What I've Done In December

I did paintings for people for Christmas. Before they got all wrapped up I snapped a few pics. Posterity may not care, but I wanted to show why I didn't get any comics done. I also did them all at night, so being on vacation as teacher really didn't help all that much.

My wife made some really rad sock monkeys for a bunch of the little kids in our family. My daughter fell in love with the idea, so I painted her a sock monkey ballerina.

My son is really into robots and planes and spacehsips and stuff right now. All boy. This painting started life as something totally else, then when I decided not to paint it for that person, I looked at what I had and saw the robot and the little robots. While painting it, I stumbled into and idea for a body of work for my graduate thesis in Graphic Design and Illustration.


This one is for my sister. I get her name in the drawing. I'm basically her interior decorator. So complaints about her decor direct to me. Complaints about her maid, direct to her. I ain't got nothin' to do wi'that.

For my sweetie. Sappy and cutesie. Kinda like me.

For my brother. I was definitely on a robot/space kick.

For my brother and sister and law for their anniversary/upcoming baby present.

Oh, and yeah, I applied and got into grad school.

Invitation Art

We love our themed kid birthday parties around here. My son has requested a Max suit to wear as well as a chocolate cake with white icing and coconut in the shape of Max.

With respect and apologies to Mr. Sendak.

Art Journals Club - Or Indulging My Inner Melodrama

I cosponsor an art journal club at work, trying to get kids into the idea of journal with art. We're making homemade books, everyone doing a piece for everybody else. I knocked out three this weekend. Small little exercises in paint and ink.
Inspiration brought to them by Danny Gregory, after I showed them a bunch of scans from his book in class.

"Nicole - Heartsleeves"

"Dillion - Bet You Thought I Was Gonna Use Red"

"Aubry - One Closes, One Opens. Which is Which"

Comics in Progress: Part Deux - Done?

Great, Fun Sketch Site.

http://sketch.odopod.com. All kinds of cool stuff.

Comics in Progress

Working with a friend on a story. He created the story, I created the pictures. His nickname is Zippy. I don't have a good nickname like that.

Ink, paper, photshop

T Shirt Contest Design

For a Hurley contest. For some reason, I did something wrong and I didn't get in. They haven't emailed me back yet about what I did wrong, but I like it, anyways.

Back to the Drawing Board

Not starting over, but actually back to drawing AT the drawing table and not some approximation. I actually get stuff done. I inked this whole page in about 1.5 hours and started on another.

Crestock.com has these great propaganda poster parodies. Some are hysterical. I've always been a fan of propaganda art style if not the content.


I really dig the work of Pascal Campion, too. His compositions are great and his use of color and mood are incredible. Insane ability to capture the feeling of place or action scene. Check out his great animations.

He has a grat blog he keeps with fellow francophile Mathieu Forichon. There are incredible pieces where the friends riff on a them back and forth.

Painting in Sketchbooks

Sketch book page. The Rocket Kitty was pained over a real bad fluffy-demon-shitzu-dog type drawing that embarrassed me every time I looked at it. The other side is just colored drawings that were already there except the devil dude. He's covering up another really bad life sketch. I'm really crap at sketching, so I guess the bad sketches will help me to produce more paint sketches. But I'm not sure what to do when those are bad.

I worked on these and used the leftover paint...


...of this one. This is page 1 and 2 of new painted comic I'm working on. I'm trying to work on it in the way I might journal. To keep the art loose and free. I tend to tighten up and produce junk when I get all, like, it's on bristol and and it's final art and I gotta make it all good and stuff.

We'll see what happens. I gotta get art an house projects done before my summer classes start.

Eostre Mix For My Homies

Every year I make an Eostre mix for my family and have fun with the cover. Here's this year's.


Also, here's some quick scans of some painting s in progress for a local art gallery's Green themed show. I used the theme "Reduce, Reuse, Recycle". I even painted them on old cereal boxes. This was the most pure painting I've done in a long time. It was pretty fun.

Rebel Arts and Rebel Artists....um..kind of.

I got this cool little sketchbook while in Chicago and will fill it. A saying on one side, an illustration on the other. All in black, white and red. The first line, which isn't there right now, will say: "I will.."

This is the first page. The left side was supposed to be cleaner, but I got impatient with wet guache.


And here's a bonus sketch on a menu from Gino's East in Chicago. Here's what I said on FB:

A 10 minute sketch of E waiting for the pie at Gino's in Chicago. This is pre-droopy-eye-drunk-dial-screechy-laugh-E. Ain't she purdy!

Means "To Give Life To"

Working on a simple sample animation for my students so that we can do a simple animation at school. I better understand it so I can teach it, no?

"I'm Talking to Dead People"

Hurley fan art. Finally done. I'm totally geeking on the series now and think they are doing everything again, finally. I'm even looking up message boards on theory threads about the island and people again. I can feel you shaking your head at me already.

I think I deleted the scan of the line drawing on accident.

"I hear dead people."

"Miles"
Fan art for Lost. I've been sketching the characters as I get ideas for them. It's fun. I sketch the ideas then watch the show and put the details in. During commercials.

Here's the original drawing from my sketchbook.

Hurley's next.

Valentine's Card '09

It started with a sketchbook drawing. I've been into the whole complicated protective suit thing for some reason, lately.
Then we painted a whole sheet of water color paper with texture.
Cut into pieces.


And more pieces.
Attached multiple printed copies of the drawings with glue and added a border.
Some stamps from our daughter's collection and...
Now we gots us a nice stack 'o' Valentimes!

Sketchbooks and Other Sketchbooks

More Saturday morning drawings. This one with a three year-old driving his cars across my leg. Found a great book book at the library called "An Illustrated Life," who apparently also has a site for it. All about people's sketchbooks and journals. I love looking at the interior worlds of artists as I've always been crap at keeping one of my own.


The second is from Sunday while sitting in the Scholastics Award Ceremony. Even though I changed it to "-ick" I actually really appreciate it for what it is. I just wrote it near the end of the ceremony and I had to pee really bad and was beginning to be grumpy.

Sketchy McSketcherson or Why I Need more Practice at Drawing

I love the new moleskin.

"Thoughts Cought in Her Hair" Image first, then title. Doesn't always happen that way. Pencil drawing over paper and acryllic.

My daughter has dance class at the Dance Collective. So I draw in between conversations with other parents.

Hand-Made Fanboyness

So, I'm a pretty big Neil Gaiman fan. No secret. His blog pointed me to this.

I'm pretty well jazzed about the Coraline film. Jazzed because it's a cool story, jazzed because it's animated, but also because it's old school stop-motion and everything is hand-made and not messed with in computers until it's been hand-made. That is cool.

Also found a great stop motion movie on Netflix. It's a remake of the Peter and the Wolf, produced by a Polish film company and directed by a British woman named Suzie Templeton. IMDB has a clip. It's short but you can see how beautiful it is.

Bunny Suit-ness

Christmas 2008 painting for Erin.i

Sketchbooks and Button Eyes

Couple images from my sketchbook. Both done at the same time. Exercises using leftover paint while working on Christmas presents. This one started as just a circle, then shoulders and so on.

This one started with a thought about a student at the school where I teach who died in a car accident in November. I was talking to some of my students when I said something like "...Her mom has a giant hole in her heart now..." trying not to choke up. This kind of came from that.

And on a lighter note:
One of my favorite writers is Neil Gaiman. He wrote a book called Coraline and it had been made into a movie that I can't wait to see. It is directed by Henry Selick of "The Nightmare Before Christmas" fame and is stop motion and looks beautiful. Check out coraline.com and "button your eyes".