The Face of 2010...

Let's all say goodbye to him...Here's to a Happier New Year.

Today's Post Could Drink You Under the Table...

In my continued desire to sketch the somewhat inexplicable (in terms of subject matter)...I submit to you a quickie of Oliver Reed and Glenda Jackson from the film Women in Love. Now that I've said that, you're probably all wondering why I didn't choose something with more skin and more wrestling. This is art, you dogs...

Villa Rides...

A roughed out rough of Mexican Revolutionary Pancho Villa.

The Usual Train Wreck...

Once again, the holidays are about us, and playing hell with my schedule and my memory.

Here's a pictorial representation of how things are generally going with staying on top of things...

Cheers.

"Hey, Guess Whose Back..."

Here's something sort of classically serene...

En Garde...

I've often wondered if I could pull of breeches...not so much the hose, but I guess tube socks would be a touch boorish.

Who...Are You? Who? Who...Again?

Much along the same impulse that led me to draw Teddy Roosevelt, I present a quickie of Roger Daltrey. Yup. That Roger Daltrey.

The Week Ends...With a Striped Hyena.

A quickie's quickie...it's only fitting...

"Every reform movement has a lunatic fringe" - Teddy Roosevelt

Perhaps this post would've been more appropriate to the elections yesterday...but I remembered it too late in the evening.

Ok, this moment with the former President got a little more involved. I couldn't tell you what it is about him that has had me return to him as a subject...perhaps it's that larger than life quality he had about him. Sargent's portrait of him is probably my favorite of the presidential portraits. I especially love the fact that the pose and location were found when Teddy turned to Sargent because he was growing impatient over their expedition to find a place to paint it.

"Do nothing which is of no use." - Musashi

Another experiment with the Sumi brush. While it's nowhere near where I'd like to be withone, I wouldn't call it of no use. And you may think it cliché to draw a samurai with said brush as practice, but you've got to have all that stuff to feel like you're doing something with that brush. It's...appropriate...

In any event, I'll have to keep trying...

...Of Amazing Adventure...

So...we have a quickie of Errol Flynn...sans moustache...or sword...or bow and quiver...

...and a Lion riding on a side car in an auto stunt show. Your Argument is Invalid.

You've Been Good...Have Two...

All I can tell you is that this was a quick one from a publicity still of a cross-dressing Katherine Hepburn in Sylvia Scarlett. I suppose it struck me due to a sort of resemblance to David Bowie in his Thin White Duke phase. In any event, it's a little rough, I should've spent more time with it...


On the flip side, to balance all that masculine-femininity, here's some feminine-femininity in the form of Ella Fitzgerald. Another quickie from a photo I found amongst the Library of Congress archives.

"Take my rats, fleas...."

Something a little different for today. After a failed attempt at getting a piece that centered around masquerades ready in time for a themed show, I then turned may attention to possibly doing something concerning Poe's Masque of the Red Death. While that project may still materialize, it never quite came together like I wanted. Anyhow, this was one of the tests that I painted up real quick. Originally it was supposed to be inked as well, but I decided to leave it colorful...and generally line-less.

The Perfect Cure for a Pimp named Gator...

Just another result of being in "one of those moods". I'm proud to present my swift rendering of soul legend Isaac Hayes as Truck Turner. I'm led to understand they're going to remake this film...or, I should say, make another film with this title and a character of the same name. Likely, it'll once again prove that the "creative" powers that be have never and will never understand what made b-movies like Truck Turner great in the first place. Alas...

After all, Isaac Hayes wrote Sam & Dave's megahit "Soul Man", won the Oscar and a Grammy for "Theme from Shaft", and was just...well, Isaac Hayes....who could replace him?

A delicate nod...to the ladies...

This week, we take a look at the fairer sex...but then again, when are we not looking at the fairer sex...?

"Da, Comrade Mozstacz..."

The World War sketch vibe continues...

"Ladies and Gents..."

"...This li'l choo-choo's gonna be a little late getting to the station." Another sketch based on an image I found from a photo taken during WWI. To those familiar with my work: No, it hasn't escaped me...the potential metaphor all these train wrecks represent...

On the Edge of the Desert...

I found this peculiar photo of war games in the New Mexico desert from either WWI or II (it escapes me which). The bizarre thing was that I don't recall a military vehicle or uniform in sight. In fact, it looked more like some Hollywood version of some Prohibition shootout. Anyhow, the whole thing is sketchy...much like this drawing...

Vulture Masks say 'It's a Party, y'all."

As Indiana Jones once famously quipped, "Ahhh Venice..." Though I'm far from any gondoliers, I guess I can think of myself as being in her Far West Coast sister location...or not.

Leader of the Free World and/or Cuddly Companion...

As was once famously said of Don Knotts...I just felt like drawing Theodore Roosevelt. Roosevelt once survived an assassination attempt thanks to a speech in his pocket. Though bleeding, he delivered an hour long speech without medical attention. Drawing the blood-stained manuscript for the speech from his pocket, he said "It takes more than that to kill a Bull Moose." On the flip side, his well known account of piranha shredding a cow in minutes is largely believed to have been staged for the traveling president. Personally, I think Teddy would've nicked himself a number of times, jumped in the Amazon, and staged a razor-tooth fish-fry for later that night if he had had his way.

A Flower...

...sums it up, eh?

Just Drive it Off the Lot...

Like a City...with Buildings in it...

I don't do much in drawing architecture. For the most part, it could be called...well...laziness. A good part of it is just disinterest. I appreciate a good building. I like a nice skyline. I don't, however, like reproducing them. Yet, that was part of the point of why I started all this sketching was to work on the things I didn't like drawing or was weak at. So...Uh...Napoli....

"But now I'm a man...way past 21..."

The Blind Brush-man...

I recently purchased my first proper Asian horsehair brushes to attempt to do some different work in ink. I haven't gotten much practice with them, but I'm determined to get that sharp-angled wrist action they do so well in cloth folds. This one...well...he's not there...

Announcement: Hive Gallery...Saturday, September 4th.

According to the above, yours truly is a featured artist at the September show at the Hive gallery. The card contains all the details one might need to attend such a gala event. I'll be standing around looking like someone who stands around at art shows with a sandwich in one hand and a Cuba Libre in the other (I'm not ruling out a Tequila Sunrise). If you can make it out, if patronizing the arts is your thing, if you're more than a meter in any dimension, then by all means come on out to the show!

Not a Burt Reynolds Movie...

Satyr-ical...

Satyr-nalia...I'm out of Satyr puns...wait...Satyr-n...Never Mind...

"Evenin' Ladies, My name is 'Dances with Girls'..."

A first run test for an illustration I was commissioned to do. The mighty bison.

RAT-A-TAT-TAT (Because I can't make plane noises on here...)

A little preparatory experiment for a potential job that might be coming up...no, I'm not joining an air show...

A Man About Town...

It's been darned chaotic here late. Now that's no excuse, as the internet doesn't sleep for anyone. If you're not serving your audience a fresh dose of new material every five seconds, you're old news. How else do you explain Twitter? Twitter has shown me just how many things people are doing that I didn't need to know, and don't care about. Anyhow, I add this little sketch to my own mountain of minutiae. I hope he's worth interrupting your post on the style of quilting on your latest toilet paper purchase.

Play Ball!

Natural Disaster...

Ring Tailed...

When it comes to congenital defects, being born with a tail...as a human being...well, I'd want to be ring-tailed...

The Pez™ Dispenser of Doom...

I'm not sure where this drawing was going initially, but once someone made the comment about it "kinda looking like a Pez dispenser" was out on the table...that's exactly where it went.

A Bright Idea...

All in the flick of a wrist...

I dabble in Cartooning...

I've never been good at the type of abstraction needed for high end cartooning...at least I don't think I am. Nevertheless, it's never stopped me from playing...

Just a Peek...

A study I did for a painting that will be a part of the series I'll be showing in September. Corvus Corax.

"A Simpler Time...."

Simply put, I enjoyed this photo I scanned of my great-uncle Earl, and so I sketched it. It can't get much more direct than that.

80K is a Whole Lot of Demons...

Doing research into other things I came across the image and story of Zhong Kui, the Chinese ghost hunter. I had seen prints of the Japanese version of him before, but hadn't before seen him identified along with the tale of how he came to be. I believe I was looking at info on pomegranates, but even mentioning that is a potential digression. Anyhow, with my trusty brush pen I tried to approximate the unique marks that both flow and have sharp angles that Chinese artist employ in ink drawings. It didn't exactly come out...but I also realized, I wasn't working on a huge scroll of paper with a 2 foot long Sumi-style brush...that might have had something to do with it.

Ah...It's Been Too Long, My First Love...

Well, I've let this lie fallow long enough methinks. Don't for a moment think that I've not been drawing.

I've done plenty.

I even got paid to do it for half a week.

But I've neglected the scanner, and my duty to post. Alas.

That will all change soon enough. I'm seeing the light at the end of the tunnel on the paintings I'm trying to complete for my featured spot in a show in September. I've been thinking of putting a book together of my favorites of these...something I'll need to do quick as my desire to look at and/or show old work diminishes quickly. I need to get some ideas together for some shirts I'd like to design. And so, this, my first blog must cease to have life breathed into and continue to thrive.

Sort of like my long neglected deviantart page...I still don't know what to do with it.

And so, I shall return!

Time to Break out the Scanner...

This lonely little fella was the result of me sitting on the trunk of my car for a few moments while I was waiting for a friend to return from an audition. I think he sums up a whole lot of things quite well.

"My Friends don't call me Tex..."

Every now and again, I tap into my inner Tex Avery. I've often admired cartoons and comic strips for the range of expression that can be rendered out of such simplified forms. It's deceiving. Everyone assumes that it's easy to pull off, but much like all comedy, it's the hardest to pull off. I don't think I succeeded.

Solid Lines...

One Handsome Devil...

The model for this image will never know that he was the model for this image...I so swear it.

A Moment in Whimsy...