Goals

Today, I wanted to share something that's close to heart and hopefully valuable to you in some way. It's nothing new. It's significance, though, can not be praised enough.

When I was 16, I went to a wrestling camp at the University of Minnesota. Along with the vigorous training, drilling and learning new moves, the camp instructors gave us booklets to work in at night. The booklets were meant for the wrestlers to figure out what goals they wanted to achieve as athletes and in our personal lives.

A couple years ago when I was living in California, I revisited my goal list from the wrestling booklet and to my amazement one of my goals was to "live in California." It blew my mind. I had written that goal maybe 6 or 7 years ago, forgot about it and was then currently living a dream and didn't even know it.

There's something about writing out our goals that is so helpful in getting to places that we wish to be in life. It helps us figure out what we really want and desire. In this short time we are here on earth, what is it that you want to do? Who do you want to be? You can think of goals as a bull's eye on the dart board. When you know what you're aiming for, it's easier to hit the target... otherwise, you're just throwing darts and it doesn't really matter where you hit the board. And that's OK, too.

On my computer there's several word documents with personal and career goals filled out. As artists and designers, we all ready have that creative muscle we use regularly. It can be applied here as well... and when doing this, just let it run wild! Have fun with it. Imagine yourself selling a painting for "XX,XXX" amount of dollars. Imagine yourself being published in a popular magazine and picking up the issue off the shelf at the grocery store. Image yourself eating dinner and having an amazing conversation with your favorite artist. Imagine your children's book or personal sketchbook being published and holding it your hands.

I could write about this for another hour it feels, so I'll try to rap up this post with some encouragement to make your own goal list. Look at it often and change and add to it as you go. Again, have fun with it! And don't wonder "how" you're going to achieve these... this isn't important. Just let go of hindering thoughts and dream big.

:)

Snowed in on a Sunday

Sketch Book Caricatures

Here's a couple caricatures pulled from the sketchbook. The first one is of the rapper, Emenem. I think it's funny how he looks so serious or doesn't smile in his pictures so I decide to "lighten the mood." As my project manager would say, "somebody needs a hug..." The second caricature is of the auther, Franz Kafka done for the Caricaturama Showdown 3000 over at Facebook. I haven't drawn a lot of caricatures in the last year and these were some challenges from my friend, Ricardo, so thanks for pushing me, buddy. It was a lot fun!

Animals with Balloons

Another animal design project for Embroidery Library. I have to say, my art directors are really talented and have a good eye for things. They see things that I can't in my own art and know how to tweak certain things to get them looking better than before. It's all a team effort and I'm really grateful to have the experience of working with them and the other artists at this job.

Thanks for stopping by and happy early Mother's Day!

Threadless T-Shirt Submission

New T-shirt design up for voting at Threadless.com

If you have an account set up at their site, it only takes a couple seconds to give it a vote. Careful though! My disclaimer is that voting on T-shirt designs is like eating potato chips... you can't just have one! By that I mean it's easy to vote for one, and then two, and then thirteen. But it is a lot of fun to see what people are creating over there. :) Good stuff, homie!

Illustration Friday: "Bottled"

This week for Illustration Friday the theme is "bottled." This is the first time I've participated with this group and it was a lot of fun and a good challenge. My personal goal was to do this as quickly as I could (thumbnails to a finish) with out second guessing my first instincts. Comments and feedback are welcome.

On a side not, I discovered another great resource for illustration online. At Illustration Mundo, you can listen to a bunch of great pod casts with artists, illustrators, designers, directors, etc. Definitely a HUGE resource for anyone who does illustration or is an artist. Can't emphasise that enough! Some how these pod casts are related to Escape from Illustration Island which is another great resource that I'm learning about.

I just wanted to say a big thank you to the people that contribute their time and efforts to these sites. What a great way to share with the community and be a hub for inspiration.

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!