Santa Senses Jingling!

Squintin' Quentin

Quentin Tarantino is inseparable from his camera. 

Portraits Galore

During the sketch event at Grandma's Pumpkin Patch, I was asked if I could draw portraits at a children's birthday party. I said I could and these are the results.

Now I've got to get back to drawing my Christmas cards.

Sketch ya' later!

Rogers House

I actually started on drawing this house before I started the Eisley House, so I learned a few things in the process. Here, the trees so close to the actual house I had to be careful about applying detail so as not to make it appear that the foliage was swallowing the building itself. I did my best to balance things out my putting the darkest darks in the corners and especially on the far right, while also plotting negative space on the left hand side in the driveway, the bushes on front lawn and the tree by the garage.

If I were to do this again, I'd have done less of this "brush strokes as leaves" approach and maybe go with something more akin to Franklin Booth and render the canopy with of varying degrees of cross hatching. As is, its pretty easy to lose the point were one tree ends and another one begins. That might have also lent a more uniform look to the picture what with the linear nature of the house. Then again, I had originally drawn the grass on the front lawn in a very Booth-ish style which my client didn't seem to care for, so I changed it to the kind of style I did with the Eisley's house.

Eisley House

 I was fortunate to be discovered by two families recently who are selling their houses and wanted a keepsake of their former homes. This is the first, I hope to get the finer details worked out with the client of the second one soon.

Back when I was in high school, I had a little side business of drawing houses in some of the more affluent neighborhoods. My rates were extraordinarily cheap, but looking back, these pictures weren't all that great. I had no sense of economy whatsoever and drew every blade of grass equally.

Here I used a pen that was almost out of ink and ran it very quickly across the lawn to give it a sense of substance but also convey that it was neatly mowed. I had a lot of fun rendering that kooky cloud as well. I original started shooting for a fluffy Franklin Booth cloud but ended up with this hatchy Bernie Wrightson formation that I think works better in this piece, especially with all the line work going on already.

Winter Window Redux

Now that its officially spring (even in Michigan) I thought I would re-color this winter scene.
I rescanned the original at a higher resolution, cleaned up some of the rougher parts of the trees and got rid of the frost patch from the original, as no one seemed to be able to figure out what that was supposed to be.

Angels on the Airwaves

This is the cover for a Christmas card I sent out to some of my college friends and artistic peers this season. (Hopefully all recipients have gotten it by now) Facebook and the internet are great communication tools and all, but I feel like I've lost touch with a number of fun and influential as a result of the growing years and miles. I figured this would be a good way to reconnect, let people know how to reach me, let them know what I've been up to and planning on doing in the next year and find out what they've been doing too, etc.

I'm hoping for a spark in establishing a stronger community and maybe even build some traffic for this very blog.

I had been cooking up the notion of doing the cards since Thanksgiving time, but it took me quite a while to come up with an idea for the cover. I was shooting for a "scene" like something out of the old Saturday Evening Post covers, but wanted to avoid Santa imagery, feeling it would come off as trite. That and I already did Santa for Sleep Care last year. In the end, I fell back onto my strengths; heavy darks and a mid century period setting.

Here are some of the works I found particularly inspiring. Consider them your online stocking stuffers!

 

Edit: And wouldn't you know it, after everything is all done, that when I discover an image that I have never seen before that looks almost identical to the end result. Go figure.

Food Court Faces

There are few things more satisfying than drawing from life, even more so when you draw IN PEN! I managed to sketch a few of my friends as well as some fresh faces while in between bites of my Italian BMT sandwich at the Food Court. Just a little something to warm up for some new projects I hope to have up soon.

The Big Game

Yesterday, I was invited by my neighbors to watch "The Big Game" (The Oakland Bowl to be exact) I don't know or care about football in the slightest but though it would be a good break from my routine for the start of the new year as well as an opportunity to skim free food and draw some people just sitting around. The crowd was antsy at first but when the game went into triple overtime, the physical enthusiasm started to wane.

Portraits. So many unique noses.

Betty Transfixed

Paul Relaxing, Dan Chanting

Katie Noir