Thursday, March 14

Neil Diamond Background Conundrum

Hey!

So I have a frame hanging on my wall that is sans a picture. In an attempt to rectify this situation, I drew a picture of Neil Diamond last night, because, why not? The man has amazing eyebrows.

I was going to pick a background for him, but then I thought, "Why not put this up to a vote? Maybe people want to contribute to this amazing portrait."

Dear readers, I come to you with a conundrum: which background looks best with Neil Diamond?

Option 1: All American Hero.


 This is the background I initially planned to use. Because Neil Diamond is a real American hero.

Option 2: Groovy-licious.


Neil Diamond is also a super groovy man, so this may be an appropriate background.

Option 3: Silver Fox


For some reason, Neil Diamond looks the most suave with this background. Or maybe that's just me.

Drop me a comment to let me know what you think! Let the people decide! The winner will be revealed at some point. Maybe Monday?

Materials: Micron Pens, scrapbook paper

Friday, March 8

Friday Afternoon Comics: Drunk Bear

Your bear drinks beer!
A bit of back story about this image - I started using a free online program to refresh my Spanish a few weeks ago. The program's called Duolingo, and it's quite an excellent learning tool, especially since it's totally free. One of the most entertaining parts of re-learning Spanish on Duolingo is translating the sometimes-wacky sentences they give you.

I'm not sure when I'll ever need this particular line, but it makes learning a bit more fun.

Materials: pen


Tuesday, March 5

Serve San Francisco T Shirts

My apologies for the lack of posts. I've been traveling a lot in the past month and I've been slacking on my art stuff. Here's something I worked on during the past week:

I am currently an AmeriCorps member, and I like to help my peers out when I can. When another member of my program needed help with t shirts, I volunteered my services. Her group is going on several alternative spring break trips, and they need to outfit everyone in t shirts. 

This is an idea from one of the students she works with. It was a basic design for their upcoming trip to San Francisco.
However, I wanted to try and give them something with a little more character than a city skyline. I find that it's really hard to distinguish city skylines from each other unless there are strong visual indicators (like the Eiffel Tower in Paris), so I wanted to do something else. I drew a cable car, since I associate them with San Francisco.
Above is the basic sketch for the cable car, based on some old travel posters I found on Google.

This is was what I submitted to them for the front of the t shirt.


I didn't veer very far from their original idea for the back.

So I submitted it, and none of the alternative spring break committee members preferred my cable car design to their idea of the city skyline. So I wound up going back and creating this for them:

Below is a rough idea of what the t shirt will look like:


So there you have it. I learned not to mess with a design idea they really liked, because it cost me time and energy (especially because it was all pro-bono stuff). Meh. I still like my cable car drawing.

Friday, March 1

DJ Ladle

DJ Ladel is "ladling out the hits!"

This is a dumb little sketch based on a dumb response I gave during a comedy game show I participated in last night.
My apologies for the lack of posts. I haven't fallen off the earth, but I've gotten really into learning Spanish recently. I also have a short attention span and I've been out of town for the past two weekends.

I pinky swear there will be some good stuff popping up here next week.

Friday, February 15

Week of Lincoln: Day Four

I've realized that posting every weekday is not something that is ever going to happen. I just can't manage my time that well. But here's the fourth post for this week, which is pretty rad.

This Friday Afternoon Comic is half Abe Lincoln, half Valentine's Day-lovin'. The idea for this popped into my head a few days ago, so I'm glad I had the time to draw it today.

Enjoy it lovebirds/Lincoln enthusiasts!


Wednesday, February 13

Week of Lincoln: Day Three

Here's another Lincoln drawing from a few years ago:

If you can't read my tiny handwriting, it says:
Abe Lincoln actually looked a lot like this. Who else would be able to free the slaves single handed-ly and wrestle a 7 foot bear at the same time? Damn straight.

America has never been a place for sissies.
Fabulous. If you think this is weird, just wait until tomorrow!

Tuesday, February 12

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!

Monday, February 11

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, February 8

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, February 1

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.

Thursday, January 31

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!


Wednesday, January 30

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!

Tuesday, January 29

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!)

Monday, January 28

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

Friday, January 25

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.

Thursday, January 24

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!

Wednesday, January 23

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!

Tuesday, January 22

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.

Thursday, January 10

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.


Thursday, January 3

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!