The New Blessed Mother

I may have gotten too specific with the details, which could quickly make it look dated, but I think the idea is there at least.

Seasons Tee

SEASONS SKATE SHOP in Albany, NY recently asked me to do a graphic that would be included in a batch of new shirts they're putting out. Check out the line-up HERE. Their photos of the shirts are much more glamorous than mine. Anyways, I'm really psyched to be included in this bunch. GO SUPPORT THEM YOU SKATEBOARD MINIONS.

Step 1.

                                          

Step 2.

Step 3.

These are some of the initial sketches. Still love that headless chicken at the bottom with blood squirting up into the logo.

More of The Gang

Some more of the faces that I've been doing on a daily basis. Not sure how I managed to draw Rick Ross, Willie Nelson and John Steinbeck all in a row, but there must be some weird underlying connection that caused me to move from one to the next.

Hank Revisited

Went back to the Hank Williams piece and tried to get it a little bit closer to something that resembled a finished illustration. I try not to rework drawings after I begin work on another project, to me it's just retreading old ground, I think it's easier for me to accept the mistakes and just work past them with a new piece. But, I had spent so much time on this one that it felt like I had just left it unfinished, without trying to fully solve the problem. At the moment it feels completed, but either way, I'll have to move on this time.

I've also included some warm up sketches I try to do before I work on a more involved piece. These tend to help me loosen up or give me idea's for bigger projects.

And a random drawing of a wolf.

Hank

I really got the urge to do a portrait of Hank Williams recently, so I got down to sketching out some idea's and tried to come up with something that captured some sort of feeling/look I get from his music. I've tried here and there over the years to work text into my illustrations, with mostly poor results, but this piece made me want to delve into really concentrating on the dynamic of the image and text and how to create a cohesive illustration utilizing the two.

Below are some preliminary sketches for the palette, text and the atmosphere I was trying to achieve.

I Can't Quit You Blogger

So, I decided to come back to blogger. I'm still using my Tumblr, but I thought it'd be really neat to give myself another thing to do so that I can drive myself crazy even faster. I honestly started to feel like I had abandoned a child, or forgot my little brother at the grocery store. Damn you internet! Here are some recent pictures I have made.

Skateboard graphic I recently did for Black Sheep skate shop in Columbus, Ohio.

I swear I haven't become this cynical about skateboarding. I still love it. I think I still have some years ahead of me before I trade in my time that I used to skate for time on the bar stool.

Wizard logo for Spells Cast

Danny Devito

    

Epic battle scene for the new Eva Anexora album Weaken'd & Broken, We Make for Shore                                                               

Jake Phelps

Two different ways I chose to pay homage to my favorite horror movie of all time. Yea, you read that right. I can guarantee that no horror movie in the future will impress me as much as An American Werewolf in London does. And even if it does, I won't admit it.

Onward Into The Blogosphere!

Welp, blogger, it's been fun, but I've met someone new and it's time for me to go. But don't worry, I've left you with some friends to play with. If you ever want to talk or maybe get together and get some coffee sometime, you can always find me HERE.

James Woods with a little blurb about Jereme Rogers I made sure to save. I can't think of another pro skater that has had such well documented drug-induced freak-outs as him.

Kurt Cobain

Couple angles of ol' Harry Dean Stanton.

Last, but not least, Danny DeVito. If It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia was The Simpsons, then you'd imagine that Charlie Kelly is Bart Simpson, the character you thought was the funniest and the coolest. But after a while you'd realize that Frank Reynolds is Homer Simpson, and that Homer Simpson was the best part about The Simpsons all along.

That's all. As I mentioned above, all future updates will be Tumblr'd

Got Ma Pictures in a Book!

About a year ago I was contacted by Andrew Fersch, a writer and teacher from New England, who I had worked on other projects with before, about illustrating a book of children's poems called The Rough Draft of My Life Story. We initially went over the general idea of the book, how it would look and the amount of work that would be needed for it. The poems had a good mix of cute and bizarre subject matter, which was exciting since I had always enjoyed the offbeat work of Shel Silverstein, Edward Gorey and Henrik Drescher. After the initial brainstorming the project seemed to just fade away and I didn't really hear anything more, so I figured it was a no-go. But, a few months later, Andrew contacted me to tell me the project was still on, and we got to work.

The completed drawings, all laid out:

Some personal favorites below:

Then came the day the books arrived in the mail, and honestly, I didn't want to open them. I think after putting so much time and effort into something like that, you just worry that it's going to fail to meet your expectations, or it's just going to have something terribly wrong with it. Or maybe I just always assume the worst. After a few minutes of staring at the package, I just got it over with, and a wave of relief washed over me. It wasn't a huge train wreck. It was, in fact, a really solid, great looking book.

This was an addition to the book that probably doesn't seem like a big deal, but the fact that some of the thumbnail sketches were included in the back, really got me psyched. I didn't know this was going to be done, and it was a minor, but really fun surprise.

The cover illustration, before and after:

A big thanks to Andrew for thinking of me when initially conceiving the idea of this book. It was a great experience, even though half the time I wondered what the hell I was doing. I haven't done much black and white work lately, and with the amount of drawings I had to do, it was both a relief and a challenge to restrain myself and think a little bit more graphically.