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.

New Portrait 1904

Here's a portrait I've been working on on and off for a few weeks now. I photoshopped it into a vintage cabinet card frame to make it look a bit more official.

I'm really happy with the way it came out, but I've gotta start making bigger work and not just work in my sketch book all the time. Hopefully some bigger work will be hitting the blog soon.

Israel Schraer

While in San Diego over the holidays I came upon this photo of my great grandfather, Israel Schraer,. In a way it was like seeing him for the first time. This man was my namesake, though I have no memory of him. My parents wanted to name me after him, but as he was still living, and in the Jewish tradition you don't name anyone after a living relative, they chose to use his first initial when choosing my name.

I have no memory of him, he died when I was very young and even then lived across the country, but I also have no image of him. If I think of him no picture comes to mind, though I must have seen a picture of him at some point. This photograph is the only memory I have.

Insect menagerie

This was my practice sketch for the insect collection of Professor Charles R. Mammoth.

Paging Mr. Herman

I'm starting a new blog everyone and I want YOU to be a part of it! It's called Project P.W. and if you want more information you should check it out.

A Scratchboard Thriller

Looks like the rainy day that I prophesied back in August finally came, which means I got around to finishing my scratchboard portrait of Michael Jackson. I find it hard to let any project go unfinished and this one was particularly labor intensive. I wish I had had time to finish it back in June because I'm much more pleased with it than the graphite version I ended up putting into that show. I don't think I'll feel like experimenting with this particular medium for a while now.

This sucker IS for sale, for those of you who are trying to get a head start on your holiday shopping. Let me know in the comment section if you're interested and we can talk prices.

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.

Crosshatched Oldies

Here are a few more sketches from sketchbooks past. The top one is my attempt at comic book style illustration and the bottom is an old sneak a sketch from the MUNI in San Francisco. New sketches coming SOON.

The Humble Insect Collection of Charles R. Mammoth

My friend Stacie at Notes From Below invited me to contribute a piece for a coloring book she's putting together. I decided to redraw and expand upon an older sketch for it and I'm pretty happy with the results. I'll let you kmnow when the whole coloring book is assembled. Until then feel free to print this guy up and color him in. Send a scan of the finished masterpiece to dailysketch17@gmail.com and I'll put it up for all to see!

Hipprospector

I've been mining for character ideas lately and this is the hippest I could come up with. What do you think, is it a golden nugget or am I way out west with this one?