Nosferatu Drawing

My friend Ricardo and I live in different states (California and Minnesota) but thanks to the interwebs, we've been doing this thing were we sketch together using Skype. If you haven't used it before, it's a program that lets you call, instant message or video chat with other people. We both have web cameras so we can show each other what we've been doing in our sketchbook or just make weird faces at each other. It's a great way to catch up, do some drawing and share any thing new we've learned about art, life, etc.

This drawing is from the other day with Ricardo. I'm not familiar with Nosferatu, but I know of him from the early horror movies.

Ninja Kitty

Victorian Cat and Monkey Sunset

I'm having a lot of fun taking my drawings done in Illustrator and playing around with textures and color in Photoshop. The cat on the top was drawn in pencil, cleaned up in Illustrator and finished in Photoshop. We'll call him, "the Catitude, Dude!"

The drawing on the bottom was sort of a warm up sketch before work. Pascal Campion does these really great illustrations that convey a lot of emotion and story in them. He does one a day and gives himself a hour or two to finish it and I was inspired to do my own. Technically, it's not the greatest drawing and that's something I'm working on "letting go" and focussing more on telling a story. Norman Rockwell's illustration teacher once told him; "If you throw a tennis ball hard against a wall, it will come back at you hard. Likewise, if you feel a drawing hard, your audience will feel it, too."

Comments, feedback and suggestions are all welcome and thanks for stopping by!

Kokeshi Dolls

Another embroidery design series done over at Embroidery Library. This series was inspired by Japanese wood dolls and then modified by giving them an object to hold. I'm really inspired by Asian art and design so it was a real treat work on these.

Thanks for stopping by!

Baby Dragon

Every now and then I like to take the vector art that was used for a project at work and "spice" it up a little with more details, color, background, etc. It's also fun to play around with the programs and teach yourself something new.

Lastly, I'd like to share a quote that stuck with me from the movie "Kung Fu Panda." Master Oogway shares with the panda a bit of his wisdom durring a dificult time. The quote goes...

"Yesterday is history, tomorrow is a mystery and today is a gift. That is why they call it the present." :)

Thanks for stopping by!

Winter Birds and Artist Inspiration

Sometimes when I'm drawing on the computer I like to listen to artist interviews to keep inspired. Usually, when I'm on the computer tracing my artwork in Adobe Illustrator, it requires less imagination and creativity than say when I'm at the drawing table. For clarity I should state that most of my illustrations are roughed out at a drawing table and then scanned in and finished on the computer. During the drawing table phase, most of the illustration is figured out on paper and the computer is more of a tool to polish and clean up the art. So here's a couple entertainment art sites that I like to stream audio on and listen to when I'm creating on the computer.

Sketchoholic.com

Hosted by the amazingly enthusiastic and tallented Bobby Chiu, this site is full of interviews with professionals in the entertainment art industry. This is HUGE inspiration for me!

Stephen Silver's Artcasts

Character designer and illustrator, Stephen Silver shares his wealth of knowledge and wisdom about art and life. Another great source of inspiration!

Cardinal Stack

Recently we did a series of "stack" designs at Embroidery Library. The stack being three animals or objects of a similar nature sitting on top of each other. The cardinals were my favorite of the series. Something about simplicity really interests me, whether it's writing, speaking, etc.

2010 Favorites

These are some of my favorite designs I've worked on in the last year. Big props to the amazingly tallented digitizers and art directors at Urban Threads. These embroider designs are a team effort between us all. I can't say enough good things about this group of people. It's been a great year.

Free Time

These are a couple drawings from a while ago. The first one is a portrait study done by Yim Mau Kun. Studying other artists work helps me stay limber and learn some new tricks. Whether consciously or unconsciously, I do them in hopes that their genius becomes apart of my work as well. The second one is a drawing of Michael Jackson from about a year ago. It was a rough drawing in my sketchbook and was later cleaned up in Adobe Illustrator.

Happy Holidays to everyone and best wishes to you in the new year!!

Season's Greatings

Happy Holidays everyone!

Flapper Designs

My art teacher in high school told us about combining two different ideas to make something fun and different. Like the person that came up with chocolate and peanut butter together... that's genius... OK maybe not genius but it was a good enough idea to the people that began Reese's candy.

Lately animation has been a huge inspiration to me and these flapper designs where my effort to combine that with my love for graphic design. It was also an experimentation with style. I feel like some things worked and others I'd probably revisit and change. The last two designs are my favorites, particularly because of the gesture and angularity of the poses.

Thanks for stopping by!

T-Shirts and Stickers for Sale!

The Holidays are coming up quick! Do you know a certain someone who needs some new t-shirts? Or maybe you all ready have the gift in mind but want to customize it with some unique graphic art? Well look no further! The Taylor made art shop is open for business!

Check it out!