Some Sketches from 2007

I'm a little late on updating the blog because I'm working on a deadline (and rocking no sleep). Here are some warm-up sketches of monkeys (for said job):


And while scanning stuff, I threw in some sketches from 2007. The first one is my take on a character my friend Cody Tilson created for a sketch trade. I don't think I ever posted it.

Drawn with sharpie, coffee, watercolors and white-out on a shipping label from work.


And the second I did while relaxing at an art retreat.

Also used watercolors, ink, sharpie, ball-point pen and white-out. I like to make a mess with whatever I have at hand.

Also a special thanks to www.tangente.org a Canadian website for linking to me yesterday and driving a whole lot of traffic my way. The text is all in French so I can't read it, but I did get a lot of traffic from Canada, so I'm

Spectrum 15 Award Winners Announced

Last weekend while I was partying it up at the Society of Illustrators with friends at the Book and Editorial Show for the 50th Annual, another annual was being judged in Overland Park, Kansas (Spectrum 15).

The Spectrum website teased us with pictures of the judging while it was happening.
And a few days ago they released the list of Award Winners.

A big congrats to my friends Kurt Huggins and Zelda Devon (Kurt lived 2 doors down from me in the dorms at the Savannah College of Art and Design) for getting the Silver Medal in the Editorial Illustration Category. At the pre-mentioned SoI party, Zelda congratulated me for for getting into Spectrum 14, and told me that it was her and Kurt's first year entering Spectrum. Not a bad first year. Here's a link to their Award-Winning Piece.

I doubt I'll make it in this year, but we'll have to wait until late March to find out.


Related post: Spectrum 15 List

Moleskine 4.0

This one is a long time coming. I neglected it for a few months. Haven't been drawing on the trains very much (too busy catching up on my sleep on the train rides to work).


I started paying more attention to hands rather than faces in mid 2007.






After drawing the chubby guy with the goatee I got freaked out because he looked a lot like me. Unfortunately it did not help me get my ass out of bed early and head to the gym as much as I thought it would.










When I was in California for the Comic-Con in July, my friend Lana Crooks and I took a break from all the madness of the convention and spent Saturday at the San Diego Zoo.















Some gestures of nudes from the Society of Illustrators Jazz Sketch Sessions.










And some ideas for a new painting.




Related Posts: Moleskine, Moleskine continued, Moleskine 2.0, Moleskine 3.0, Moleskine 2007: A Year in Review, Watercolor Moleskine: Part 1, Watercolor Moleskine: Part 2

Last Man Standing 3 - Update.

Well, I didn't make it past Round 1 of LMS3. A little bummed about that, but in reality it's probably for the better. I'll actually have time to focus on upcoming deadlines and moving.

Props to Simon Dominic Brewer (Baron Impossible) for besting me and other really strong artists. We had a pretty tough round.
There were some issues raised about the fairness of the judging process. I think it was pretty fair. I'm good friends with 4 of the judges and that didn't have any effect on their decisions. The better entry won.

Simon, lots of luck to you in Round 2.

Related Posts: Last Man Standing 3 - Round 1 - Underneath It All
Process of "Underneath It All" Painting

Process of "Underneath It All" Painting

Here are some shots of the process of my Last Man Standing Round 1 "Underneath It All" entry.

Sketch phase: Started out with a digital sketch to play with compositions and then collaged some photos. Then just went in with charcoal on gessoed masonite. I was originally going to put the girl in a grave yard but then i decided to avoid the "goth" feel.


Detail of the figure in sketch phase:

I got very impatient with the sketch and decided to dive into the oils without fully resolving the figure and a lot of the secondary elements. Bad idea on my part.


And this is where the frustration started. Lots of noodling at an early stage, wiping down the paint back to the sketch stage, and lots of screaming at myself about how much I suck at painting.





Then my usual issues start coming through; gimpy feet and head that's WAY too big. No matter what my intentions are I always end up making the head about twice as big as when i started out.



After repainting the head two more times and more noodling in the background things started coming together. Now on to my dreaded enemies, the hands.



With the deadline fast approaching and the hands giving me all sorts of trouble I decided to stop here and fix the mistakes digitally.

24x48 inches Oil on Masonite


Digitally I enhanced the saturation and color of the figure and laid in more snow to further delineate what is above ground and what is below. Added some better looking trees to the background. And then continued struggling with those hands. This is where the image was at when it was time to submit it for Last Man Standing.



I let it sit for a few days and then tried to fix it some more to send it of for Spectrum 15. I made the figure smaller and moved it down some. Fixed the hands a little.



Related Post: Last Man Standing 3 - Round 1 - Underneath It All