arkady roytman - the blog

Summer 2009 News And Updates

2009-08-24T13:00:00.005-04:00

Hey Gang,

Lots of exiting news from yours truly.

First off, yesterday I posted my 800th Nude on Nude of the Day.

I'm a little late with the Best Of Year Two book, but rest assured that it is in the works. I hope to have it in time for IlluxCon in November.

Second, Spectrum Show II will be up at the Society of Illustrators from September 1st to the October 17th. I had the honor of helping Arnie and Cathy Fenner, Irene Gallo and Greg Manchess curate the show. The opening for the show is on Friday September 11th and will be followed by Art Out Loud demos on September 12th. If you can spare the $40 entrance fee, I highly recommend you make it to the opening. If not, come see the show any other day when it is free.

Also, I updated my website. It's not a big update, just a few "newish" pieces in the Illustration section, but its an update non-the-less.

The update was spurred on by GenCon 2009 (got to keep those portfolio sites updated). I went out Indianapolis to help out my friend Steven Belledin. He told me months ago "Come out to Indy, show your portfolio to gaming publishers, and you will get work", and I did. Two days after GenCon, White Wolf called with a job. W00t!
I had a great time hanging out with my friends in the Artist's Alley and meeting new ones. One new friend, Jeremy McHugh, recorded my mindless babble for the Ninja Mountain Podcast (which is a MUST listen for everyone in the illustration field).

In other news, a few weeks ago I received several sets of the Ancient Greek Discovery Kit from Dover, which collected a few coloring books (one of them mine) and included crayons and an 11x17 poster I did of the Battle of Marathon. Click on the image for a larger version.

Until next time.

Nude of the Day Rejects Part 3

2009-06-16T10:00:00.004-04:00

Today is the 2-Year Anniversary of Nude of the Day!

Just in case you forgot, I'm celebrating the anniversary with a 2 for 1 Sale.

Click on image for details of the Sale.

Not to disappoint the lovers of the non-nudes, here is a new installment of Nude of the Day Rejects:

Amelia

Candice

Isis

Jim

Kika

Main Event

Kenita

Tony

Related Posts: Nude of the Day Rejects: Part 1

Moleskine 5.0 Part 2

2009-06-06T09:53:00.005-04:00

Today is Drawing Day 2009.

Help promote art by drawing today and putting your results online. You don't have to be an artist to participate, just a lover of art. Click on the banner above for more details.

My contribution is the remainder of my Moleskine 5.0

Composition sketches for another Dover project, due out at the end of the year.

Did another stint at the NYC Veterans Affairs hospital in February, a volunteer event organized by Joan Chiverton. Here's the sticker to prove it.

Sketches for spots for a Cover for a McGraw-Hill business book and another Dover project.

Short sketches form the Society of Illustrators.

More sketches for yet another Dover project. This one, unfortunately, was not aproved by the powers that be.

Quick landscape sketches from a short trip to Brattleboro, VT in April.

Related Posts: Moleskine, Moleskine continued, Moleskine 2.0, Moleskine 3.0, Moleskine 2007: A Year in Review, Watercolor Moleskine: Part 1, Watercolor Moleskine: Part 2, Moleskine 5.0: Part 1

Nude of the Day Rejects Part 2

2009-06-01T00:15:00.001-04:00

Once again I dropped the ball on posting due to lots of deadlines. I'll make it up throughout this month.

Thursday night Jazz & Sketch sessions over at the Society of Illustrators underwent a small change in 2009. They are now modeled after the old 3 on 3 Thursdays only with two models. What that means is that the models dress up in all sorts of crazy costumes and bring along all sorts of props. Unfortunately for me, I can't use the drawings on my Nude of the Day Blog. But the plus is that I have content to post here with another excuse to mention Nude of the Day. Here is a small selection:

Amelia

Kika

Darlinda

Also, two weeks ago I posted my 700th Nude:

If my constant mentions of Nude of the Day haven't convinced you to head on over and check out my latest nudes, maybe the 2 for 1 Sale to celebrate the 2-Year Anniversary will.

Click on image for details of the Sale.

Related Posts: Nude of the Day Rejects: Part 1

Freelance work for Dover Publications Part 2

2009-03-12T12:58:00.001-04:00

I've been really busy with all sorts of deadlines for Dover Publications, hence the lack of updates for a while. Some of the stuff I did for Dover over the summer has recently come out (I got my copies of the Treasures of King Tut's Tomb Stained Glass Coloring Book yesterday).

I did this in June, right around the time the Indiana Jones 4 came out. Tried my best not to look at Indy stuff while working on this obvious Indy rip off. Dover even used the Indy font. Hope I don't get sued for this.
Treasure Hunter Sticker Activity Book (Amazon link)

The premise of the sticker books is that I create this blank image and sets of reusable stickers that kids can use to make their own compositions/illustrations with.

I'm also working on a number of stained glass coloring books. They are printed on vellum and kids can color them and then put them up to a window to mimic stained glass.
Greek and Roman Gods Stained Glass Coloring Book (Amazon link)
The cover of Zeus (Jupiter)

Ares (Mars) - god of war.

Herakles (Hercules)

Treasures of King Tut's Tomb Stained Glass Coloring Book (Amazon link)
Cover of Tut's gold mask.
Treasures of King Tut's Tomb Cover">
One of his thrones.
Treasures of King Tut's Tomb Throne">
A guardian goddess.
Treasures of King Tut's Tomb Tomb Guardian">

And another sticker book of a James Bond/Jason Bourne type spy.
Secret Agent Sticker Activity Book (Amazon link)
Cover (the one I sent them, may not be the one they choose to use):

The bare image, sans stickers:

And a page of stickers (tried to sneak one of me in there):

I'm currently working on another sticker book and another stained glass coloring book.

Moleskine 5.0 Part 1

2009-02-04T11:09:00.002-05:00

Happy New Year everyone.

It's been a pretty busy year so far. Lots of deadlines keeping me from posting more regularly. They're also keeping me from regularly sketching in my Moleskine. I started this in May 2008. I'm about two thirds of the way through it. There a a lot of work-related sketching in this one. And lots of messes.

The page on the right is my girl-friend Rebecca Silvers taking over a page (and then showing much concern after I told this would make it online one day).

Some short sketches form the Society of Illustrators. If you look close enough you can pick out arms, hands and faces.

These are some sketches for a project for Dover about the Greek and Roman Gods (I'll be posting some examples in the near future).

On the right a compsition sketch for another Dover project.

More messes from the Society of Illustrators.

Goofing off at an art retreat in October 2008.

The sketch on the Right was done from reference stolen from Greg Manchess while at the art retreat.

A bad drawing of Rebecca (in which she looks like Sandra Bernhardt) which is SO not the case.

I went to Chicago on Halloween weekend to check out my best friend Lana Crooks' Solo Show. There the sticker from the Field Museum to prove it.

This sticker was my pass to draw at the NYC Veterans Affairs hospital. This was a volunteer event organized by Joan Chiverton in mid December. A few illustrators from the Society got together and drew the patients at the VA Hospital to try to ease their pain. We gave them the portraits afterward, but I managed to take a few shots and will post them in the near future as well. This was a great event and I may get another chance to participate next week.

Also, Today I posted my 600th Nude on Nude of the Day.

Related Posts: Moleskine, Moleskine continued, Moleskine 2.0, Moleskine 3.0, Moleskine 2007: A Year in Review, Watercolor Moleskine: Part 1, Watercolor Moleskine: Part 2

RPG Compositions 2 and Society of Illustrators Jazz Sketch Show

2008-12-20T23:26:00.003-05:00

Sketching some more compositions for RPG's on my lunch breaks at work. Here is a new batch.

Thank you for all the comments on the first batch. I should have a little more time in the new year to attack these babies and turn them into finished illustrations.

Also, I have a nude up on the wall of the Society of Illustrators part of the Jazz & Sketch Group Show. See Related Post.

This painting of the beautiful Piera was also on the Nude of the Day Blog: 11.24.2008.

Nude of the Day Rejects

2008-12-06T01:06:00.002-05:00

I'm sorry for not keeping up with with the posts over the last few months. Part of it is I was busy finishing up some work. And I spent most of October traveling (Art Retreat, Wedding, visiting my best friend Lana in Chicago for her solo show). I didn't do much art at the Art Retreat so there was nothing new to show. And the only thing I remember of November, besides being sick for two weeks, is Thanksgiving (which was AWESOME!!!).

So with no new art to share, I was stuck trying to figure out what to put up here on the blog. Two days ago I was hanging out with my friend Joe Bluhm and the Society of Illustrators Sketch Night and he, inadvertently, helped me come up with a topic for this post. About two years back, Joe put together a great book of his drawings from his days as a Caricaturist in the theme parks in Orlando. He called the book Rejects because the drawings tended to take a lot of artistic license, and the tourists with no sense of humor rejected the drawings. I know you guys are probably tired of me writing about my Nude of the Day Blog, but I have my own share of rejects that never make it to that blog (mainly because they are usually portraits, heads and generally not very nude drawings, and therefore won't fit in with the Nude of the Day theme). Here is a small selection of my Nude of the Day Rejects:

Kika

Nikki

Piera

Alexis

Sara

and Jim

And some sketches of the models in costume around Holloween time:
Doug

and Stephanie

Also, As long as were talking about Nude of the Day (I know I'm bad) might as well plug the Holiday Sale I'm having throughout December. Click on image for details of the Sale.

Related Posts: Best of Nude of the Day: Preview, Best of Nude of the Day: Year One - Order Yourself a Copy
, Nude of the Day Rejects: Part 2

Sketching Compositions for RPGs

2008-09-07T11:41:00.005-04:00

Ever since I picked up my first Magic: The Gathering cards back in high-school, I was into sci-fi and fantasy role playing games. Not for the chance to be in a different world, pretending to be a monster or a goblin (I've never touched Dungeons & Dragons), but for the Illustrations. I haven't played the game for over 10 years. I don't think I even remember how to play it anymore. But every time a new set comes out I scour the interwebs for the art. I have several friends that illustrate for Wizards of the Coast (the company that publishes Magic: The Gathering and Dungeons & Dragons), some even make a decent living from it.

It's always been my goal to work for WotC but my portfolio does not reflect this. So I've been playing around with compositions and sketching out ideas that I'd like to eventually turn into a portfolio for RPGs. Here are some doodles I did last week on my lunch break at work:

What do you think? Are there any that jump out at you? Any I should develop further or forget about?

Freelance work for Dover Publications

2008-08-25T13:11:00.005-04:00

Wow, it's been over a month since my last update. Not good.

I went off to California last month for a little break from NY, and came back to a mountain-load of work.

Thanks to the referral of my good friend Scott Altmann, I've been working on coloring books for Dover Publications. Between working a full-time job (almost full-time, I've been at lest an hour late consistently over the last 3-6 months), and helping out at the Society of Illustrators, I've been burning the midnight oil working on the books for Dover.
The first one, Extreme Sports Coloring Book, is coming out October 17th. Amazon has it for pre-order. I'm not too crazy about the cover...

(not my font choices)

...but some of the interior pages turned out pretty nice.

I wish I had more sketchbooks to show, but the Dover work kinda took over my life in the summer time, so I haven't been able to do much personal sketching. Hopefully this will change as I better incorporate my freelance work into my already busy schedule.

In other news, the good folks over at Spectrum plugged my Best of Nude of the Day: Year One book in their ComicCon International coverage. That's very nice of them, especially after I got hostile with Arlo Burnett.

Also, I created a Facebook fan page for Nude of the Day. If you are a member of Facebook, head over and become a fan of the blog. I will be updating the page with my favorite images and will notify fans of upcoming promotions and special offers.

Best of Nude of the Day: Year One - Order Yourself a Copy

2008-07-23T12:35:00.003-04:00

I'm about to get on a plane to San Diego for the annual ComiCon and I wanted to let everyone know that I'm bringing advance copies of Best of Nude of the Day: Year One. You can pre-order a copy for yourself today, and I will ship them out when I come back from California in early August.

Best of Nude of the Day: Year One
40 pages - Softcover
7x7 inches

Pre-Order Yours Today!
$25.00
(Free Shipping in the Continental United States!)

Canada, Mexico Add $5.00 for Shipping		International Add $10.00 for Shipping

$30.00		$35.00

I'll be sending out Pre-Ordered books in early August.
If you can't wait that long you can always order directly from Blurb.

Best of Arkady...

Year One

By Arkady Roytman

Book Preview

The only thing about ordering from Blurb is that they charge for shipping. That may not be worth it for all the people in the United States, but may cost less for the folks in Europe.

Check out a 15-page preview of the book on the Blurb website.

Best of Nude of the Day: Preview

2008-07-07T14:23:00.005-04:00

Howdy Everyone!

A few weeks back I mentioned collecting some work from the Nude of the Day Blog in book form.
I'm happy to announce that Best of Nude of the Day: Year One is almost ready. Rebecca and I have been hard at work on it over the long 4th of July Weekend and after some finessing and spell-checking I'll be ready to send it off to Blurb for printing.

Here is a preview of the cover:

And some interior pages (click on the image for larger version):

The book will be available for order off the Blurb website and both here and on the Nude of the Day Blog.
More details Coming Soon

Related Posts: Best of Nude of the Day: Year One

Watercolor Moleskine Part 2

2008-06-26T14:56:00.003-04:00

I'm a little late with this post. More deadlines and a much-needed vacation kept me pretty busy the last few weeks.

Just like in Part 1, most of these were done at the Society of Illustrators Jazz & Sketch Sessions.

Also, Just a few more days of the Anniversary Sale the Nude of the Day Blog left. Click on image for details of the Sale.

Related Posts: Moleskine, Moleskine continued, Moleskine 2.0, Moleskine 3.0, Moleskine 2007: A Year in Review, Watercolor Moleskine: Part 1

Best of Nude of the Day: Year One

2008-06-16T15:10:00.001-04:00

Happy Belated Father's Day!!!

I was planning on posting this yesterday but I was swamped finishing up a deadline. If you still haven't gotten your dad a present you should take advantage of the sale I'm having throughout the month of June. What dad wouldn't like two beautiful nude women for Father's Day?

Well today is the One Year Anniversary of my Nude of the Day Blog, so it's a good time to reflect on the year worth of nudes. And I'm doing said reflecting in the form of a book. After hearing good things about print-on-demand publisher Blurb, and seeing the quality results firsthand, I decided to go ahead and collect some of my favorite drawings and paintings published on the Blog in Best of Nude of the Day: Year One.

Here are some of the pieces I'm considering for the book:

What do you think? Are there any pieces you would like to see in the collection?

I'll be putting this together over the next month and will try to have them ready toward the end of July. I'll be posting some previews in early July with pre-order information.

Related Posts: Best of Nude of the Day: Preview

Watercolor Moleskine Part 1

2008-06-01T00:00:00.006-04:00

Hey Guys and Gals!!!
Sorry about the lack of Updates last week. I didn't get to do a Self-Portrait like I was planning to and other things got in the way. To make up for it here's Part 1 of a whole new Moleskine. I was planning on saving this post for the 1-Year Anniversary of my Nude of the Day Blog (coming up on June 16th). But after scanning all 75 pages decided to break it up into two parts to help with the load time.

Also, publishing Part 1 earlier gives me a chance to plug the Anniversary Sale I'm running through the month of June on the Nude of the Day Blog. Click on image for details of the Sale.

Most of these were done at the Society of Illustrators Jazz & Sketch Sessions.

This is a tree drawn from the roof of my new place.

And Rebecca sketching away.

Related Posts: Moleskine, Moleskine, Moleskine continued, Moleskine 2.0, Moleskine 3.0, Moleskine 2007: A Year in Review, Watercolor Moleskine: Part 2

Flowers for Mother's Day

2008-05-13T13:20:00.004-04:00

I know I'm a little late with this post, but Happy Mother's Day to all the mothers out there.

I was planning on doing a self-portrait over the weekend. I figured my mom would like that as a present and I can also enter it in the American Artist magazine's self-portrait competition. But I didn't get around to it. Instead Rebecca and I set up a still-life (She has to do some paintings for an upcoming show in Massachusetts):

We spent most of the day scouring Astoria for interesting things to paint. Unfortunately we couldn't find anything so we settled on some flowers. A lot of flowers.

I didn't spend too much time on this. And it shows.

But it was fun to break out the oils.
Plus my mom loves flowers too.

This upcoming weekend I'll do that self-portrait and put up more info on the AA competition.

Dogs Walk Against Cancer

2008-04-25T10:19:00.001-04:00

I'm sorry for rehashing old artwork posts for the last few months. I'm in the home stretch for my deadline and hopefully afterwards I'll have a little time for some good old fashioned painting. For this post I dug up some photos from a year back.

On May 4th I'm getting together with a bunch of talented Artist friends of mine to help out Joan Chiverton at the Annual Dogs Walk Against Cancer in Riverside Park on the West Side of Manhattan. Joan organized a bunch of us artists to help her draw and paint portraits and caricatures of dogs at the Dog Walk. We charge $20 per portrait and all proceeds go toward Cancer Research. This will be my 3rd year helping Joan out. Last year we raised over $1,600.

Here are some pics from the last two years:
2006

Myself, Angel Ramirez and David Hollenbach

Joan

Me and my subject.

2007

Dennis Deitrich

Me confused about my next move.

Stephen Gardner (and Steve's Blog)

And once again, Joan

I'm Thinking of Offering Prints of My Work.

2008-04-15T11:33:00.000-04:00

Happy Tax Day Everybody!

Over the weekend, while juggling freelance work and a bad sinus infection, I realized that I still haven't done my taxes. While crunching numbers and counting receipts I had another thing on my mind. Recently I've had a few requests for prints of my paintings. My originals on my "Nude of the Day" blog are already pretty affordable, but some of my Illustration work and other Fine Art work may not be. I'd like to offer some prints but I'm not sure of the best way to go about it. My main concern is the quality of the print and its longevity. I ordered a sample pack of Hahnemühle rag papers (tax write off!), and I'm planning to do some test prints with Epson UltraChrome Ink, which I hear is an industry standard. Does anyone have any other suggestions for quality printing?

Here are some images I'm thinking of offering up:

"Welcome to the Beginning of the End"

"Tiffany Wearing a Feathered Hat"

"Rest (Reclining Nude)"

Are there any particular paintings that you would like a print of? Help me choose. Anyone that sells prints and has some helpful advice on how to go about it, please chime in. If these prints turn out to be a successful business venture maybe it will justify all my tax write offs. ;)

Also, I'll be hanging out at the New York Comic Con this weekend. My friend Steve Belledin has an artists table in the Artists Alley so I'm sure I'll be hanging around there for extended periods of time. Stop by and say hello to the both of us.

My New Studio

2008-04-05T19:37:00.001-04:00

I just moved to a new apartment with my girlfriend Rebecca Silvers. We have a separate room that we're using as our new studio. Two of the four walls are made up of windows so it's ideal for painting.

And there's an awesome view of the Triborough Bridge.

A HUGE thanks to Rusty Zimmerman, Audrey Castillo, Stef Daehler, Aviv Arad, Polina Roytman, and Jason Bennett for helping us move.

StumbleUpon: Slacking for Inspiration/Self-Promotion

2008-03-25T12:45:00.001-04:00

I'm all out of Moleskines to post up. Also, I'm way too busy packing up my stuff to move to my new place this weekend, so new art from me will be pretty scarce for the next few weeks.

I do want to mention my new addiction on the InterTubes; StumbleUpon.

StumbleUpon lets you "channel-surf the Internet". You install a toolbar with the Stumble button and load up websites according to your specified interests. If you like a page you give it a thumbs up and you have an option of writing a review of said website. If you don't like a site you give it a thumbs down and SU will load up something else. There is also the act of "discovering" new websites - giving a thumbs up to a website not in SU's database and being the first to review it. This is something along the lines of discovering new bands and SU users build up their rank by discovering new sites. Along with this there's a social networking aspect to the site where you can befriend SU users and Stumble their favorites and be informed of new discoveries. You can join groups and talk in forums about favorite topics.

Because "Stumbling" is a response to visual stimuli, the majority of SU users are drawn to visual content such as photographs and artwork. There are members whose Stumbles have themes much like an art or photography blog would. I'm addicted to certain user's profiles and use their Stumbles to get the creative juices flowing. Here's a quick sketch inspired by a photograph found through StumbleUpon:

SU is also great for exposure. A few months ago a member of the StubleUpon community linked to one of my Moleskine posts and sent over 200 visitors my way. Same thing happened on my "Nude of the Day" blog. Since then I've been exploring StumbleUpon and it's potential to increase my blog's audience. Although my presence is still in it's infancy, I hope to become a regular when time permits. If you're a SU user feel free to check out my profile and add me as your friend.

Moleskine 2007: A Year in Review

2008-03-13T10:55:00.001-04:00

I've been thinking about this post for a while now. I started up this particular Moleskine in late 2006 as a larger version of my pocket Moleskines. After some subway and museum sketching it turned more into an idea/sketch book. I started working out sketches for current and future illustrations and gallery paintings. In one case, the sketches turned into finished work. The majority of the work here was created in 2007 and the book is largely filled up. After looking over it in early 2008 I decided to take a page from Baron Storey and a few local friends and work back into and on top of the pages. This will be an experiment to see what kind of ideas may come from embellishing, adding onto, and in some cases, destroying what's already on the page.

Composition sketches of John White Alexander paintings from the MET's "Americans in Paris" Show (Dec. 2006)

Sketches for an illustration of the Egyptian Goddess of War, Sekhmet.

detail:

A sketch for a project with Matt Black's theater company, Marrow.

Sketches for potential illustrations.

detail:

More sketches for the Marrow project.

A very unflattering portrait of friend and fellow illustrator, Rusty Zimmerman (sorry buddy).

Trees in Central Park, NYC.

Character design for a future illustration.

detail:

Sketches from the Coney Island SideShow.

Sketches for a cover illustration and spot for Knowledge Arcana online magazine (never published).

...and the under-painting for the spot illustration.

detail:

Sketches form the Society of Illustrators Jazz & Sketch (3 on 3 Thursdays).

San Diego Zoo Sketches (See Moleskine 4.0 post).

More sketches for the Marrow project.

More versions of the sketch from last post.

detail:

Word association exercise used to come up with an idea for my painting of "Underneath It All".

...and a taste of things to come: Sketches from the Society of Illustrators Jazz & Sketch.

Related Posts: Moleskine, Moleskine continued, Moleskine 2.0, Moleskine 3.0, Moleskine 4.0, Watercolor Moleskine: Part 1, Watercolor Moleskine: Part 2

Spectrum 15 List

2008-03-11T11:56:00.003-04:00

Spectrum: The Best in Contemporary Fantastic Art published the list of all the artists that got into Spectrum 15.

I didn't make it this year (which was expected), but I'd like to congratulate all my friends that did get in.

About 200 works of art from Volumes 12-15 will be collected together for a Best Of exhibit at the Society of Illustrators in late 2009.

Related post: Spectrum 15 Award Winners Announced

Some Sketches from 2007

2008-02-29T17:25:00.001-05:00

I'm a little late on updating the blog because I'm working on a deadline (and rocking no sleep). Here are some warm-up sketches of monkeys (for said job):

And while scanning stuff, I threw in some sketches from 2007. The first one is my take on a character my friend Cody Tilson created for a sketch trade. I don't think I ever posted it.

Drawn with sharpie, coffee, watercolors and white-out on a shipping label from work.

And the second I did while relaxing at an art retreat.

Also used watercolors, ink, sharpie, ball-point pen and white-out. I like to make a mess with whatever I have at hand.

Also a special thanks to www.tangente.org a Canadian website for linking to me yesterday and driving a whole lot of traffic my way. The text is all in French so I can't read it, but I did get a lot of traffic from Canada, so I'm

Spectrum 15 Award Winners Announced

2008-02-28T11:28:00.007-05:00

Last weekend while I was partying it up at the Society of Illustrators with friends at the Book and Editorial Show for the 50th Annual, another annual was being judged in Overland Park, Kansas (Spectrum 15).

The Spectrum website teased us with pictures of the judging while it was happening.
And a few days ago they released the list of Award Winners.

A big congrats to my friends Kurt Huggins and Zelda Devon (Kurt lived 2 doors down from me in the dorms at the Savannah College of Art and Design) for getting the Silver Medal in the Editorial Illustration Category. At the pre-mentioned SoI party, Zelda congratulated me for for getting into Spectrum 14, and told me that it was her and Kurt's first year entering Spectrum. Not a bad first year. Here's a link to their Award-Winning Piece.

I doubt I'll make it in this year, but we'll have to wait until late March to find out.

Related post: Spectrum 15 List

Moleskine 4.0

2008-02-17T11:36:00.007-05:00

This one is a long time coming. I neglected it for a few months. Haven't been drawing on the trains very much (too busy catching up on my sleep on the train rides to work).

I started paying more attention to hands rather than faces in mid 2007.

After drawing the chubby guy with the goatee I got freaked out because he looked a lot like me. Unfortunately it did not help me get my ass out of bed early and head to the gym as much as I thought it would.

When I was in California for the Comic-Con in July, my friend Lana Crooks and I took a break from all the madness of the convention and spent Saturday at the San Diego Zoo.

Some gestures of nudes from the Society of Illustrators Jazz Sketch Sessions.

And some ideas for a new painting.

Related Posts: Moleskine, Moleskine continued, Moleskine 2.0, Moleskine 3.0, Moleskine 2007: A Year in Review, Watercolor Moleskine: Part 1, Watercolor Moleskine: Part 2