painting on old books

I've seen this a lot lately, and think it is really cool. So here is my 1st attempt. The drawing was just a quick doodle I did that was very similar to another drawing I saw. But this was more for trying to figure out how watery to make the paint, and things like that.

tattoo design

My friend Kim asked me to design a tattoo for her. She really wanted her kids initials (J & A) using an elvish font. She was hoping to incorporate their birth dates as well (10/2 & 10/7). She wasn't sure how to bring all of this together, so that's when she called me in. Since she is a big Lord of the Rings fan I decided to incorporate a design from the movie. When I saw the White Tree of Gondor, I thought that would work well with the initials:

This is my initial marker sketch.


This is the cleaned up vector image.

Lino-cut prints

It's been a while.....

I started playing with linoleum blocks over the summer. Here is a series of 3 prints I did:

Days 7-10

Not very good, but I guess that's the point of this exercise.

I only spent about 15 minutes on this, but I think it is cute.

Again, not much time on this, but it is a quick sketch of an idea I have for a character.

I spent way more than 30 minutes on this, but I love it!

100 Themes

Many of you have probably seen this before, but just in case I am posting it here also. As soon as I finish my 21 day creative exercise, I will be doing this 100 themes challenge. The goal will be to create an illustration for each item on the list. If anyone else is taking part in this, please comment with a link to your blog/portfolio.

1. Introduction 2. Love 3. Light 4. Dark 5. Seeking Solace 6. Break Away 7. Heaven 8. Innocence 9. Drive 10. Breathe Again 11. Memory 12. Insanity 13. Misfortune 14. Smile - Doodled 15. Silence 16. Questioning 17. Blood 18. Rainbow 19. Gray 20. Fortitude 21. Vacation 22. Mother Nature 23. Cat 24. No Time 25. Trouble Lurking 26. Tears 27. Foreign 28. Sorrow 29. Happiness 30. Under the Rain 31. Flowers 32. Night 33. Expectations 34. Stars 35. Hold My Hand 36. Precious Treasure 37. Eyes 38. Abandoned 39. Dreams 40. Rated 41. Teamwork 42. Standing Still 43. Dying 44. Two Roads 45. Illusion 46. Family 47. Creation 48. Childhood 49. Stripes 50. Breaking the Rules

51. Sport 52. Deep in Thought 53. Keeping a Secret 54. Tower 55. Waiting 56. Danger Ahead 57. Sacrifice 58. Kick in the Head 59. No Way Out 60. Rejection 61. Fairy Tale 62. Magic 63. Do Not Disturb 64. Multitasking 65. Horror 66. Traps 67. Playing the Melody 68. Hero 69. Annoyance 70. 67% 71. Obsession 72. Mischief Managed 73. I Can't 74. Are You Challenging Me? 75. Mirror 76. Broken Pieces 77. Test 78. Drink 79. Starvation 80. Words 81. Pen and Paper 82. Can You Hear Me? 83. Heal 84. Out Cold 85. Spiral 86. Seeing Red 87. Food 88. Pain 89. Through the Fire 90. Triangle 91. Drowning 92. All That I Have 93. Give Up 94. Last Hope 95. Advertisement 96. In the Storm 97. Safety First 98. Puzzle 99. Solitude 100. Relaxation

Days 5 and 6

My 80's robot, complete with wrist bands, leg warmers, and scrunchie. He's dancing...doing "the robot" of course.



I don't know what this crazy old guy is pointing that gun at....maybe a dancing 80's robot.

Doodle on Crack

I doodle a lot....I couldn't stop adding to my doodle from a few days ago and it got a bit out of hand.

Day Four

Day four of the 21 day creative exercise. A little back story on this one....my dog is a little too friendly at the dog park. So we started calling her our little pug slut :-)

Day 3 and Illustration Friday

Day 3 of the 21 day creative exercise. Also my submission for this week's Illustration Friday topic "enough."

Sadly, this little guy would never be tall enough.

Day 2

I haven't been able to get into any books lately....maybe this is why.

Doodle

 

21 Day Creative Exercise

I've decided to start a 21 day creative exercise. It is best explained here. The rules I have set for myself are to spend between 15-30 minutes each day drawing anything I can think of, as long as I don't use any photo references. The reason for this is that sometimes I spend more time looking for the perfect picture of what I want to draw instead of actually drawing.

This is what I came up with for Day 1. I can't tell you what it is, but I think it is something I will revisit later. I think it could be really cool in color.

Linocut

1st attempt at linocut printmaking. The only paper I had was watercolor paper, so the print is too textured. Once I get all of the proper supplies I will try it again.

a few character sketches

Just a couple of quick sketches since it's been a while. I drew them after reading "How to draw comics the Marvel way."

The Marvel Way

Just picked up a copy of "How to Draw Comics the Marvel Way." Here is a quick sketch of The Kingpin.

Dubya in Photoshop

More fun painting in Photoshop......

Painting in Photoshop

This is my first attempt at painting an image in Photoshop. I inked the lines with the brush tool in Illustrator, then imported it into Photoshop. I also got a little texture happy, but I still think it looks cool.

It's been a while

I haven't had much time to draw or paint, but here are a few random sketches I did over the Memorial Day weekend.

This is another ink drawing I did....I'm still not happy with it, but there are some things I like. I was trying a different technique that I read about, but I don't really think it worked well so I probably won't be doing it that way again.


This is just a quick sketch of an old SUV that I did with markers.


Another marker sketch. I think I went overboard with the circles at the top, but this has the potential to be something really cool one day.

Elephants on parade

This is definitely the best piece so far! I had some small pieces of clayboard lying around, so I decided to use that. I also used more layers of thicker paint, and I let the ink dry overnight, which was probably the most important improvement.

Gouache Fun

I had high hopes for this piece....the colors were great, and the ink was very black when I applied it. And then came the rinsing.....You never know what's going to happen when you rinse off the water, and I guess that is part of why people love gouache. What I did not expect was for all of my vibrant colors to completely wash off and for half of it to still be covered in ink. Hmmmm....why did this happen? Right now I think I just didn't wait long enough for the ink to dry. I figured 45 minutes or so was plenty of time, but it may not have been. Also, I think my layers of paint were too thin. I also had the same problem as the first piece with the paper ripping. I'm using professional grade 140lb cold press paper, so I wasn't sure what could be causing this. After it was semi-dry, I went back and added some color to the frog, but I don't like the way the ink spots now look washed out.

I have another idea to improve my technique, so we'll see what happens.

I'd like to add that this was not enhanced in Photoshop like the previous painting.