I painted a drab, crooked building on a very cold, gray and misty morning by Lake Merritt. And then afterwards I got breakfast at a diner and everything was fine.

I’ve been painting en plein air the last few weeks with Dice Tsutsumi, Robert Kondo, and Shelly Wan, who have been kind enough to let me tag along on their weekly outings. It has been, at the same time, both horrifying and wonderful. I sweat the entire time. My hands tremble. I develop a stutter.

…this is the stuff of inspiration!

It’s been terribly foggy and overcast in the mornings, so the lighting hasn’t been very exciting. But at least it’s been consistent. More to come…

This was such a swell project to do for an equally swell group of guys. I’ll talk more specifically about it once I get a physical copy back from the printers, but in the meantime enjoy these sample images. And check out that music!

Here’s a sketch connected to some ideas I am working out for APE related goodies.

I hope everyone has a great 4th of July holiday weekend! It’s always been one of my favorites. I’m headed up to Portland to celebrate with some excellent food, friends and libations.

Here is a little preview of something I am working on for Alternative Press Expo this year. Man, it’s been too long since I’ve drawn comics. I’ll continue to post little teasers here and there as the con approaches…

Here’s a little something for your Friday. Have a great weekend, y’all.

Here are a bunch of thumbnails I did in my sketchbook for a particular building I wanted to design. I love this stage; just playing with shape, allowing the brush to make stray marks, following them down the rabbit hole. This is the best way to free myself from prematurely obsessing over details and allow for “surprises” in the design.

There is a lot of emphasis on silhouette in animation and design in general, and for good reason. But I think it’s often preached to the point of formula and gimmickry. It’s important to remember that it’s just a tool and it serves a context. It’s relatively straightforward to come up with an interesting silhouette. But when the design is fleshed out, when it’s “turned” in space, does it still work? Not always. I almost always revisit the basic shapes even after I’ve followed a good silhouette into the rendering phase, working back and forth until I find the best solution.

Remember that old geometry rule? “A square is always a rectangle, but a rectangle is not always a square.”

Well, think of it this way: “A good design will always have a good silhouette, but a good silhouette will not always be a good design.”

Delicious chinese food served up all night long in a kitschy diner? Yes, please.

My room growing up was never this cool.

I did this loose color study for a friend’s project. I’m planning on doing a couple more so stay tuned.

Also, I decided to lock up my Twitter account because I’ve finally had it with the spam. If you’d like to follow me, don’t be shy, just send me a request.

Here’s an experiment, done from a photograph of myself as a newborn.

Happy Friday, everyone.

I wish I could be a giant, then I could lie with my head near the snows on one of the Alps, lie there among the goats, with my toes splashing below in the deep lake. So I would lie there and never get up again, between my fingers the bushes would grow, and the wild roses of the Alps in my hair, my knees would be alpine foothills, and vineyards would stand on my body, and houses, and chapels. And so for ten thousand years I lie there, and gaze into the heavens, and gaze into the lake. When I sneeze, there’s a thunderstorm. When I breathe the snow melts, and the waterfalls dance. When I die, the whole world dies. Then I journey across the world’s ocean, to bring back a new sun.

Where am I going to sleep tonight? Who cares! What is the world doing? Have new gods been discovered, new laws, new freedoms? Who cares! But up here a primrose is blossoming and bearing silver fuzz on its leaves, and the light sweet wind is singing below me in the poplars, and between my eyes and heaven a dark golden bee is hovering and humming–I care about that. It is humming the song of happiness, humming the song of eternity. Its song is my history of the world.

– Hermann Hesse

John Straun over at Super Punch is putting together a Tarot deck in celebration of the site’s 3rd Anniversary. He recruited an array of artists to illustrate their take on a particular card. I chose Temperance (XIV). I must be nostalgic for the Northwest, because bears and salmon are what materialized.

Plans are in the works to show all the art at the Bear and Bird Boutique in Lauderhill, Florida early next year. I’ll update here as that approaches and I know more. In the meantime, check out all the other cards over here: http://endlessdeck.blogspot.com/

“He leaves the water running to cover the sound of him crawling out the window. He pushes his backpack through, then shimmies out head and arms first.”

I’m starting to tackle designs for some of the locations in the comic book. Trying to find the right amount of freehanded-ness in the line, too.

Here is some stuff that I’ve been up to lately. Taking a few cues from the Provensens with these, trying some different things out. I want to break away from some of the fussiness of my process.

It’s funny how scaling back in certain formal aspects of illustrating will shift the paradigm by which you see the remaining ones. A lot of people believe particular fundamentals–like composition, value, etc.–always rule over others in an hierarchy of importance. I tend to think it’s more of a balancing act, or a series of compromises. If you want to ignore one, another will, by nature, take prominence. But they can’t all be The Most Important Thing. I think images that are over-worked or under-worked result because of a breakdown in the prioritization of its formal aspects.

In a lot of ways, when I look at these images now, I think they work better next to one another. On their own, I’m not sure if they’re quite refined enough; they haven’t found that place of balance yet.

I sort of hate this drawing. It was one of those things that I should have just scratched and started fresh with, but decided to keep fussing over until there was absolutely no life left in it. Well, on to other things…