Let the tea steep.

I have a job.

Der Tatun

I'm taking my kids to Medieval Times tonight and I have no idea what this is.

The Saga Continues

I am willing to eat you.

Here is is with a bit of color water colors and acrylic.
Here we are with and ink wash for undertones, india and water, which btw is water proof when dry so you can go over it with translucent water colors nicely and build up tones and values.

Inked in and pencil lines erased.

This is old. How old I'm not sure. 8 years I'm guessing. I have a folder of them at my office for some reason I found this on particularly charming. I think I'm going to ink it in or something.

Things Happen.

Something I have been working on.

Nice scarf lady.

Just like a butterfly.

On the Train

Posting late. Finally got my scanner hooked up again. Saw this guy on the train all jammed up in the little seat all the way in the back. I get it, it's a premium spot but he was in there pretty tight.

An hour to get home.

Update: Flying Eye

I know this is for stuff done sans technology (if that is even possible anymore) but I felt like I should follow up with what is pretty close to the final product. A combination of hand drawn with a pencil and hand drawn vector work in illustrator. I had sort of decided to only work by hand with traditional media for a while but then this came along and the machine was the best way to work out my ideas for this and get it where I wanted it to be. In the end it is/was a matter of control for me. The machine gives you complete control.

Something I'm working on.

Been drawing eyes with wings the last few days, it's a request actually. Initially I thought that the idea wasn't terribly original, been done to death etc. but I though it would be interesting to see how I might interpret it. Turns out it's not as easy as I thought it would be but here is the one I'm honing in on. I think the problem I have is that any eye independent of a socket is oddly cold and purely mechanical which seems ironic that a creature that can only see and then fly around and see some more would feel nothing about the things it sees. I would think just the opposite. Granted I tend to over think things but to create something thing i think you first need to understand something about it or at least what it will eventually be. That's how it works for me anyway.

Poppa Can You Fix It.

Introducing self proclaimed advice columnist and life style guru Don Poppa. You can usually find him having his signature vodka, clam juice and seltzer martini any weekday around noon at Drunky's Corner Tap in Bridgeport. He'll be sitting on the same barstool he sat on when got the call from his wife saying that she was leaving him which also happens to be the same stool where his supervisor found him when didn't come back from lunch again and fired him on the spot. Still he calls it his lucky stool. You don't have to ask for his help, just sit at the bar long enough and you'll here him sing in a voice that sounds like gravel sliding down a sewer pipe "Poppa can you fix it". The melody will sound familiar, but you won't be able to place it. And that damn song, it'll stick in your head like an infection, right down to way way he holds that last note until you can hear the final wheeze off breath painfully squeezed out. The next thing you hear is a slow slurping and the dull thud of glass on wood as he puts his drink back down. Regulars know not to make eye contact but the new condos in the neighborhood always brings in someone looking to soak up what's left of the local color and they don't know any better. The regulars just smile, they know what's coming. For someone his size he moves with a certain stealth and grace and before you know it he's so close you can the smell tomato and clam on his breath. " You'd ever see dat show Dr. Phil, dat asshole ain't even a real doctor I know more 'n dat prick. Go ahead ask me something anything". Then he'll sing it again "Poppa can you fix it" but you already know the answer.

Pigeon's New Job

With all his failed attempts at finding a job Pigeon's thoughts stretched like parched roots until they reached the dank recesses of his mind and there they began to drink and take hold of him. When he found himself entertaining the possibility of taking up his in laws on their offer of work the regret pierced his heart so that he had to look down at the oily feathers that covered his chest to be sure he had not been physically impaled by some hard cold thing. All euphemisms aside he couldn't think of a convincing enough lie to appease his own conscious. He knew exactly what kind of work it would be. Knowing well enough that those who choose to live by the sword will die by the sword. At least that's what his father had told him. Two days later his father was dead. They said it was an accident, that he didn't see the glass or that the reflection made him think he was flying into the open sky when his head cracked into the glass. Things could be made to look like accidents. Had his father known the end was coming? Was that why he had offered him that weak branch of sage advice, the first and last attempt at being a father he would ever make. Now here he was giving serious consideration to a job that could easily be his first and last. If he went down this path he might not ever come back. If he did come back, who would he be? Would he be something he could live with, he doubted it. When he had made his decision he felt, for the first time, that he was his fathers son which only made him feel more lost. He wondered if he ever really had a choice or if these things were decided by his hollow bones or the blood that coursed through his veins. Probably the blood, he guessed. He had been told he looked like his father long before he had ever laid eyes on him. The hours he spent staring into puddles with those words in his head, trying to make sense of his own face. That beak, those eyes. The face that looked just like a father's he had yet to see. He was sure now. Definitely the blood. The more he thought about it, the more he could feel it, boiling in his heart, running mad through his body. It was almost funny to him that the only thing he had left of the bird who had given him life might be the very thing that would lead him to an untimely death. It surprised him to realize that sometimes defeat was like sleep, it comes on slow and speaking of the sweetness of dreams. You never know the point when it overtakes you, only later, in the fog, when everything is dark and nothing makes sense that you realize you are in it's embrace with the sweetness of dreams far from you and if not the dream, then what? He didn't want to know. What he did know, maybe what he always known and his father had always known long before he did was that he was going to take the dam job. He had come up with the best lie he could. It was in his blood. He was going to work for the mob.

Tangerine in 2010

water color, ink and acrylic on paper 5.5" x 8.5"

So the color police decided the the "hot" color for 2010 was going to be turquoise/teal:

“Pantone LLC, an X-Rite company (NASDAQ: XRIT), and the global authority on color and provider of professional color standards for the design industries, today announced PANTONE® 15-5519 Turquoise, an inviting, luminous hue, as the color of the year for 2010. Combining the serene qualities of blue and the invigorating aspects of green, Turquoise evokes thoughts of soothing, tropical waters and a languorous, effective escape from the everyday troubles of the world, while at the same time restoring our sense of well being.”

Blah, blah, blah well I'm not buying it. I say Tangerine. 2010 just feels like a tangerine year to me. Anyway, Happy New Year.

'Member that episode...

When Skeletor got so fed up with Beast-Mans failures that he started swinging at him with his big ass axe and chopped of his finger tip? C'mon you 'member (humor me here). They looked all over for it so Needle and Thread-Man could sew it back on. Well, they never found it and Beast-Man was surprised as anyone when he eventually grew back a new one. Being a particularity unintelligent minion he was unaware of his ability to regenerate. Nor did he know his missing fingertip, laying just out of site under Skeletors dresser could do a bit of regenerating of it's own. Can you say "spinoff".

Fun Fact: I used to draw pictures of Orko all the time but always colored him purple because in my head I saw him as purple. Why? Because I was too poor to have a color tv and didn't know what color anything was. One day a kid at school called me on it, "Nice drawing, but Orko is red". Silence on my part. I was genuinely shocked.

Sniff...

I went through a period of time where I drew a lot of stuff like this. Not so much any more. The big difference is I don't use Design markers anymore as water colors suit my temperament much better and are way more forgiving. They also never dry up so they are definitely one of the more frugal mediums. I just brought an old tooth brush to the office/studio for spattering stuff but I forgot to bring some india ink. I have been wanting to play with india ink for weeks now. I have a huge bottle somewhere.

Ink and watercolor and acrylic on paper

Detritus

7'" x 10" pencil on watercolor paper

I consider drawings like these stacking blocks. I just keep them around and work on them whenever, they are never really finished I just get tired of working on them or I forget they exist and they end up in a pile somewhere. No themes no ideas just randomness and visual problem solving, little exercises really. Just found this one the other day. I think the scan shows too much of the texture from the paper it's much more subtle in person.

Winter's coming.

5" x 7" ink, watercolor and acrylic on paper

I wasn't sure how this was going to turn out. That's okay though, I don't like a lot of things and my own work is on the list often enough. That being said, even when I feel like something is going south I try to stick with it just in case the next line or brush stroke results in a improvement of some kind, at least improvement enough to keep me motivated enough to see it through. Maybe it's because I was thinking of the long cold Chicago winter ahead and all the salty slush that will soak my feet and leave white powdery continents on the toes of my shoe's or all the wet heavy snow I will be shoveling into piles or... whatever, who knows, either way here it is and I'm kinda happy with it just not sure in what sense. At least I have a warm winter coat which makes all the difference in the world.

The two above are pre build up and before I added the buildings and junk, which I almost like better, but I really felt like I needed some atmosphere in there.

One Mans Trash...

ink, acrylic and watercolors on watercolor paper

Of course I remember Jim Henson and his two most popular endeavors The Muppets and Sesame Street. Doubtless I spent countless hours watching both so I was a bit surprised that I don't really remember ever loving either. I enjoyed them for sure but neither affected me like other child hood movies, tv shows and books I can still site as influences today. To be honest Jim Henson and a good portion of his characters always gave me the creeps. Not sure why. In fact I recently watched a series of adapted fairy tales and Greek and Roman myths that were produced by Jim Henson Studios in the early 90's and those creeped me out too. There were two exceptions, Kermit The Frog and Oscar The Grouch but If those two green mofo's had a fight to the death, I would be rooting for Oscar. That guy had an influence on me. His furrowed brow, his I could care less attitude, his love for shit other people threw away (I could totally relate), his pet worm and last but not least his humble trash can abode. I loved that can and when Oscar ducked down in there I imagined an infinitely large alternate universe was inside. It was like the Tardis in there and as a kid that sent my head reeling. How could you have a space that was bigger on the inside than it was on the outside. Clearly the fundamental laws of physics had no jurisdiction on Oscars can. For me that can was the most magical thing on Sesame Street. The fact that they never even made an attempt to show what Oscars life was like inside the can just made it that much more compelling. It was brilliant. Several decades later I bought trash cans just like that for my house. I bought one for my studio. I even painted a set black and used them as planters in my back yard. I used to draw them all the time. My first piece along the train line in Chicago was flanked by two trash can characters. All traced back to that can on Sesame Street. I've never thought of trash the same since.