The Ukulele Monster

This is a t-shirt design I submitted to Threadless. You can help me out by giving it a big 5 rating by clicking on the link below!



For all you loyal and appreciated followers of this very popular blog, here is the original acrylic sketch of the monster from which the shirt design is based:

Enjoy and thanks for voting! Grrr!

Life Drawings (Part One)

I've been going to free life drawing sessions at Rmcad the past few Thursdays with my fellow Illustrator Andy Musser. Here are a few choice cuts from last week's session:

I hadn't done too much life drawing with pencil since we always had to use vine charcoal in class, but I ended up really enjoying it. I was inspired to try it out by Andrew Wyeth's pencil preliminary studies for his portrait paintings after looking at his autobiography. I'll post some more life drawings soon from this week's session where we had to improvise after our model didn't show.

Pernard Absinthe Contest

This is a digital painting (along with the pencil drawing) of my submission to the Pernod Absinthe "Creator Of" art contest. The only requirement was the work use 1805, the year of Pernod's creation, somehow in the picture.


I settled on "The Spirit is Here" for the title. Happy Groundhog Day!

Celebrate Thanksgiving!

Below is a page I recently found of drawings I did in my Humanities IV class last semester. If I'm drawing, I'm not falling asleep, right? (Not that the class was boring, I'm just really good at sleeping in class)

Barista Burn

Before holiday travels, I was at a Starbucks reading before work when I overheard this exchanging of words between a customer and one of the baristas:

I thought it was pretty funny. The hat was for some sports team the barista apparently didn't approve of, and the burn slam was pretty unexpected. Those two, another barista and me got a good laugh out of it.

Following the Starbucks theme, this other drawing is just one I did the other day on one of the Starbucks rewards brochures. Dori and I were hanging around down town and I didn't have any paper with me. I don't know what this guy's problem is, though. I'd like a free drink.

BFA hooray!

So, due to the calamity of travels and visits during the holiday season I haven't posted in a while. I know, right? Not even to share that I graduated? Yes, I received my degree in Illustration from Rocky Mountain College of Art + Design on December 18th, 2009 ( a whole month ago).


This is me and my fiance, Dori in front of my grad show display on the Rmcad campus. All the work from the show is on my website. It's a big relief to be done, but now I have to find work and keep busy with art projects so my skills don't atrophy into oblivion! Ergo, I pledge for the new year to update this blog at least once a week with drawings and such. If I fail, you can make me eat a fistful of mayonaise or something.
In addition to traveling home for a holiday visit, my friend Brandon rode back to Denver with Dori and me. He got to visit for a little over a week before he had to head back to Illinois to return to the U of I. One thing we got to do was go to the Denver Museum of Nature and Science! In this picture, the T-Rex at the entrance looks very frightened of Brandon and Dori.

I'll put up some drawings soon. I plan to scan in a bunch of the drawings I do while bored at my jearb at Sears Westland. The shoe department has its lows, I tell you what.

Business and Postcards

For my grad show at Rmcad, I had some business and postcards printed through overnightprints.com. I thought they were pretty nifty so I thought I'd share them here! The Girantula postcard is 4"x 6" and looks quite fierce! They had me worried, though. I received them in the mail only an hour before I had to leave for the show opening.

Alter Ego

This is my "alter ego" speed painting for my Computer Illustration class final. We had an hour and a half to paint our final. It was a lot of fun to do. Enjoy.

Atkins Portrait

I recently finished a portrait for my friend and high school chem/physics teacher, David Atkins. As a surprise for his wife's birthday last week he commissioned a portrait of their kids, Owen and Amelia. It's done on a 24" x 30" canvas in oils.

Guitarist Maximus

A quick post to show my progress on a project for Directed Themes in Illustration class:
My subject of choice is simply a radical looking guitar player. Some preliminary studies:



The final pencil drawing that I'll use for the acrylic painting:





Later!

The Flying Bear

To get things started, I'm very excited to share my recent creation: the flying bear! He's a sculpey model (with a little help from wood, wire and tape) I made for my Grad Portfolio class. He is ideally a grizzly and sparrow mix, and will soon have a paint job that better reflects sparrow markings and colors. He was just given a quick brushing up for class critique after his late night bake session.

The idea of the flying bear came to me in a dream a couple of summers ago. I dreamed a valley village of stick huts on a sunny but misty morning. The atmosphere was thick with evaporating dew, but warm brilliant colors and bright sunshine streamed through. Suddenly, incredible flying bears came down from the surrounding mountains in a fierce aerial gallop, swooping down amongst the villagers and snatching up the bewildered children. They were swift and precise in their acquisition and disappeared into the mist as quickly as they came. The final image of my dream was a woman frantically screaming and futilely firing a revolver towards the spot in the sky the bears disappeared into.
The big question left unanswered by my dream was this: were the bears carrying these children away for good or evil? I envision the former. It is my notion that these bears are kind, noble creatures that wish only to teach the children the sacred ways of life in the forest. After years of observation, the bears determined that the children were unappreciated in their village and were being robbed of their innocence and purity of heart. They carried them away to a brighter tomorrow, not to mention Girantula...