hate / love #1

hate:
i hate when someone has a baby, and everyone is all like "oh! (s)he looks just like you (and/or the other parent)!" no, they don't. and (at least with my family) that debate continues well into the child's formative years past being a warm, wrinkly mass. don't get me wrong... i'm not a baby-hater. baby's are adorable (for the most part). i just hate the incessant speculation and declaration that they look like something they, in fact, do not.
~~
love:
i love joanna newsom. she popped up in my ipod today, and it whisked me away to 2004. That was the summer that krystal and i started dating. she was taking a video editing class, and her group was working on their final project: a remake of the classic horror b-movie, motel hell. my roomates, krystal's roomates, and everyone in her group were all friends, so we spent about a week helping with everything from set design, props, acting, etc to help them out. i have a very distinct memory of all of us being crammed in a car and driving out to the middle of nowhere to shoot in some guy's uncle's barn. it was warm and sunny; the windows were down and the fresh air was blowing through; joanna newsom was blasting on the radio (as much as joanna newsom can "blast").
good times.

side note: as i was perusing joanna newsom's wikipedia page, i was shocked to see that she was born two weeks after me. that makes me feel both old and inept. for some reason, i always find it odd when someone famous is either the same age as or younger than myself. makes me feel like i need to get on the ball.

all done

at least i think it is now. i went through and tweaked some of the colors and added some pretty cool textures that sort of give it a whole different feel. i'm really pretty happy with it.







































i think the best part, though, was when i showed krystal the final product, she said how proud of me she was for stepping outside my box. i heart my wife.

update

so i finally got to pick back up with my work in progress. i've got two of the three "pieces" where i'm pretty happy with them. one last one to go. here's a shot where i've got the color done and have gone in adding texture.

sneak peek

for some reason i had the hardest time trying to figure out how to spell "sneak" and "peek"...

here's a little glimpse at "A Day in the Park" in progress. i ended up scanning it at work today to get a good digital copy. i did the lines (tried something new with the pressure on my tablet to get the wavy-ish lines. i'm trying my best to make it look like i outlined it with a real marker, and i think that helps. got a long way to go though.

musings on saturday night

so, i was thinking about my fearful folk art comparison, and the conclusion that i've come to is that almost any form of illustration could be compared to folk art. that makes me wonder if i need to categorize myself as an illustrator or an artist. is one better than the other?

funny mouth picture:










pink neon lights in a restaurant always set an interesting tone...

super post sunday: #3

so my goals for today have been met for the most part. the only hitch is that my damn scanner still isn't working. so, yet again, to continue working, i have to take a digital picture of my sketchbook, which sucks. i'll post a few pics now, in the hopes that i'll re-post better images in the near future.

so, first thing is something i did a few weeks back. there was a nice empty chair in an Urban Outfitters catalog that came a while ago, and i felt the need to draw someone sitting in it. i thought it turned out pretty cool. as i said, i'll post a scan when i can.













next is the first scan for the painting i'm going to get started on. its going to consist of three 5"x7" frames. i think its going to be called "A Day at the Park". my trial version of photoshop finally ran out, so i'm going to attempt this first in correl painter. we'll see how that goes. i may even try actually painting it with real live paints, but we'll see.













we went to a gallery showing last night that had a folk art permanent collection. after seeing all that stuff and looking at mine, i see a bit of a connection, even though i sort of hate to admit it. not that folk art is a bad thing, but i don't know. i'll have to gather my thoughts and come to a more coherent conclusion at a later date.

super post sunday: #2

so here's number two for the day. i did these digital portraits of rupert and waffles a while back when krystal repainted her office. they're also now my desktop background at work. i also may be doing something like this for a friend-of-a-friend and get paid for it, which would be sweet.











while we were out grocery shopping, we stopped and got some awesome picture frames that i'm going to do some little paintings for this evening... i'm going to attempt to do something scott campbell-esque, which should be fun. (he just posted some pictures of a really awesome clock he painted... you gotta check 'em out).

super post sunday: #1

so krystal and i decided last night that we would make today artsy fartsy day. so other than going to get groceries, today is all about art. i'm going to do some drawing and perhaps some painting. she's got a few paintings to finish. so it should be nice. i'm also going to take this chance to post a few things that i've got and just haven't done anything with.

so, for the first post, i've got the full version of the image in my blog header.













stay tuned for more...