Merry Christmas. ho ho ho

Merry Christmas everyone. This is a quick Christmas color sketch. See ya all on the flip side.

2nd Annual "Hey You Guys" Charity Art Auction

The Second Annual "Hey You Guys" Charity art auction is underway, and boy oh boy do we have some AMAZING artists donating artwork to the cause! The auction is taking place right now through December 13 2009, you can bid online at:

2nd Annual "Hey You Guys" Charity Website

All proceeds go towards Donorschoose.org, an organization that helps classrooms buy supplies they need. We are concentrating on classrooms that need art supplies. So please come by and bid on some art, or come to the "Ghostbusters" movie screening on Dec 5th! We will have the art as well as a raffle and other goodies! Word has it someone is bringing a new looking Ecto-1 (it is a Dodge Magnum called the Ecto-2k)

So I finished my contribution today (a couple days late). I decided to draw Johnny from Karate Kid, but it's Johnny in his skeleton costume. I swear, that was one of the more terrifying images I saw when I was a kid... a group of skeleton men using karate to kick the crap out of kid. Ohhh, chills.

I decided to do the drawing on Scratch Board. I hadn't used this stuff since Junior High, but I wanted to do a negative drawing, only showing the white of the skeleton costume, so this medium was the perfect match; it would be much better than ink because inking a whole page in black would have just warped the paper.

I included the pencil drawing I did. I then transferred that drawing using Saral paper, and skritch-scratch, I went to work with a scratch board tool. Hope you like it, I was very happy with the results. I like the drawing enough, I might do some inking on it, just to have my own finished copy.

Baseball Post 3

So today, I am going to post a couple videos dealing with some of the best scenes in baseball films coupled with arguing with Umpires.

The first clip is from "A League of Their Own", one of the best baseball films ever made. It is in my top five for sure, and on some days it is in my top 3. Here is the most famous scene... "There's no crying in baseball". Man, Tom Hanks's facial expressions get me every time. This scene ends with Hanks arguing with the ump...



The next scene comes from "Bull Durham". Costner hit his peak with "Bull Durham" and "Field of Dreams", what happened to this guy? (Actually, I like the 'Postman' too) Anyways, this scene is all about arguing with the umpire and how to get kicked out of a ballgame. I noticed a trend from the "A League of Their Own" scene and this one... see if you find a pattern in the words NOT to use with an ump...



And the final scene is gut busting comedy from the original "Naked Gun"... man, some days I wish umpires would be like this. Please notice they are using Randy Newman's "I Love LA" in this clip, two posts from now, I will revisit this fact.

Baseball Post 2

So my second baseball related post will be videos of my favorite scenes/quotes in the classic baseball comedy "Major League"... you will notice most of the comedy I like in this film is driven by direct statements with a cuss word inserted, great formula!

First up is Ricky Vaughn (Charlie Sheen) showing up to Spring Training, I love the delivery of that line. The sad thing is they cut Lou Brown (James Gammon) saying "Ha ha... this is my kind of team!" I love that scruffy voice of his.



Next up is a Willie Mays Hayes (Wesley Snipes) video. Again, classic Lou Brown delivery on a line.



And last but not least, Cerrano (Dennis Haysbert) with Jobu, and the famous "You saying Jesus can't hit a curveball!?" line, by Eddie Harris (Chelcie Ross)

Baseball Post 1

Over the next day or two, in honor of the playoffs, I will be posting some of my favorite scenes from baseball movies... let's start with a primer on the game of baseball, this is for all those people out there who don't understand the sport...

Last art from the T&P Art show.

These are the last bits from the T&P Fine Art Gallery show I did a while ago. I did a couple Captain America's cause I love Cap, and I have never drawn a good Cap... I like both of these, the close up is inspired by Kirby, the other one is Kirby with a bit of Romita inspiration.




And then I did a couple pieces inspired by movies... not much to say except they were fun to draw and ink.

Some more Artwork

Here are a couple other pieces of art I did for the T&P Fine Art Gallery show this past month.

Jack Johnson- The first black heavy weight boxing champion in the world.



Thomas Jefferson- Sitting in his cabinet at Monticello, reading a couple books, thinking about things.



Theodore Roosevelt- Good ol Teddy reaching for his trusty Big Stick! He is ready to face off vs the Critic! Now, we all know the Critic is worthless, he sits back and criticizes the Man in the Arena, the man who actually is out there doing the work. This idea was based on a famous speech he once gave. The Man in the Arena

This piece was done in a Kirby style. I just wanted to do artwork that simulated comic panels, and Kirby was the king at comics! Here, I pay him tribute.

Upcoming Art Show @ T and P Fine Art Gallery in Philly

Hi, I have been busy working on pieces for an art show opening at the T and P Fine Art Gallery in Philly on Friday, September 4th. If you are in that area, you should check it out and buy something... if you aren't in that area, you can still buy something from them, or ask me to draw you something for money. That would rock.

www.tandpfineart.com



I just drew whatever came to mind that day, whatever struck my fancy... so of course, presidents, comic heroes, and movie characters...

Here is a piece from the show. I will show the others in the coming days, so expect a couple posts.

Tiny Nazgul

Here is a quicky.

A friend posted about the moon looking like Sauron's eye. I then thought the bats in the sky would look like tiny Nazgul... I had to draw it.

Enjoy.

Fat man in suit

I saw Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince last night. Boy oh boy, I loved the guy who played Horace Slughorn. Well, for a warm up today I wanted to draw Slughorn, but I didn't want to research the character, so I did drew a generic fat man in a suit. Maybe I will take some time and draw a Slughorn later, have him holding a little vial of love potion.

Old storyboards: Metalocalypse

I was just cleaning up some old boards, looking through some of the work I have done in the past... and I came across one of my favorite boards.

This was done for Metalocalypse, season 2, episode 14 (I think)... the CFO gets replaced by some other "cooler" guy. And at the end, the CFO agrees to party with the guys...



Well, CFO has a little too much to drink and...



I think they cut this gag from the episode, I don't know, I never saw the final episode. That was a fun episode to board, there was a sword fighting sequence in there.

TV boards are challenging cause I was always thinking "How can I reuse BG's (backgrounds) as to not piss off my art director, and how can I make this easy for the animators so they can spend most of their time on the money shots..." Lots of planning goes into making a very simple looking show. I think the planning part of it was my favorite.

I always would have a chuckle boarding on this show, not because I thought the show was funny, but because I loved drawing the characters with overly animated and goofy expressions (not the style of the show, but since it was done in flash, nothing had to be on model), and I loved listening to Indie Folk music while boarding a show that dealt with Death Metal. This is as subversive as I get.

I may post some more golden nuggets as I find them. Going through old work is like treasure hunting.

Theodore Roosevelt and his Big Stick

It is no secret that I am a Theodore Roosevelt fan. Someday I will do a blog of Theodore Roosevelt fun facts!

Anyhow, I started doing pieces for an upcoming art show, and I decided that I would start with a good ol' Teedie (Fun fact#1: He didn't like the name Teddy... he was known to his family as Teedie)

This is an 11" x 16" ink and watercolor piece. I need to do like 10 more pieces for the show, I really want to do a 2' x 3' piece or something bigger... but I don't know, that is a lot of paint to move around. I think all my pieces will be a combination American Presidents and Philadelphia baseball players (The art show is in Philly), but plans may change...

I apologize for the crummy scan, I just can't get a good scan of watercolors. I promise the original is nicer.

Heads

All my friends know I love drawing heads... So here is a warm up page I did this morning. You can see some influences of things I have been watching lately; mainly,the Ken Burns docs on Thomas Jefferson and Mark Twain.

My muse... Sam the Olympic Eagle

When someone asks "When did you know you wanted to be an artist?" I know the exact moment...

I was a student at Halldale Elementary school in Torrance, CA...My kindergarten class was tasked to do a painting of "Sam the Olympic Eagle" in honor of the 1984 Los Angeles olympics. As you can see here. I pretty much rocked it.

For those of you that don't remember Sam the Olympic Eagle, here he is. Heck, this is even the image they gave us to copy!! You can see how close I got.

Well, the teacher must have seen a bit of talent in my painting because she submitted it to a contest of some sort, and I was the only kindergartner amongst a bunch of six graders. It was scary, I was a shy kid, but a group of Asian sixth graders took me under their wing for the night, and made me feel like I belonged. (Maybe this is why I have always been comfortable being the only white dude in large groups of Asians?)

It's funny because I don't remember the creation of the painting UNTIL my teacher told me it was good. After that, my memory is crisp, the painting was unfinished, I hadn't painted the eyes; and, I DO remember the fear I had of messing it up after someone told me it was good so far (maybe this is why I don't like showing my work in progress?) So I needed to paint the eyes, and two girls in class said they wanted to help, I was shy and also interested in girls (yes, 5 years old seems young to be interested in girls, but I was interested in having a girlfriend even at that age, ohhh Heather McGinnis how I loved you...), so I just sat there as two girls fought over who could paint eyes better. One of them painted the left eye real nice, she delicately put the white gleam on there... when she was going to put the gleam in the other eye, the second girl said "I can do the eyes good too"; my scalped tingled (My scalp tingles when people are touching my property, it's like my spidey sense) and my stomach lurched and she shoved a finger full of white paint and smeared it around... she had ruined my painting. (Since that time, I don't like people doing any of my work, I will do all the work myself thank you very much, and I know I can do it better than anyone else!)

Star Trek revival

I have come to the realization recently that in retrospect, I was the coolest kid in high school... Let me explain...

In high school I was pretty much a "geek" or a "nerd"; I mean, I loved Angels baseball to a fault (not really a fault, but some may have seen it as such), I loved Star Trek, and I played D&D. Along with wearing jean shorts, these things made me a bit of a nerd. I was never an outcast, no no, I had friends in every social group, but I preferred playing chess at lunch rather than chasing tail (ok, that's a lie, I would have preferred to chase tail, but I was too shy to do that)

No one thought I was cool, heck, my own friends have told me recently that they would even make fun of me behind my back; BUT, now all these old high school acquaintances that I am being re-acquainted to have come out of the woodworks as Angels fans(or other teams like the Red Sux), and they want to talk to me about baseball, and mention how they are HUGE fans, blah blah blah... where were you when I was listening to Angels games on my hand held radio in 6th period Economics class?

Ok, so baseball was not cool, but now it is. Check.

And with the new Star Trek movie, everyone is saying "Oh man, Star Trek is gonna be soooo cool!!!" Ahem... "Gonna" be cool? It never stopped being cool. I was dressed like a chubby Jean-Luc Picard for my last Halloween, 7th grade year. So, Star Trek used to not be cool, and now it is? Double check.

And now all this talk is getting me thinking of old ST:TNG episodes (That's Star Trek: The Next Generation to all you lay people). I always loved the costumes, so I just wanted to do a quick sketch of Picard in that grey uni with the red jacket. I know it's stiff and all, but I really just wanted to draw the costume... and I was tired of seeing those Alpacas...



Also, here is my favorite music from ST:TNG... this piece made me go out and buy a recorder a couple months ago, just to learn to play it. Enjoy.

Alpaca the size of Hamster... challenged.

I mentioned to a friend, Marion Vitus, that science should stop the shenanigans and start breeding alpacas to the size of hamsters...

She then challenged me to draw the alpacas... hamster sized, but with the same amount of wool so she and other knitters wouldn't be gypped. These are Marion's mini-alpacas

Here are my mini-alpacas...

Sunset in Culver City

No, I did not make a New Years Resolution to post more often... but here I am.

I am embarrassed to post this, since I haven't done any plein- aire painting in years, and this was done for myself, just like most everything I draw is for myself, but here is a quick painting I did when I came home after an afternoon walk. I saw the most beautiful sunset ever; this painting can't hold a candle to what I saw, but I had to try to capture even a small piece of that feeling.

BTW, I promise to try to post more often.