Good Friday

Just makes you want to scream!

Charcoal Drawings

This is the second part on my musings:

Fast foward 10 years, I don't drawing screaming evil-spawn kids anymore (or melting baby skulls I remember one of my classmates told me). However, I still look for the expressiveness of that work.

When I did these few illustrations, I began thinking of H.A. Rey's Curious George since my work started reflecting a bit of that aesthetic. I don't think I have looked at a Curious George book in many years, but I remember as a kid reading the couple books I saw and seeing some of the claymation videos (I think they were). Then a recent picture book I read that I loved and reminds me of the fifties' picture books I read (Boot and Shoe if anyone wants to read it).

And finally, my work.

Delaware Art Museum & Mort Drucker

It's times like this I wish I was still a student in school at the University of Delaware. The Delaware Art Museum, home to many paintings by the pioneers of illustration (Howard Pyle, NC Wyeth), has an exhibition called State of the Art: 100 Years After Howard Pyle.

It looks like a number of great illustrators are there including John Cuneo and Milton Glaser (I think more a designer). But then there's Peter DeSeve and Mort Drucker. Forget the fanciful painting. I like looking at comics and cartoon work!

Chuck Amuck

I'm reading Chuck Jones' Chuck Amuck and it is amazing looking inside the mind of an animation legend. He reads like Mark Twain and is funny and sarcastic as hell.

There are too many things to take away from his experience, but first and foremost is character. Example, a cat that likes grapefruit. That's a character.

I wake up to a ham every morning too

Obama, Boehner, & Oliphant

Thought I'd draw something political. I wasn't really thinking of anything in particular when drawing these two together, but I find that John Boehner always has this dopey look on his face. He reminds me of the Peter Lorre caricatures of old. He probably sounds like that too. I also think these two would make a great couple.

And now for something completely different (or better):

Richard Thompson

What can I say about Richard Thompson that has not already been said? His artwork is so messy, but it's so perfect. It aches me to know that he no longer draws (fighting parkinson disease). Nonetheless, he is always putting up new (recycled artwork) on his blog. I definitely suggest checking it out.

http://richardspooralmanac.blogspot.com/

Bev

I've been drawing Bev for five or six years now, and she still amuses me. When I did this doodle, I thought I'd look back on my old comics including the very first Bev. My gosh, was my drawing hideous! But I think the gags are still good.

 

Doodles of the Day

I like how both of these came out. One a bit more experimental than the other, but it seems right.

PBS's the Art of Illustration

I love these illustrators, specifically Molly Crabapple and Yuko Shimizu. So I thought I'd share.



There's also a webcomic video as well, which I didn't post. Sorry!

Improvisation

I love listening to Bob Dylan. The most amazing thing I find when listening to his whole body of work is that he's very formulaic. Many of the songs are only three chords, but what he can muster from three chords and a strict format floors me all the time.

That balance of improvisation and working in a fixed format is what I'm always trying to balance. The balance between free and loose with lots of planning. I wish I could go on and on, but I'll be concise instead.

Photoshopping

One of the biggest challenges in illustration (or biggest frustrations, depending on how I feel towards it!) is photoshopping my work. The hardest thing to do is making the image scanned in look as close as possible to the actual illustration.

Now, there are BILLIONS of photoshop classes online telling you techniques, but the majority of these techniques are for photographs. Obviously, I don't care as much about photography as I do for drawings and so forth. It's taken a lot of trial and error to fix my work, but hopefully it shows. If any interested, I can share how to correct illustration work in photoshop.

Mood Swings

A bad habit that I got into last year was expecting every drawing to be perfect, but I continuously found faults and errors in the drawing. I would labor away and waste hours and hours over drawing after drawing to get the perfect something. It was kinda like beating my head against a wall.

With these simple illustrations, I am trying to limit myself to just one illustration a day done within a half hour to an hour. This is so I don't place too much emphasis on these drawings, and if there are problems in the drawing, who cares, learn from it, and move on.

Alas, the perfectionist in me says "that's not right! that's not right!" and I ended up doing a number of drawings again looking for that perfect line. I became so angry that the end result was Larry Bear being really really frustrated. Which I hope shows through the brushwork and color.

Peter Reynolds

Peter Reynolds is a picture book illustrator that my agent turned me to a month or so ago. Although I have seen his work and looked at it on a few occasions, I did not realize how much I was missing out on. The fluidity of his artwork is amazing and the expressiveness of his drawings is lively. For me, my favorite artists are ones that I keep revisiting time and time again. I find myself doing that more with Peter Reynolds art. Then I drew some with his drawings in mind.

More Sketches

More sketches with a sketch of Mooch. People will say that my work looks like this, which is understandable. I hope in the future I can move further away from these influences.

jump ropes and oven mitts

Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast

Seven Impossible Things Before Breakfast is a great blog on children's book illustrations and anything related. The greatest part too is a vast history of different interviews, images, and information which I find invaluable. I hope people enjoy it as much as I do.

Cool Birds

For a story based off the kittens' mittens nursery rhyme. These are birds though.

Terry Rex again

Artie

Terry Rex

Looking back at the past year, I've noticed that I've been in a huge creative rut. A lot of writer's blocks, the inability to draw anything, and so on and so forth. It was very debilitating, and would explain the lack of artwork that I've been able to put online.

Since taking vacation and moving into a different job position, my life seems more sane now and fortunately, I've been able to write and draw more prolifically. I hope that with these changes and a new regimen in my creativity, I hope to have more work.

Here's a T-rex.