davenportzzzzzzzzz and more

being in ultimate suck up holiday mode, i agreed to work on a drawing of my mom's parents when they were married. the problem with working with a photograph from the 1930's (?)
is that the resolution... isn't... well... hi res? i'm having issues getting a good likeness on blanche there... but francis' face is sculptural and fun to draw. i put another layer onto that lino i've been working on too, and then i played around with the scan of my holiday card print in photoshop. indeed.

it's a wonderful life, jimmy stewart

working on getting my show together! opening scheduled for January 16 (located here), which means I hang the show the week of the 9th? yikes yikes yikes. here's a preview of some of the new stuff that's in the show... i decided to do a mix of new watercolors and prints of older works too! come buy my art.

in the spirit of the holidays, i did sit down and watch "it's a wonderful life" tonight. do ya want the moon, mary?

holilollilollidays

the season is upon us. this is a composite sketch for a linoleum block printed non-denominational holiday greeting card. tomorrow it goes to lino!
and speaking of lino, here's layers 1 & 2 put together from the previous entry! two more layers to go!

i see many people coming after me

I started a new lino this week that I've had on the back burner for quite some time. As you can see, my skills are a little rusty.
This lino is a bit of a new venture for me, all cut out of one block. this will be the lightest background layer, followed by four more layers on top. I'm going to try one printed as is, but in the end, my final image will depend mainly on photoshop magic.
Oh, in other news, Reggie is seven years old today. High five!

14 hours on a train cumulatively = not as harsh as the flight to Australia

So I took the train voyage for a fantastic stay in Brooklyn this weekend. On the train, I drew this lovely fella, which sparked the following:
Carla: looks up after smelling waft of patchouli and body odor, sees hippie heading towards her
Patchouli Boy: "Is that Mississippi John Lee Hooker?"
CB: "Why yes it is"
PB: "He's wonderful. You sure do draw well."
CB: "Why thank you."

Moral of the story: it's always good to have fans, even if they smell funky.

i want to try this shit. today.

Emmanual Guibert

under my thumb.

who went micron shopping? this moi. i stocked up on two more of my favorite hunter green no. 5s, got a purple no. 5, and a sweet purple brush pen that i have yet to use. i tried to combing them in this sweet drawing of the ever creepy miles davis. what a freaky looking, sweet, sweet dude. i've also been entertaining the idea of making an alphabet of drawings as a fun little self promoter. i got a little lost in the middle though, i started with p!

animal sketches

Carla Bartow Seal Of approval! and a study of a water buffalo that i ended up painting.
I fell in love with this buffalo. it's blind in one eye, and has an amazing amount of soul.

when sketchbooks wander away

it has been brought to my attention that i need to update more. apparently i just got new photoshop which will allow me to! i've been drawing a lot of animals lately, but once in awhile i need my people fix. this was a warm up sketch from the other day, while i was getting into the groove.

viva pinata!

first of all, this weekend i went out to good old potter county, pa to the douglass (bartowish) reunion! it was great to see all my relatives, since i haven't been in at least two years, probably more!!!!! it was such a nice break from city life, going out to the mountains, being able to sit next to a creek rushing by and just listen to it.... ahhh. so what better time to sketch cows then now? i ended up camping out that evening, and i was woken up at one point by one of these cows, after which my cousin dominique had to chuckle.

also, a drawing of shalini from last night.

sketches from the (early) summer

one night, we were all sitting around watching an anthony bourdain: no reservations marathon. it was a hazy sunny day, late in the afternoon, as shalini shifted around on the couch. as soon as i started drawing her leg, she was lying down... and so on... and so on... this is also my first drawing done with my EMERALD GREEN MICRON (looooooooooove)!!!!!!!!!

this was a first drawing of the day while flipping through a magazine at the gallery. oh, gallery days!

revised biznezz card

more birds!!! i'm very happy with this version, so off to print it is!

old caricatures/portraits

kurt vonnegut, who now swims with the fishes

bono (not a saint)

adrien brody

my brother, gordon

bob dylan

and finally, dave grohl of foo fighters/nirvana fame.

Miles Davis: Kind of.... Sweet

Lately, I've been getting back into Miles Davis. It all started when i got:

Oh man, this album is amazing. It's the perfect funky, sit on your porch and let the summer sun go down album. Miles himself is pretty funky-looking, so today at work I started drawing him...

which was okay... but i really wanted to capture his creepy face...

I kept thinking, "What makes him look so creepy?" I've decided it's a combination of his sweet chops (from his embouchure while playing the trumpet) and his gigantic eyes. More Miles to come!!!

mas penguins

i just can't get enough of these guys. the subway train gets a little lost, i think i'll work on that some more.

re-creation

i'm reworking my business card while listening to a lot of langhorne slim. i'm a little stuck though. i'm thinking maybe more birds... this seems a bit static for my taste. i think i'll drink a glass of wine and mull it over.

gordoni

business card for the bro. all lino, all the time.

limerick take two

interior of wedding invite


front of card

sushi penguins

CS3! finally! i've been playing around with this old print, and though it's not finished, i'm quite happy with this version. I'm loving the painterliness of it.

bimmerick

our bamerick is getting married this fall! this is the design for her invitation.

flooooooooooood

dear blog,
this piece was for a digital mixed media class. our assignment was to personify a natural disaster. i chose new orleans and flooding as an excuse to draw more musicians. I also experimented more with layering in photoshop and playing around with the colors. here's a little of what my process goes like.
the first block i cut and printed looked like this:
block #2 printed:
the rest was digital magic, ladies and gentlemen.

day in the park

dear blog,
recently i had a bit of an illustration freak out, and wanted to improve my quality of work. i wanted to make my work look more professional, and include more environments. being in a portfolio prep class awarded me the freedom to do a new piece on whatever i wanted. since i love drawing musicians, i started from there. luckily, i had obtained some new linoleum blocks and colored inks for my birthday! i then made two prints, and put them together in photoshop. this is the result of my arduous work. i'm rather pleased, if i do say so myself.

new blog? new blog!!!

Ahoy hoy my fellow blogarians. Happy mother's day to the motherblog. The time has come for me to start blogging again. I've been doing new linoleum techniques, starting with the one that I did following my last sketch. I was pretty pleased with it, but I feel that I've come a long way since this one. On top is the mailer layout that I did (without type), and below, I used the image for a sweet sweet jazz in the square poster.

maileeeeeeeeeeeer

i'm cutting lino again! supa dupa pumped, this is my sketch for my mailer, and i'm going to do the line work with an incredisweet linoleum print, and probably color with watercolor. or digitally.. who knows?

drawing at work 2

Argyle gargoyles gargle gershwin.

drawing at work 1

My friend gayle was nice enough to let me draw her at work this week.

ingenuity?

I usually snub my nose at "found object art", but this guy makes some incredisweet images out of brown packing tape and plexiglass. Check it out! http://www.designverb.com/2008/01/22/mark-khaisman-brown-tape-art/

latest and greatest

pensive don