It Melts Like Butter

One of the reasons I haven't been blogging much lately is because I've been working hard to complete this t-shirt design for Bay Area band "The Buttercream Gang." This dog belongs to the drummer, depicted here as a wild and heroic snow dog.

You can check out tracks from their new self released album "Drumalley" at www.myspace.com/buttercreamgang.

Old World Correspondance

I decided to cheat a little bit and post something from this past summer. This is the inside of a letter I illustrated in the style of an old nautical map. I did a bit of research for this one using the ole' interwebs to find authentic looking Maritime illustrations and I combined the elements that I liked into the drawing below. If you click on the tiny image below it will take you to a much larger one. This is encouraged by management.



I really like this style and wish it wasn't so time consuming, otherwise I would probably draw in it more frequently. It would be more apt for an etching so that multiple copies could be made and sold as individual greeting or post cards.

A Fever Sleeves T-Shirt

Three and half years after its original conception the Fever Sleeves Squid shirt has finally come to fruition. Available at www.myspace.com/feversleeves. Also in black with green ink.
$12.00
Postage Paid.

And just so you can see how far it's come: Here is the original drawing.

Napkin Doodle

Over the weekend I went to Seattle for a stranger's wedding and to visit some not-so-strangers. Here's a not-so-great doodle I did while out to breakfast.

Bear With Me

For some reason I've been really into bears lately. I've been noticing them a lot around town and every time I do I can't help but feel a sense of awe from these massive creatures. That and I've been watching a lot of Northern Exposure lately. Here's a quick sketch of bear figurine from my friend's terrarium. I wouldn't be surprised if you saw some more bear sketches on here in the near future.

It's been a while

I know, I know. The title of the blog is "a sketch a day" and it's nearly been a month since my last post. Well times have been tough and I've been relatively busy. I finally got my food stamps which has allowed me the luxury of eating, and I had a brief stint working in the mail room of Nordstrom's, where I would spend 8 hours a day folding and boxing expensive clothing for shipping at the local shopping mall. To break the monotony I would often spend my breaks and lunches in a little lounge area just outside the store which faced one of those horrible "gifts from the far east" stores. Here is a sketch of an Asian dress that was prominent in their window display. I enjoyed the shadows created by the creases.

A Whole New Era

Well, it's been quite an interesting day. Today we'll continue the saga of my stolen computer with the exciting tail of "The Grand Jury Testimony!" It actually wasn't that exciting, but still somewhat interesting. I received a subpoena last week to come to the county courthouse and give my testimony of what happened. It wasn't a big deal, just a room of nine citizens and someone asking me questions. I was imagining much worse things where I'd have to finger the guy who stole my computer in the courtroom as he meticulously memorized every detail of my face in case he runs into me on the street. Hey, he already knows where I live, right?

I guess the fella who had my computer is being charged with theft in the second degree, i.e. knowingly being in possession of stolen property and not reporting it. I waited around for a while at 9 AM before they called me in, but it's okay because I got to catch up on my Entertainment Weekly reading. Did you know there's a movie coming out with Jack Black and Michael Cerra as cavemen? I had no idea. Oh yeah, I also get five bucks for my time! WOO!

No, really, I can use that five bucks. Which brings us to my next exciting task for the day - applying for food stamps. It had never occurred to me before, but I've met a lot of people in Portland who do it and boy do I qualify. So if the government wants to give me 175 bucks a month for food, who am I to argue? Right?

The best part of these government offices is the waiting room. I secretly love waiting rooms, or anything of the like. Train stations, bus depots, airports, laundromats. They're all great. It's a good time to catch up on reading and great for people watching. You get to see people at their most basic state, because they're not constantly trying to busy themselves or work towards anything. They're just waiting. It's also a good time to do some sketching. Today's drawing isn't that exciting, but I'm thinking of going back tomorrow to draw more. Hey, it's not like I have a job I need to be at.



Also, my waiting number was B-52. I wonder if they ever applied for food stamps?

The first rule of Flier Making is you don't talk about Flier Making

So apparently I forgot the first rule of Flier making which is don't forget to include the headliner for the show on the flier. This was a large oversight on my part and one that I wasn't able to rectify immediately since I was in San Francisco for a week, hundreds of miles away from my trusty scanner. The other frustrating thing about shows is that often times the information might change without any warning. For example the band "Lanterns" is no longer playing the January 17th show with Fever Sleeves. However I didn't know this until I had already photoshopped in the headlining band Hialeah. Here you can see both versions of the new and improved flier as well as a bonus one where I played with stretching the font. Which one is better? You be the judge!

Version 2.0



Version 3.0


Version 3.5


It's a tough call in my opinion, but let's just say I'll be very happy to move on to something else. I've got two actual paying projects lined up which is quite exciting. One is a t-shirt design for the San Francisco based band "The Buttercream Gang" and the other is a wedding invitation. These are indeed exciting times.

Dino-Splode!

Hey everyone! I finished a new flier for my dear friends Fever Sleeves. I'm pretty excited about the work I've been putting out recently and look forward to doing more. On new years I made a contact with a mysterious bourbon carrying man named Tiger. I'm pretty sure this wasn't a hallucination, so hopefully it will lead to something.

Regarding the poster: You may notice another one of those Dinosaur stencils making an appearance, as well as the information from the previous sketch. I'm not sure exactly where this idea came from, but I can say that it developed organically. One thing that really annoys me is that when I export to a jpg from photoshop all the colors in the image become muted. I can do some image correction with preview, but it's never quite the same as I intended. If anyone has any tips for me please let me know.

Furniture Synaptosome

Here's a fun game. Pick two words from the dictionary at random and try combine them into one drawing. Ten points to the first person who knows the definition of Synaptosome.