Week of Lincoln: Day Two

Today, an Abe Lincoln-themed comic for you!

Written by Dan Duncan & Erika Schnatz. Illustrated by Erika Schnatz.

Let's see if I can get another Lincoln post ready for tomorrow!

Week of Lincoln: Day One

This week is Abraham Lincoln's birthday.

He is my favorite president ever, and sometimes I get bored and draw pictures of him.

I will attempt to post something Lincoln-related every day this week, because he was the man.

Lincoln is a total BAMF. Absolute fact.

I will never draw Lincoln without his stovepipe hat. It is the best type of hat.

Friday Afternoon Comics: Your Brain on Jazz

So I've been a major slacker on the art front this week - my apologies, loyal followers.

The Year of Gnomes project is going on a bit of a hiatus, so I have more time to make comics. However, there will definitely be gnomes in some of my comics. So don't despair, gnome fans.

Without further ado:

This is based on a silly idea I wrote down on a Post-it note months and months ago.

Enjoy.

More comics on the way next week!

Friday Afternoon Comics: AmeriComics

Welcome to the first installment of something that will hopefully become a permanent fixture of my sketch blog: Friday Afternoon Comics!

I created the comics below as a response to some personal reflection questions in my AmeriCorps mid-year report. For those of you unaware of AmeriCorps, it's like the Peace Corps, but within the United States. There are AmeriCorps programs all over the place focusing on different themes and missions, this year I am working in a program called Oregon Campus Compact at Portland State University. Our focus is on student retention through mentoring programs. I've gained a lot of great knowledge and experience serving so far.

You don't really need to know any of that to read these, but they probably make a bit more sense if you do.

AmeriComic 1:

 AmeriComic 2:

Materials: a pen!

I am pretty good at writing in ALL CAPS.

A Year of Gnomes: Day Eight

Day Eight: Turn an old book into something new

I am always on the lookout for old books that I can mess around with, so I had lots of choices for this one. I thought it would be fun to make the gnome visit a Mayan pyramid, so I got out my Exacto knife again and cut up an image to make it a pop up picture.

 

I believe this is a Reader's Digest book about World Mysteries (or something of that nature). I bought it at Goodwill for a dollar.

 

I cut around different parts of the image and folded them up to make it pop up - there are four different levels to this picture.

 

You may also notice the tiny gnome I made on the right hand side of the picture, approaching the pyramid. Not correctly proportioned, but if I made it the "right" size he'd be practically invisible.

An additional view.

Materials: Book, Exacto knife, paper, pen, and markers (to make the tiny gnome), tape

This took very little time and turned out way better than I anticipated. Fun times!

A Year of Gnomes: Day Seven

Day Seven: Make something with your breakfast

My normal breakfast consists of a Nutrigrain bar and some yogurt, not terribly exciting or inspiring, so I waited until the weekend for this one. My wonderful boyfriend made the pancakes and I decorated. The first one turned out to be the perfect shape for a gnome's head.

 

My workstation (the kitchen counter)

 

I added some powdered sugar to create some sideburns of some sort. It may have made him more Santa Claus-esque.

 

Ready to eat!

It was one of the tastiest pancakes I have ever eaten. It took me about two minutes to scarf down. Then I had some non-gnome pancakes that were also very delicious.

Materials: Pancakes, Reddi-Whip, strawberry topping, chocolate chips, powdered sugar

Tomorrow: fun with books!

A Year of Gnomes: Day Six

Day Six: Make something using a stencil.

My initial thought was to make something sort of like a chalk outline of a body, like what you might find at a crime scene, but I went with something a bit lighter. Gnome crossing sign!

 

First I had to use my Exacto knife skills on a piece of Bristol board.

 

Here's the finished product! Stencil, cut out, and sign.

 

Another view.

Make way for gnomes!!

Materials used: Bristol board, acrylic paint, artists tape (to create lines around edge and underneath gnome), cardboard (for backing)

I kind of want to make a bunch of these and hang them up in parks at a kid's eye level. Make a little mischief and spread some fun.

However, due to the Portland weather it's going to be a few months before the sun comes back out. For now I'll just hang it up in my room.

Tomorrow: gnome + food (again!)

A Year of Gnomes: Day Five

Day Five: Make something using fruits or vegetables.

This worked out well because I had some fruit that was about to spoil. I turned it into a little gnome sculpture before putting it in the compost bin.

 

 

 

Materials: apple (for body), orange (for head, beard, and eyebrows), raisins (for eyes), scrapbook paper (for hat and shoes), Sharpie marker (to draw on a little smile), hot glue gun (to put it all together)

It was fun setting up a photo shoot for him on my desk. Very happy I didn't injure myself with the hot glue gun (I have burnt myself badly in the past, glad that didn't happen this time!)

Tomorrow: another gnome, in a different form

A Year of Gnomes: Day Four

Day Four: Work with a collection (I skipped over the challenge for Day Four, but I will come back to it! This is technically the challenge from Day Five. Forgive me)

Since I am a gnome aficionado, I obviously have amassed a few:

 

The gnome in the Hawaiian shirt has come with me on a number of trips and vacations.

 

 

$3 gnome from Goodwill. I had to buy it. I keep meaning to give him a Portland makeover, but I haven't gotten around to it yet. Maybe I'll be able to do that in a future challenge.

A page of gnome doodles. Some of these are super weird. 

Materials: Nikon SLR camera, pen

Tune in next week for some more gnome-y goodness.

A Year of Gnomes: Day Three

Day three: Make something with paper, but don't draw, cut, or paste anything. 

I am not an origami expert at all, because I have a really hard time figuring out the folds based on written instructions. I first tried following the instructions here, but I had a tough time and gave up on that.

Thankfully I found this video on YouTube, and did a pretty good job of following the instructions:

 

The resulting origami gnome bookmark. It sorta looks gnomish.

Once it's placed in a book, it does look sort of like you're smooshing a gnome within the pages.

Here is a way cooler gnome, designed by Eric Joisel:

Materials used: scrapbook paper

One more gnome post tomorrow to round out the week!

A Year of Gnomes: Day Two

Day two of the 365 challenge: Use your favorite animal as inspiration for today.

My favorite animals are elephants, so somehow that inspired jousting gnomes on bitty baby elephants.

 

The linework!

 

All colored in!

A slightly nicer version of the final art.

Materials used: pen, Prismacolor markers, recycled paper, white acrylic ink & brush

More gnome action tomorrow!

A Year of Gnomes: Day One

I've decided to begin a year of creative challenges! The theme will be gnomes, because I love gnomes.

We'll see how long I can keep this up - I'm going to do my best to stay on top of the challenges.

Day One: Make something that fits in the palm of your hand

 

 

Now I have another gnome to add to my collection! He looks pretty good on my shelf.

Materials: cardboard, Prismacolor markers, ink pen, white acrylic ink & brush

Come back tomorrow for more gnome-y goodness.

Wild & Crazy Kids

As promised, here is a continuation of party-related images.

 

This is another assignment from one of my college illustration courses. Back when Michael Jackson was still alive, and very creepy. You'd want him at your kid's party, right?

 

An alternate version of the cover that I most likely created after a critique of the first image. I tried to make it more visually engaging and whatnot. You may also notice I covered the girl's head with a cloth. Because his child Blanket was a big deal back then. I must not have realized that Blanket was a boy. My bad, Jackson family.

Jay and 'Ye in SPACE!

My brother is a huge fan of Jay-Z and Kanye West, so I made him this ridiculous illustration as a Christmas gift:

Here is the line art of Jay-Z and Kanye

I decided to stick them in space (totally normal, right?) so I created this background with some watercolors and acrylic paint. I found a super easy tutorial on how to do this via YouTube:

Then I cut out the line art and Mod Podge'd it to outer space. Easy peasy!

This was a super fun project and it only took me a few nights. I need to start drawing more!

Materials used: Micron pens, other black pens, watercolor paints, white acrylic paint (for the stars)

More posts will be coming your way next week!

A Very Portland Christmas

To continue on the Portland theme, here's hipster Santa, bringing PBR to all the underemployed boys and girls living on the east side...

 

Portlandia!

I will be leaving Portland for a short span of time to spend the holidays with my family, but I love this quirky little city so this week's posts are Portland-related.

This image is something I made for my friend who has recently left Portland for somewhere in Colorado, so I wanted to send her off with a slice of Portlandia. I tried to think of the most "Portland-y" thing I could think of. According to my brain that was a hipster elk/deer thing riding a bicycle past Powell's Bookstore while drinking a PBR.

This is how it turned out:

If this image captures even a fraction of Portland's oddness, I consider it a success.

Materials used: pens, watercolor, colored pencil

I really hope Megan got this in the mail by now and I didn't totally spoil the surprise by posting on here...

Travel

Last fall I created a series of illustrations so I could throw together a stop-motion-y video for a Southwest Airlines competition to win 30 million rewards points to fly wherever I wanted. I love to travel and thought I threw together a fairly convincing and creative presentation as to why my broke AmeriCorps butt should be able to jet across the country on a whim, but they didn't pick my video. (You can still make things right, Southwest!!!)

I was pretty bummed that I did all that work for nada, but you all can view some of the pieces I created. Maybe I'll try to throw the video up on YouTube or Vimeo or one of those places. I wrote a children's book-esque script to go along with the video and narrated it myself and used iMovie to edit it all together because I have lost whatever Final Cut abilities I gained in college.

I'll shut up and show the pictures.

That's supposed to be me. Broke and living in Portland, Oregon. BUT HAPPY!

Then I discussed driving across the country in my tiny little car to serve in AmeriCorps because I am an amazing, selfless person.

This is a really weird combination of images: Cleveland's Rock & Roll Hall of Fame and a geyser (Old Faithful if you'd like) from Yellowstone, because I saw both of those things on my drive across the country. It's kind of surreal and I really like how it turned out even though it makes no sense without explanation.

Hey, look! I don't have enough money to fly anywhere and go on tropical vacations.

Like 99% of Americans.

I explained the awesome things I would do if I was able to fly all over the country for free.

You may notice that I love alliteration.

 I tried to tug at the heartstrings of the soulless marketing folks who didn't choose my video. I talked about going back to Philadelphia to visit my family because I missed them very much. That's a pretty accurate representation of my Pops.

Then I did a little stop motion bit of the ridiculous amount of flights I would be able to take with all those reward points. I even made the airplane look like a Southwest plane. Because I have a crazy awesome eye for detail!!!

Then I cleverly brought it full circle by using the first image, but I changed the words on the sign! Brain-explosion-inducing, I know.

So those are some pictures. I made them with patterned paper, markers, watercolors, and Mod Podge.