Wolverine Eats a Bratwurst

This drawing felt appropriate to share on Memorial Day. A good weekend to be outside, fire up the grill and hang out. I'm also remembering to be grateful for the men and women, past and present, that have given their lives to preserve our country's freedom.

Cats Riding a Scooter

Today is my one year anniversary with Heidi! It's been a great first year together. So thankful to be on this journey of life with such an amazing person and my best friend.

Baby Super Heroes

This blog post is the follow up to the first Chibi Super Heroes post I did back in July, 2013. There are 6 new characters including Deadpool, Hulk, Wonder Woman, Spawn, Venom and Dr. Octopus. I finished these about a year ago. Between moving and planning a wedding these cards stayed in my portfolio and never got scanned in until a couple weeks ago. I do my best to finish projects and other commitments... even if it doesn't happen right away.

Each super hero character/card is 3.5" x 2.5" on bristle board using colored pencils, markers and pens. They're a lot of fun to work on and a fun challenge to redesign characters to make them look like they go together. I think these would look super cool if brought into Adobe Illustrator, cleaned up and made into a poster or print of some sort. Maybe some day... :)

Chibi Jesus

The Good Shepherd.

Fall in Minnesota

 

Between work, church, family events and planning the wedding, Heidi and I have been keeping busy the last few months. A couple of weeks ago we bundled up and went for a walk. We really enjoy getting outdoors together. It helps us keep the stress levels down, get some exercise and have some good talks together.

Autumn Animals

Chibi Superhero Sketch Cards

For fun, I've been drawing fan art the last couple months. These are some new sketch cards sized at 2.5" x 3.5". Making these cards has been really great for several reasons. First, they're not a huge time commitment. Second, it's rewarding after doing several of these in the sense that you're creating a collection. Third, I really enjoy drawing super heros and cute/anime cartoon characters lately. These little guys where drawn on 11" x 14" bristle board with markers and pencils. I thought it would be easier to draw them all on one big sheet of paper instead of cutting the cards out separately and then drawing on them. Working this way helped me frame the characters more easily. It also gave me space to do some color studies next each hero as well. I look forward to doing more and have all ready started another batch! Any requests? :)

Cartoon Robot Designs

Here are some robot designs and sketches I did for Urban Threads recently. The top drawing was a little detailed and we decided on going for a more "chunky and blocky" look. The design is geared (pun intended) for kids so I think it was a good call.

I enjoy seeing into the process of some one's thoughts and love looking at artist's sketchbooks. It's sort of like the bonus footage on a DVD you enjoy. They show you behind the scenes of the film or commentary from the director about their thoughts, budget, location, etc. I love that stuff.

Cats in a Scarf

Happy Valentine's Day :)

Cartoon Monster Designs

This was an embroidery design assignment from work and I wanted to share a little bit of my process. The top image is the sew out of the design after being digitized, the middle image is the vector art and the bottom image is the pencil rough. My job is making the drawings and the vector art. You can find the machine and hand embroidery files at Urbanthreads.

I usually start with a pencil sketch to get approved before going on to Adobe Illustrator and drawing it again on the computer. The process seams to change depending on my confidence with the subject. Sometimes I use thumbnails, sometimes it's really loose and gestural drawings. In this case I stayed pretty tight and clean and also tried to keep each monster unique. I get so much inspiration from animation and character design artists and am always looking for ways to plug that into my drawings at work.

Thank you for stopping by and checking out the art. And thank you everyone out there for making your own creations and sharing them with the world! Cooking, quilting, designing, crafting... everything. It's a treat to share art on this blog and a treat to experience what everyone else it making in the world.

:)

Lil' Death Paper Model

Happy Halloween! 

This is my first paper model based on the Grim Reaper himself. It was fun to try something new and think three dimensional for a change. You can get your own Lil' Death paper model here! For best results, print on card stock or heavy paper. 

Lil' Death Cartoon

aww  :)

The MAD Scientist

and his faithful companion... Professor MeowPurr

Robo Kitty

Ninja Squirrel

Flying Monkey

Another drawing that makes me happy :)

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!

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!