Home of artist Eric Maruscak

This past weekend I was very happy to be appearing at the Wizard World Philadelphia 2009 Convention. This was my third time appearing at their Philadelphia show, and my 9th appearance overall with their tour! Philly has always held a special place in my memories because it was where I was first noticed as an illustrator and chalk artist, and it was where this whole chapter of my artistic career got started back in 2006.

Sometimes I am asked to appear as a chalk artist at giant conventions like the New York Comic Con or the Otakon in Baltimore. But I also really enjoy making appearances at smaller, local events. I was recently asked to come to an elementary school art show and make a chalk art drawing. I would work on it over the course of about 2 and a half hours for the kids to watch while they looked at the rest of the show. The idea is that an artist showing their work in progress will inspire the kids to make more art themselves, and maybe try a different style then they normally might have otherwise.

Today was my first experience with paintball. Sure, I play Halo and Call of Duty all the time, but my friend Sean kept telling me that paintball was a fantastic experience. He also assured me that it doesn’t really hurt too bad to get hit. He was right, but it sure does leave a hell of a bruise!

In the time I have been known as a chalk artist, I have almost exclusively made recreations of comic book art in my chalk murals. I have appeared at comic conventions and reproduced famous artists work as close to line-by-line accurate as I can make it. However, like most everyone else, I receive a lot of e-mails showing me those 3D optical illusion chalk drawings that have become famous in the past few years.

I was asked back this year to make another chalk art mural at the Earth Fest celebration of Earth Day. Once again I found myself fighting to try and “force” a comic book character into the street art idea. And again, I rejected a number of them pretty quick.

Just wanted to drop a quick post this evening to show some older work. Even though I am known mostly as a chalk artist, I still consider myself an Illustrator first are foremost. I work in a number of different formats, and don’t like to lock myself in to the chalk art mold as that ignores so many other things I like to do. Since I was a young child I loved to doodle with a pencil as much as possible. Unfortunately this included inappropriate times, like when everyone else was working on math, and in inappropriate places, like ON my math book!

In the summer of 2008 I attended Wizard World Chicago, this was my third appearance in Chicago for their shows and I wanted to make something really cool. Just a few months earlier I had met Greg Horn, a phenomenal illustrator and painter who has done amazing work for Marvel Comics including covers for She-Hulk and Ms Marvel. Yeah, he draws some pretty knock out women. After Greg and I talked we thought that it would be great if I recreated one of his pieces of art.

I will be attending Wizard World Philadelphia 2009 this June, which will be my 3rd Philadelphia convention in a row and my 9th overall with the Wizard World Tours. Wizard gave me my first break as a comic book chalk artist in the Summer of 2006, and I am forever grateful for that. The Wizard Conventions are always amazingly fun even though I spend most of the time on the concrete floor working on my illustration. With that in mind, I wanted to post about the piece I made for the 2008 Wizard Philly Convention, a J.G. Jones original drawing of the big three from DC Comics; Batman, Wonder Woman and Superman.

Back in February, I appeared at the 3rd Annual New York City Comic Con. The show has only grown larger with each passing year and this time topped out at 85,000 visitors over its three days. This makes it one of the largest pop culture conventions on the East Coast. My first appearance at the NY Comic Con was in 2008 when I recreated an Alex Ross painting of the new Captain America costume design. Click to see that Alex Ross Chalk Art Mural.

I always love when I get to take a trip down to New York City for a chalk art convention appearance. Not only is it a fun trip (and one of the easier ones I make because it is only 3 hours away) the people at the Javits Center and the fine folks at Reed Exhibitions always treat me so amazingly well that I don’t want to leave. I’ve been down there so much in the past few years that it really does feel like a second home.