Sketch Book Stuff

Here's some of my favorite drawings from the last couple months since moving back to Minnesota. The sketch book I've been using has this middle tone for paper, which is great for working with darks and lights. One of my favorite new things to sketch with are white out pens. This sketch book (to me) is about experimenting with value and having fun. Some times I find that my favorite drawings come from experimentation or just not caring about how the final drawing will turn out. These were all drawn from photographs which were used as inspiration. Hope you guys enjoy them as much as I had fun drawing them!

Studies

The top drawing is study from Charles Bargue. This was a great way to sharpen the eye. The image on the left is the Zerox copy of his and the one on the right is mine. There's a certain procedure to follow when drawing these and the process took around 60 hours to complete! Well worth it too.

The bottom painting was study of Chuck Close's work from 2007. It's a self portrait (back when I had spiky hair) and the idea is that color isn't as important as it's value and the placement of it on the canvas. This was a fun experimentation and a chance to just mess around with paint.

Random

This post is pretty random but I wanted to share some of the things I've been up too.

The top drawing is a portrait study from a Yim Mau Kun drawing. This was a nice way to study an artist's technique and to get some drawing time in, especially when the luxury of a model isn't available.

The second drawing is a caricature of Kevin Dillion's character, Johnny Drama from Entourage. It's a good series but I don't watch often unless I'm with my brother. I'm always asking my brother what happened last weekend and follow the show through him.

Finally, the last drawing is of a swimsuit model from a Sports Illustrated magazine. I found this when I was cleaning my room at my mom's house, and since I wasn't employed at the time, between the Yim Mau Kun, sexy lady drawings and teaching a drawing class at my old high school, this kept me pretty busy. I used india ink with really florescent colors for this drawing... but unfortunately the colors didn't translate through the scan so I'm still trying to figure out how to get those really bright, saturated colors through digital media.

Thanks for checking out the blog!

Environment Thumbnails

Here are some environment thumbnails from my sketchbook. They're all from photographs and took roughly 45 minutes each. These are fun to me because they remind me of a caricature, in the sense that you're playing with shapes and their relationship to each other in order to make a picture. Also, I'm not huge on rendering (all though I do appreciate it) and since these are thumbnails, you can crank them out fast like a theme park caricature.

more graphic studies

A couple more drawings from DVD covers. I try to take the subject matter and then do my own thing with it. Like in the bottom image, I used the Batman symbol to as part of the composition. These are nice ways to limber up to a bigger drawing and be creative at the same time.

Sin City Character Design

The other day I was looking through my roommates' dvd collection for something to draw. Anything related to comic books interests me so I saw this one (Sin City) and did some studies from the back of the dvd cover. I love the play of lighting in this movie with the black and white contrast. These were fun to draw and play with the positive and negative spaces.

Wedding Caricature

This is a recent caricature commission I did. There are a lot of artists that inspire me, and it shows in my work. Alphonse Mucha and Adam Hughes were the big influences for this piece. The line art is colored, which is something I've never tried before and was pleased with the results. I am definitely looking forward to another project like this.

Michael Jackson Drawings

These are a couple MJ inspired drawings I did about a month ago. The first drawing is from my sketch book and the second was used as demonstration art for Kaman's Art Shoppes at Legoland, CA. 

Drawing Michael Jackson as a caricature is like shooting fish in a barrel... especially in his later years with all the plastic surgery. But that's not how I wanted to portray him. These drawings weren't  meant for ridicule, but to remember the king of pop... and for myself.

Live Caricature from Legoland

My friend told me I need to take more pictures of my caricatures from work. So here are a few of my favorites from last week and a few from a several months before. 

The top drawing of the boy as Wolverine is inspired by Sean "Cheeks" Galloway and the bottom drawing is inspired by Robert Risko. Both of these artists in my opinion have great sense of design and I like simplification in art. It's like the saying goes... sometimes more is less. So that's what I've been trying to do lately. Oh yea, I think the real motivation for me to simplify was because we lowered our caricature prices at the park, and so with that I'm trying not to do as much work as I normally would for full price.

Recent Commissions

These are a couple commission projects I've been working on lately. While going to school, drawing caricatures at Legoland, and moving out of my apartment, these were squeezed in some how. 

Comments and critiques are more than welcome, and appreciated! 

Portrait Studies

These aren't really new but it's been a while since I posted some art so here are some portrait studies from the beginning of the year. They were drawn from photographs with charcoal pencil on newsprint.

On a side note, I've been working on some more X-Men characters so those will be coming soon!

Live Caricatures from the land of Legos

We've been drawing a lot of people as Lego characters at the park. People love it and it's a great souvenir. I call em' "block heads." These are challenging sometimes because the features need to fit in a lego head... and legos don't have ears... so on kids especially it takes a little more thought to get a likeness.

These were from a couple months ago. I need to take more pictures of my work but sometimes you get caught in a rush of people that want a caricature and forget to. Business has been a little slow but I'm giving out deals and doing whatever I can to get people to sit down for a drawing. Even if I don't make a lot, at least I'm drawing a lot. 

Caricature Studies

My roommate Matt Hennen does these cool head studies on newsprint and it inspired me to do some too. I liked drawing these on the newsprint for two reasons. One, the ball point pen feels like it skates across the surface. And two, it's easy to render on with charcoal or graphite.

The first image is me exploring new head shapes and design ideas. It's funny how my own facial features seem to show up in these studies. The last image is about memory sketches of coworkers. These didn't turn out as well as I pictured them in my head but it's going to keep me observer that much closer at work now. Enjoy!

Circus Art Show

Recently some friends and I were in an art show in downtown San Diego. It was a circus theme. We met and saw some live painters at the show, had a couple free drinks and got to see some cool art. Good times!