summertime sketch time

Here's what I've been doing lately:














inks and watercolors, and some pen.

Woodblock Print Imitation

I've been busy with logs of work, moving to North Portland, school, and getting some personal projects done (mix-by-mail being one of them), so I haven't had time to post anything lately. This is a digital work in the style of Japanese woodblock prints. This is based on another image I worked on about a month or two ago:

I think I will be posting more often now that school is out. I plan to spend more time working on my illustration than I did last summer, when I focused a lot of my energies on computer-related projects.

Bruce Springsteen

Here are some ideas for a portrait assignment. The one I painted is an 8.5x11 inch prequel to the final, which will be 17 inches by 22 inches. The bottom one on the left was based on Jillian Tamaki's drawing, which I was sure I had seen on her website, but I can't find it now.

Two or three things.

I had to do a flying monkey for one of my illustration classes. This was a short watercolor-and-ink practice exercise. Later (now), I fixed it up a little in Photoshop: moved the wing that was tangent with the hand, removed the horrid background colors, and adjusted some of the levels. I didn't get around to drawing the money's butt.


This guy is the D.J., and the outline guy next to him is someone from one of my classes. I sometimes draw people in class when I'm bored and there's nothing else to draw. I drew the D.J. thing at some event to which I went, with the color being done using a Wacom tablet and Photoshop. I'm going to start doing some digital stuff in Illustrator and posting it soon.

I wish that Photoshop would format the file based on the extension you give it like any other sane program would. When would I ever want to save a .tif file as "sketchbook.png"? I wouldn't!

I've been very busy!

I'll be uploading some new stuff soon, but for now you should check out these two artists:

Peter Callesen's A4 Papercut gallery - Peter Callesen transforms sheets of paper into amazing 2D/3D art pieces. Some of these are unbelievable!

Jillian Tamaki Sketchbook - I found Jillian Tamaki's online sketchbook through my friend's blog, The Art Object. She is one of my new favorite illustrators. One of the things I like best about her art is the way she uses color; awesome duotone and color/greyscale palettes.

ILL-ustration

I probably should be doodling more in class rather than paying attention to the instructor. Furthermore, I should probably rent "The Edukators" and watch it tonight.

Step 1-2 is coloring the hand and putting in a background fill, step 2-3 is changing the background fill's hue and adding some shading. I did the color with a Wacom tablet, experimenting with the different pen-pressure-sensitive options that can be set.

Skulls 'n' Roses

Well, skull and roses at least. I draw this while my teacher was talking about illustrators. I'll post updates as I color it (with a Wacom tablet, woo!)

EDIT: I mean I drew it. Duh.