WIP sketch dedicated to my son, Aiden. He has gotten better at being around his Dad, but the first few days, we did have a few “Not the Momma” moments! Luckily, he can’t hold a frying pan… yet!
Original sketch was recorded using a Wacom Inkling. A little bit of colour quickly thrown in Photoshop. Might finish this guy up this weekend for my Image of the Month.
Enjoy.
Not exactly Dana Tanamachi (Google her work) but it helps to get the point across. This is what greeted me at The King’s Head Pub.
No, this isn’t a commentary on the 80s Marvel Comics mashup, it’s my take on this past month’s Secret Handshake.
This will be a quick one. I wasn’t there very long. It was my first real outing by myself since Aiden was born (not including going to work) and I was feeling a little guilty going out by myself and leaving my wife with the baby all night. And it was a video game tournament themed evening. While I do appreciate the time and effort going into making games (and playing them), I left my video game playing days long behind me.
The few hours I was there were interesting. It was nice to see a few familiar faces and meet some new ones. There was someone there from the life drawing class I used to attend. I’ve been too busy as of late to attend any of the classes and I’m not too certain I’ll be going back any time soon. I’ve been going to the Winnipeg Art Gallery for quite a few years now and wouldn’t mind a bit of a change. I hear the classes at the Cre8ery are pretty good. I might start going there in a few months once I have a better idea what my routine as a Dad will be.
Once the evening was well underway, the video game tournament started up. All the games were played on a “portable” version of the Winnitron, an open source arcade game I blogged about a while ago. Anything that was on the game system was fair game for the tournament, but everyone seemed to gravitate to Nidhogg, a two person fencing game. I understand competition became quite fierce.
A little after grabbing something to eat, I headed for home. Once I arrived home, I was greeted with some pretty big smiles! Dad has to work hard for those. Kim gets them pretty easy since she’s with him all day, and the little toy frog that is attached to his car seat gets them pretty easily (they are buddies since they go everywhere together) and that just leaves me. The guy who gives him his baths and puts him to bed. The two things he likes he least. I’ll take the smiles whenever and however I get them!
This past week my RSS newsreader served me up a rather sad little post. Canadian illustration blog, Drawn, is closing its virtual doors. Seems the author is getting too invested in his own illustration career to be sending out posts on the goings ons in the lives and works of various illustrators throughout the world. Not necessarily a bad thing. Nice to see an illustrator being busy.
I first found out about the blog a few years ago by looking over the shoulders of one of my coworkers. Seems most everyday there were new postings showcasing a variety of different artists and styles. It was all very inspiring. While i was only quietly following the blog, I couldn’t help but wonder if I might one day be showcased on Drawn. That would probably mean I’d have to finally settle on a style!
But the past few months the posts were getting fewer and fewer. So few in fact, that I was going to double check to make certain the feed was working. And then I got the final posting from Drawn, explaining everything. Sad news indeed.
Hopefully, we will see Drawn again in some future incarnation. Or maybe someone will pick up the mantle and carry on? In the meantime, anyone know another curator of illustration on the ‘Net? Abduzeedo is pretty good for comic/fantasy/graffiti art. But I always appreciated the broader drawing styles found on Drawn.
Yeah, I know it’s a rhino.
There’s quite the story behind this image. It’s an older one. I did this drawing for my high school art class when I was 17 years old (I’m now 38). A friend of mine who was taking art classes for an easy credit was rather disgusted with how accurately and realistically the image came out and kept calling it an elephant instead of a rhino. The name stuck.
When I was first finished the image, I wasn’t too thrilled with how it came out. There are some problems with the proportions, and it was bugging me, but the graphite was too ground into the paper for me to do anything about it. It took me years to finally decide it was a good piece. My parents’ on the other hand, liked it right away and put it in a large frame (the drawing itself is a full size piece of mayfair cover, approximately 18in x 24in in I believe) and mounted it on a ledge that ran across our front entranceway. A few years later it fell the nine feet to smash on the main floor. I thought for sure the drawing was going to come out of the frame in ribbons. It did not. Though it DID have a few good gashes going through it in a few places. You won’t be able to notice them on this digital capture.
I decided to post the drawing here. The mayfair cover is getting quite old and has yellowed noticeably. I don’t think the original is going to last that much longer. A quick snap shot and some photoshopping to deal with the yellowing and voilà, here you go.
This is the very last pice of my older and sometimes more juvenile works that I’ll be posting online for the sake of completeness. You can see the rest of these works here, here and here.
A business card design I put together for my wife, a professional photographer. I used the online service Moo.com for the prints. They are relatively expensive for a digital online printer, but the quality of the cards was well worth it. And everything was delivered very quickly and professionally. Well worth the money.
I took good advantage of the the fact that you can print different images on one side of the card, the perfect showcase for a photographer (or a graphic designer for that matter). I wanted a nice bright colour for the front. I settled on orange as I knew it was one of my wife’s favourite colours. And a nice quick, whimsical drawing of a camera for a quick and dirty logo of sorts.
Well April’s Image of the Month is a bit late (and the one for March is non-existant), but I’ve got a pretty good excuse. My wife gave birth to our son, Aiden, a bit earlier than planned. And as any parent can tell you, the first few weeks of a baby’s life is pretty disruptive. Especially for first time parents.
And in keeping up with that thought, the image I made for this month was a little acrylic painting I did for the baby room.
Hopefully, I’ll be adding some more content soon!
Enjoy.
Eye Opening Design 