Sketchbook 55, August 2009

I've been doing way more swimming than drawing this month, but here are a few new thingies from #55.
new Boston Terrier ink painting of my little Frankenstein (Mr. Giles designs are in the works!):

done specifically to make new art pints on my Etsy store:


and just released as t-shirts, hoodies and more on my new CafePress store

New black Pug ink painting:

and print version now on Etsy


up on CafePress too!

A few years ago I designed a super curvy "Birth of Venus" tattoo, and I started thinking it might make a cool 16" x 20" full-color acrylic painting and digital print. New rough sketch:

and the underpainting (inspired by the "On the Small Easel This Week" sneak peeks Ashley Wood posts on his blog)


More ink paintings for new dog t-shirts and hoodies:

and final:

now for sale on my Etsy shop




doodle for a new illustration:


first stab at the new Feast of Flesh 9 poster, 1/2 ink and brush, 1/2 digital:



I was roughing out the idea of showing 9 kinda graphic zombies moving in, but J. Cannibal and I agreed that since this is the 1st ever Feast scheduled for October, there should be way more of a Halloween vibe. I imagined trick-or-treaters dropping their buckets of candy and flashlights when they realized the zombie lurching down the sidewalk at them is FOR REALS:


the drawing still needs a ton of tightening up, more leaves blowing around, candy all over the ground, etc., but I added fast photoshop colors and dropped it into my comp just to see how it'd look:



another sketch with J. Cannibal as the headless horseman was picked:


the finish:


$20 signed posters are for sale on my Etsy store

I'm always drawing my monkeys when I'm not with them



squirrel monkey done for an eyedropper tool & white gouache demo in my Media Techniques morning class:


and a bat demo for my afternoon class (I ended up taping a 2nd page on so I could finish his wing):


sketches for a new humongous Edgar Allan Poe mask, soon to appear in Black Cat Burlesque performances:



photo of the finished mask:


morning class quick demo for using acrylics:

afternoon class acrylic demo of Mr. Giles, underlit (which was tough to visualize since his face is so flat):


sketches for a commissioned portrait of a client's wife and 2 dogs (pen, ink, Photoshop):




Poe poster sketches (ballpoint pen, Photoshop):





$20 posters for sale on my Etsy store

new Autumn painting in progress for French Bulldog Rescue Network fundraiser:




I bought 3 dozen donuts, and had both sections of my Media Tecniques class pick one they wanted to paint with gouache, then eat. These were my 2 demos:



sketch of Miss Southern Confort and Dame Cuchifrita of Brown Girls Burlesque for a Dr. Sketchy's poster:




random:















Lots more stuff coming soon...

Sketchbook 54, May 2009 - July 2009

I finally caught up to the present with this sketchbook archive! whew. It feels very, very cool to have 20 years' worth of sketchbook art up here! Coffee definitely helped me go through the 54 100-page books, scan images, re-size/ watermark/ upload/ them, and add notes over the last 2 years I was working on this. By the way, the excellent coffee sticker on the cover of this sketchbook is by the amazing Tom P. of Standard Design. You too can own this sweet image as a poster and a sticker!

random doodleheads on the Mass Art end-of-semester review form:

stuff I drew on the train back and forth to school:







rough sketches and digital color studies for illustrations in progress:







my friends Dottie Lux and Val Killmore are hard at work on a new B-movie called FEED about a voluptuous celebrity chef hiding a secret life as a cannibal. They asked me for help with the poster for a fundraiser to help them meet production costs.
sketches I whipped up overnight for a simple, strong graphic of a woman gnawing on "steak":




final version with text added by Dottie:


For Devilicia's birthday, she asked me to paint her as Snow White in the traditional costume ("but with way more boob"), trying to hide from the evil queen with the help of our backyard regulars "Action" and "Jackson", the 2 nuthatches, plus the squirrels, chickadees, grackles, mourning doves, titmice, Agatha the opossum, and our green-cheeked conure Coraline as her personal guide.
sketches/ digital color studies:




final art:


And speaking of Coraline, we've been trying to teach her to whistle the intro to Slayer's "Raining Blood" but so far, no luck. Devilicia went on a trip in June so I started painting Coraline in my sketchbook actually singing the lyrics. I emailed the paintings to Devilicia line by line as funny letters from home, but still have 1/2 the song to go (and Devilicia's been back for over a month):









hopefully I'll get the rest of the song finished up in Sketchbook #55.


1970s Black Sabbath doodle:


1986 Metallica:



demo I did for my summer night class about working with the eyedropper tool, ink wash, blotting, and white gouache:


another in-class demo (a Muppet self-portrait), this time for working with acrylics:


rough sketches for close-up portraits of the 4 seasons (I screwed up Autumn, but will keep going with Winter, Spring, and Summer):




Mr. Giles in the backyard:


more random doodles: