Another Painting of a Fox

Nothing like a birthday to get the creative juices flowing. Also, animal calenders provide great reference photos.

Foxey card

A watercolor painting I did that I turned into a card.

Interpretive Album cover

For Stephanie's birthday, and in honor of the interpretive dance party she's having for it, I bought her this album as a gift. HOWEVER, I was not able to find it in any of the stores around town and had to purchase it online. I wanted to give her a present on her birthday so I drew up a mock cover and put it on a random album we had and wrapped it up. Kind of the same thing, right?

Luckily the album came in the mail the day after her birthday.

Kite Flying Society

This is from a picture of my Dad and I that I thought would look good as an art piece. For some reason I came out looking like a zombie though.

The Great Bill Murray

He's always been one of my favorite guys, so I thought I'd take a stab at a portrait. It was also good watercolor practice!

Footsy

I had about ten minutes left at the end of the figure drawing session so I decided to zero in on the foot and see what happens. Aside from hands and ears, feet are probably the weirdest part of our bodies.

Sunday Painter

I made it to another figure drawing session at PNCA this past Sunday. It was my first time there in a while. On sundays it's just one pose for three hours so it really gives you time to figure a few things out. This one I did pretty quickly though.

Vacation Finds #2: Awl of Me

Also found at the Santa Cruz flea market. Awl's can prove surprisingly useful when you least expect it, and I love the durability of old tools that you can now only find second hand.

Vacation Finds #1: Dino belt buckle

This is why the Santa Cruz Flea Market is awesome. Will I ever find a cooler belt buckle? The answer, of course, is no.

Gullible Fish

While working on the submarine man piece for my last show I did this little diddy to test the watercolor and decide on a style. Most of the fish are going to take the bait I think, but the one in the left corner looks pissed.

Thievery!

This wasn't the face that I made when I found out my backpack had been stolen out of my car last Thursday, but it sure could have been. As some of you know I've been in a bit of a funk the last week due to this theft which included both of my primary sketchbooks, art materials, one of a kind reference photos, post cards, my ipod and headphones, and a library book of the adventures of Baron Munchausen. I'm feeling a bit better than I did and making a real effort to stay on the positive side of things. Here's a list of positive things to come out of this situation:

1. While my stuff was being stolen I was seeing an awesome concert. The thief did not get to see this concert, therefore is eternally bummed.
2. Since I post everything on this blog there's only a handful of drawings I hadn't scanned yet, so at least I still have a record of the images lost. (though I am sad I won't get to share the ones I was working on with you folks)
3. I'll have to get a new ipod which will most likely be infinitely superior to my old one. Joke's on you thief!
4. Maybe the thief will be turned on to some awesome music from my ipod which will change him forever.
5. It's always nice to be reminded the uncertainty of life and to not put too much importance on possessions, even artwork. There will be many more drawings in my lifetime no doubt, even better than the ones I lost.

The worst part is just that feeling of violation. The feeling you get in the pit of your stomach, and all those lingering questions. When exactly did he take it? Where is my stuff now? If I had parked on a different street would it still have happened?



Well, enough dwelling on it. Time to move on to BIGGER and BETTER things!

Oh dear, what a colorful mustache!

Here's a first pass with color. For this one I just set some values down in a burnt sienna to "set the stage" for what's to come in the future. I'm having fun with this one so far and it's nice working with a new medium. Especially one that's so hard to control. I'd still like to get looser and more spontaneous with my work. Maybe I'll do another version of this once I'm done with this one without the pen marks.

A Small Shade of Purple

As promised, here's that completed portrait of Mr. Smalley. It doesn't quite have the realism I was going for, but not too shabby for my first water color in a while. My main focus for this one was pushing the contrast with darker darks, and adding as much detail as I could get in there. I think I'm going to need to get a finer brush, though, so I can flesh out those details even further.



And of course I can't resist seeing what any of my drawings look like in sepia tone. It really works for this one.

Watercolor Smalley

I like watercolor a lot, but I hardly ever can bring myself to pull them out and use 'em. Well, I'm going to make a real effort folks. I'm planning on mixing them with pen and ink drawings, but I decided to start out with a pure watercolor portrait and just see how that went. This is the first stage of a portrait of my buddy Fred.

Washed out

Another one from last weeks figure drawing session. Working on being loose and focusing on shading and color rather than line. Also experimenting with a travel watercolor set that I recently got which turned out to be .. quite shitty.

Mr. Green

I thought I should probably start making good on my promotional promise. Here's a portrait of the first person to take me up on it: Connor.

Elk

I did this drawing a few months ago and finally got around to adding in some watercolor around the base.


It also looks cool super saturated:




And even de-saturated.

Spate

Three people I know are moving to New York next month and it's really making me want to go there, if for nothing more than a visit. This guy is one of them, Steve. He's a bartender at Vesuvio in San Francisco so make sure to say goodbye to him before he leaves for the big apple.

In other exciting news I'm doing an art installation at the Emerson Space Case in NE Portland for next month and we're going to have an opening on last Thursday (the 29th) so make sure to come out for it. If any of my out of town friends want to come up for a visit, now might be the time. I'll even give you a special thanks in the notes for the piece. More information and pics of that installation will come in the next few weeks.

Scribble Shade + Watercolor

This was the drawing I referred to on Friday being part one of a three part series (part two being the self portrait). I decided to try and salvage it and I'm relatively happy with the way it came out. Been a while since I've worked with watercolor, but I really like it as a medium and I'm especially excited about all the ways in which one can use it with pen and ink. Portraits are so tricky, you mess one thing up and the whole thing looks off. I guess this is why I prefer drawing animals. They're just happy to be drawn at all.