Ciruelo was born in Buenos Aires, Argentina on July 20, 1963. His
formal art training was limited to a few courses in drawing and advertising
design, after which, at the age of 18, he immediately found work in
an ad agency as an illustrator. At 21 he became a freelance illustrator,
and has never looked back.
In 1987 Ciruelo traveled to Europe and settled in Sitges, a small
town near Barcelona, Spain. He then embarked on a search for publishers
for his "worlds of fantasy", eventually finding them in
Spain, England, the United States and Germany, and through this
means has reached a broad audience. Ciruelo continues to work for
U.S. publishers, among them Bantam for whom he did book covers for
the trilogy written by George Lucas, "Chronicles of the Shadow
War."
He also has created a number of rock album covers, The 7th Song
from Steve Vai being one of them. Other clients include Wizards
of the Coast (Magic cards), TSR, Berkley, Tor, Warner, Ballantine,
Heavy Metal magazine, Playboy magazine, etc.
In 1990 Ciruelo devoted eight months to designing and illustrating
The Book of the Dragon to be published by the Spanish publisher
Timun Mas, the work proved an enormous undertaking for Ciruelo,
who had interrupted his daily routine to take on a project that
was destined to profit him only in the long term. Foreign rights
to The Book of the Dragon were sold to Paper Tiger, London, in 1992,
who had also published his first artbook: Ciruelo, in 1990. An edition
of The Book of the Dragon in CD Rom format was released recently
by DAC Editions in Spain.
In 1997 the book Luz, the Art of Ciruelo came out. This third book
features over 160 full color illustrations, a number of pencil sketches
and ink drawings laid out in 128 pages.
In the year 2000 his fourth artbook Magia, the Ciruelo Sketchbook
was published.
Ciruelo is working on a new artbook: Viajes, meaning journeys,
which will feature many of his drawings from notebooks accompanied
by short phrases which are ideas and concepts that very often are
the base on which Ciruelo builds his most personal paintings.
Currently he lives with his wife Daniela and their kids, Angelo
and Lys in Sitges, a quaint and magical town near Barcelona, on
the shores of the Mediterranean Sea.
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