Ah, For the Fun of It

hawaii is great. vacation is great. i love just having time to do whatever i want, for no reason at all. it's just so nice to not worry about anything for a few days. i really treasure this time away from work and telephones and things, and time away from my awful commute to work and stupid gas prices and driving and traffic and all things awful about being a commuting 9-6 corporate employee. why can't i just draw skulls and things all day and get paid for that?

anyway, here is a little skull painting i worked on today during my "down" time. i could definitely definitely keep pushing it, but i'm trying to encourage myself to stay loose and this is just a tiny little painting. actually, this is also a really terrible picture of it too. the values are all f'ed up and it looks really bad, but i can't scan it here at the hotel. it doesn't matter anyway. but why keep tightening it up? i'm obviously not going for a super realistic representation of a human skull. hell, that's made obvious in the drawing, so why change that up and attempt to paint a perfect image of a skull? so, i'm done with this little gouache painting and am looking forward to doing the next two. a bird skull, and another skull of an animal. not sure what yet.













i also have done a few little sketches at starbucks over the last two mornings. just goofy little heads for no reason, but it's actually my favorite group of sketches in a long time. my plateaus are feeling longer and longer and longer and longer, but suddenly i feel like i've improved a little bit with drawing, etc. it makes drawing more fun and i look forward to more painting and sketching and FUN!

on another note, here is a little quote from the book i just started reading that i thought sounded really neat. possibly some drawing ideas will surface from this stuff. i like the tone of it.
"There were once five and twenty tin soldiers, all brothers, for they were the offspring of the same old tin spoon."
"But tin soldiers do not bleed. They go back in the box and live to fight another day. Soldiers of flesh and blood also end up in a box, but theirs is of heavy pine."

Scribblings and Things

I've gotten a little sketching done lately. it's actually been nice to sit and sketch with no intention. i haven't done that in quite some time and it's really fun to not worry about what you're drawing. i drew a zombie head and a robot, and some random chick and some figures from life and from the seattle workshop. i've just been letting myself have fun with sketching and it's really refreshing.








































I also got some new reading material which is cool. the new metal gear solid: sons of liberty, and the new book BALTIMORE by mike mignola which should pass some time on the plane. i'm also working on three little skull paintings in gouach that could be kinda cool. real little though.

of hellcats and hags

for some reason lately i've been really into sketching witches. i dont know if it's that wizard of oz dvd set i got or reading folklore from around the world, but it's fun 'cuz there's really no rules. my previous post was a quick sketch that kinda just kept growing into a digital experiment. i'm gonna keep workin on it, cuz it's fun and i feel like i'm learning some things. this post is just a quick black digital sketch so far. i cant wait to play with coloring it tho. putting some rocks, etc in the background. i went with more of a folklore-ish witch on this one. she has the chicken feet and the weird body that doesn't bend like it should. i kept the pointy hat tho, but added some flaps instead of the rounded bill. anyway, i'll be working on this and the other witch image for the next few nights, but i think this one has more possibilities and chances of becoming something finished.

Trial. . . .and Plenty of Error

so i wanted to try just doing a straight-up digital drawing. i also started an oil painting master copy of a monet portrait. i wanna work on my faces, etc, so i thought i'd do a few master copies in different styles and hopefully learn something about palette and skin tones, etc. and hopefully structure as well.

anyway, back to the digital junk. so far, i've been really really shitty at drawing completely digitally. i usually rely on a pencil sketch and i think it's important for me to break out of my comfort zone to maybe learn a few things and come up with different approaches.

anyway, for some reason i drew this witch. it really wasn't supposed to be anything, and i still dont have any idea where it's going or if i'm even going to attempt to turn it into anything, but here it is in progress. usually trying to "make something out of a kinda neat sketch" doesn't turn out to be anything great. so i may just keep using it as a learning tool.

A Quick Update

I havent taken much time lately to update the blog. it's been busy.

I did last week's city beat cover. it was my second cover and i was really excited about it. i like it a lot better than my first cover illustration, so that's an improvement! it was fun and a challenge too, since i really just usually work figuratively and not with more environment based topics. i also did an interior spot that i actually liked quite a bit too. i was happy with that week's work, and both printed really well. in fact, the cover was printed (not always in it's entirety) in the magazine four times!

























here are a couple of pics from the seattle workshop.

Massive Black Concept Art Workshop -- Seattle, WA

so i just got back from my seattle trip to the concept art workshop. it was too incredible to really put into a short blog post, so if you want to know anything about it, just ask me. otherwise i wont waste my time rambling on for 3 hours writing all of my thoughts about it. if you wanna see pics, check out these facebook galleries. they have a few comments too!

look for some much needed changes around here. i need to start thinking about this junk differently.
http://nku.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2054583&l=096e0&id=50908095
http://nku.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2054586&l=47ab0&id=50908095
http://nku.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2054590&l=87f68&id=50908095

cheers!

New Year

it's snowing outside. it's the first day of the year which is neat, but i dont wanna go back to work tomorrow. it's been so nice being off. i spent the evening last night with casey and wexley, and i set up my studio space throughout dick clarke's new years rockin' eve. we decided just to stay in and chill which was great.

i've never been one to get all that excited about the new year, but i kinda am this year. i dunno why. i also get sorta melancholy, but i think that's all normal. i've got a busy january coming up, but i'm really excited about everything. i've got some neat things planned. keep an eye out tomorrow for my city beat cover and my interior illustration in the same issue. till then, here's a party robot.