration where someone paid you to create an image for them. Wonderful.

Two years at the Center for Creative Studies in Detroit led to the first job in a studio and the race was on. Slow days at the studio meant you were "up" and free to work on your portfolio. Those days were the best because you became your own art director and own boss creating images that you wanted to make and got paid to do it. Many of these images come from those times. Experiementing with color, techniques, materials resulted in all types of images in all types of styles.

Although i no longer live in Detroit and produce images that involve cars I still love to illustrate. I am alwys looking for a venue for putting my skills to work.