One Little Spark

2011-12-10T19:52:00.000-08:00

Here are some Muppet sketches I've been recently doing. They are watercolor with ink and prismacolor markers.

2011-08-27T13:37:00.001-07:00

2011-07-13T06:07:00.000-07:00

Prismacolor markers

2011-07-01T21:28:00.000-07:00

oil painting

2011-04-20T06:20:00.000-07:00

I have been on an old school 80's wrestling kick lately, so here is one of Hulk Hogan being interviewed by Mean Gene. Wrestling was a huge part of my life from the 80's through the mid 90's. Although, I have a hard time going "home again" these last five years, I can still fondly enjoy the past shows.

Ink and Prismacolor black marker.

2011-04-17T20:33:00.000-07:00

I was checking out some of my old monster mags and came across an article about Werewolf Of London. As a movie, which I have only watched once, I thought it was ok. A good looking werewolf make up. But the article had a spread of the different version of the movie posters and I think this movie has some great posters. So, I decided that I wanted to do my own tribute to the posters. I changed a couple of things to make it a mix of them all. But I wanted to stay loyal to the original work.
The picture is 11" x 17", on toned paper, with white acrylic paint and Prismacolor Markers.

Furry and Evil Little Gremlins

2011-03-08T05:48:00.000-08:00

Today's fun is from the movie Gremlins. The top is of the evil, Stripe.

And then we have our heroes.

Both are Prismacolor Markers.

2011-03-02T05:29:00.000-08:00

Here are two more toned paper drawings. They are both ink, Prismacolor markers and white acrylic paint. The top drawing is from last year's Wolfman movie. The bottom is from Abbott and Costello Meet Dr Jeykle And Mr Hyde.

2011-02-24T06:50:00.000-08:00

Here are two 10" x 18" ink drawings. The first is of the arrivial of the Phantom of the Opera in his Red Mask of Death costume, at a costume party. The second is of Dr Pretorious and Dr Frankenstein creating the Bride for Frankenstein's Monster.

2011-02-18T19:05:00.000-08:00

Here are two sketches I worked on last night as a little warm up.

Dracula In Oils

2011-02-16T05:22:00.000-08:00

"Dracula In Oils"

10" x 8"

oil paint

I have been playing around with oils for a while now and enjoying it, but have been wanting to get serious and take the plunge and try my hand at a portrait. I started with a full valued pencil drawing on the board, I sprayed it with fixative and started using thin layers of oils. I kept the layers in the shadows thin, to let the pencil come through which gives it a grainy look. And the areas that are in the light I applied thicker paint to.

2011-02-11T06:37:00.000-08:00

Here are two new pieces for you! The first one being The Phantom of the Opera, as performed by Lon Chaney Sr. The second is Lon Chaney Jr. on the tv show Crystal Ball. Both pieces are on toned paper, with ink, Prismacolor Markers and white gesso for the highlights.

Penciljack challenge

2011-02-08T20:02:00.000-08:00

This ink drawing was done for a challenge put up on the Penciljack forums. The challenge description was to draw a picture of an infant, in a diaper, on a blanket, playing with an age appropiate toy.

The last Star Wars

2011-02-06T20:37:00.000-08:00

These are some of the last pieces from the Star Wars show. They are all Ink and Prismacolor markers.

Long Time Coming

2011-01-21T04:46:00.000-08:00

Here is more of the art from my Star Wars themed show.

Something Spooky Show

2010-12-04T14:27:00.000-08:00

It is time for another artshow! We will be enjoying scary and creepy things from cinema.

The Beast

2010-11-11T06:58:00.001-08:00

Here is the centerpiece of the show. The painting is in oils with ink. The Darth Vader image is done completely in thick oil paint, and the background images were drawn in ink and painted over with thin, red oil paint. In total there are 104 characters and vehicles in the painting. Because of the size of the piece I was not able to scan it but when the show goeas down I will scan some pieces of the painting and post some close ups of the background work!

Bring on the art

2010-11-11T06:46:00.000-08:00

Here is some more of the work.

Long Time Coming

2010-11-11T06:38:00.000-08:00

It has been awhile since I lasted posted, and it is not because I'm not working(maybe just lazy). I have been working the last few months on art work for my first gallery show! It is the Art of Star Wars and it is running all through the month of November at Forthrite Gallery in Oakland California. Here is the flyer to the show. And there is also a great Youtube video that was taken at the opening at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Bs9a8ORBn3k

Two more Zero2illos

2010-05-16T22:16:00.000-07:00

Here are this week's pieces.

Another Week for Zero2illo

2010-05-09T21:14:00.001-07:00

Alright, here is this weeks 2 pieces for the Zero2illo challange. More Prismacolor marker drawings.

On a side note, congratulations to my Phoenix Suns for beating the Spurs and making it to the Western Conf. Championship!

Week 4 Zero2illo

2010-05-02T21:16:00.001-07:00

Here are mytwo pieces for this weeks Zero2illo challenge. The goal of this week is to create 2 portfolio pieces. Being on my Prismacolor marker and Star Wars kick right now I decided to do some more Star Wars inspired artwork. The top picture is 8" x 10" and the bottom picture is 6.5" x 10". I love doing the marker artwork but I think I want to get back to doing some painted work.

This week I listened to the audiobook of Coraline, which was very good. Nice and short but creepier than the film. I have not been listening to very much music except for a day of Guns N' Roses. And I went and saw the Nightmare on Elm St remake this week and it was terrible. That was the worst Elm St movie by far. I miss Robert England.

I love Star Wars

2010-04-25T19:54:00.000-07:00

I don't know what inspired these drawing lately but I have been thinking about Star Wars quite a bit. These drawings are all done with Prismacolor markers. I really like using these markers for my more "comic art" pieces. I find these different gray pens fun to use. I'm not a fan of using the color pens though. I think the color pens are just too strong. The colors are too overpowering.

The Star Wars movies are my favorite movies, but I don't really do very much Star Wars artwork. And I have been seeing people doing Star Wars sketchcards on Deviantart and that got me wanting to do some sketchcards. But I decided to do some pieces that are larger than the sketchcard size. And today I started my next Star Wars drawing and I will post it as soon as it if finished.

On a side note, I have been listening to a lot of Tom Petty, I just listened to the audiobook of The Rise of Darth Vader(which was awesome!) and I read some really good comics-Superman:Secret Origin #5 and Avengers: The Origin #1(both of those were equally awesome!)

Zero2Illo-Week 2 Challenge

2010-04-18T11:00:00.000-07:00

I am currently joining in on a 12 week to challenge to go from a non working illustrator to a working illustrator at http://Zero2Illo.com. This week's challenge is to set up a business strategy. This is mine:

Illustration Business OGSM

OBJECTIVE:

Income Goals:

-Slow and steady growth is the goal for the rest of 2010. My goal total income for 2010 is $1,000. For 2011 I look to double that goal with a total income of $2,000.

What Is My Primary Market:

-My main target markets would be the comic book community and the Disney fan community. For the work that I enjoy doing, I see both markets being equally important to my business goals.

Where To Show and Sell Artwork To These Communities:

-Online is the primary source to show my artwork. Online galleries, my website/blog, and message boards.

-Comic book conventions or Disney conventions.

STRATEGIES:

Income Streams:

-Selling originals, selling prints, sketchbooks, doing illustrations for books or magazines, commissions.

Markets Focus On First:

-The Disney market will be my first target market

Future Markets:

-Comic book market, trading cards, book cover/book illustration, greeting cards

Services To Offer These Markets:

Disney- Going for the collectors market, with originals and prints of Disney theme park inspired artwork.

Comic Book- Commissions, cover and interior artwork

Trading Cards- Sketch cards

Book Cover/Book Illustration- Book covers, interior illustrations

Greeting Cards- Artwork for greeting cards or stationary

Delivery Of These Products:

-All business will be handled by my company.

MEASURES:

Milestones:

-Getting the business infrastructure installed.

-Getting my artwork on appropriate websites

-Selling a painting

-Getting a illustration job for a magazine or book

-Having prints made

-Having a sketchbook printed

The Dark Crystal

2010-04-14T21:40:00.000-07:00

These are 3 pencil drawings that I did this past weekend, all inspired by the movie The Dark Crystal. This is a strange movie because it is visually amazing but a little hard to follow. I don't know if it is just that I get caught up in the pretty visuals or if the story is just not very strong. But it is a Jim Henson created project so I have to love it! These were all drawn in a Blue Line Art bound sketchbook. There are 24 pages or so in this book and I am planning on filling the whole thing with images from the movie.

More sketchcards

2010-03-25T21:30:00.001-07:00

Wow time flies when you don't update your blog. Here are some more sketchcards. Here are some done with Prismacolor pens, one with watercolor and one with pencil. I have quite a few more to post in the future. Eventhough the blog has been slow I have been working on a lot of things. I have been doing more paintings but their size has stopped me from being able to post them.

Some paintings

2010-02-05T05:14:00.000-08:00

For today's post I have some paintings! One of the goals I set for myself this year is to do a painting a day. So this post has last week's painting and one done for this week. Last week's painting is the nude figure, it is painted with oils and is 5.5" x 7.5". This is the first oil painting I have finished and I'm quite pleased with the results. I usually try to paint really smooth, clean paintings, but with this one I was painting a little choppy and messy. I wanted to try working on skin tones so what is better then painting a naked woman? The painting for this week is for Illustration Fridays. The theme for this week is focus. My idea was to paint someone intensly focused on a book, for some clues, and is totally unaware of the person behind him. The painting was done in acrylics and is 6" x 9". This painting was done very quickly and I was going for a loose look for it because of the fast drying time. I've only painted in acrylics up until these last few month's and I have to say I enjoy oils more than acrylics.

What I've been listening to: "The Secret" the audio book by Rhonda Byrne. If you can open up your mind to the concepts this book can be life changing.

2010-02-02T21:35:00.000-08:00

Ok here is the next batch of sketch cards I did. This week's theme is Nightmare Before Christmas. All of these cards were painted using watercolors. I have always enjoyed using watercolor paint but it is a difficult medium. I really like the really "watery" effect you can get, like on the Jack and Zero cards(the last 2 cards). I also tried using the paint with very little water to get a nice opaque look, but I feel like it defeats the purpose of using watercolor paint. I think I will need to come back to watercolor soon and really go for the "watercolor" look. Another thing I was playing with is the use of bold color. I tend to like stay with black and white drawings, but now that I am doing more paintings lately I need to get in as much color practice as I can.

This week I have also been doing some reading. I'm in the middle of "The Artist's Guide: How To Make A Living Doing What You Love" by Jackie Battenfield. This book is a beast! It really breaks down the do's and don't's of breaking into the fine arts world. This book is great! It really fires me up and motivates me to want to bring my art into new areas that I did not know about. After starting this book I had to add having my work in a gallery show onto my short term goals list. I'm through half of the book now, and I just started the section on earning money and manging your money, something that is important reading for all artists!

I have also been reading some comics. I just finished reading the Muppet Show Comic and I'm half way through Muppets Robin Hood, both are by Boom! Studios. The Muppet Show Comic is a good book the art is fun and a little crazy, which should fit the Muppets well. The weird thing for me is that they show the character's full bodies too much. It is weird for me to see pictures of Kermit just standing there talking to someone. Muppets Robin Hood, for me has been a hard book to get into. The art is kind of weak and the story is trying to hard to be "Muppets".

And on a side note, I just watched Sherlock Holmes and I thought it was awesome! It was a very fun movie. And I have been listening to the new Kiss album "Sonic Boom" alot, along with Enigma. I think my musical picks are very confused.

Big Thunder Mountain Railroad

2010-02-01T21:25:00.000-08:00

This drawing is of the big splash moment of Big Thunder Mountain at the Disney parks. It is 11" x 17" and was done with pen and ink.

Bride of Monsters Sketch Cards

2010-01-26T20:53:00.000-08:00

Here are the last batch of the Prismacolor marker, monster sketch cards. Like the prior posts these were done using the same method of less detail more shape and tone. I found this style to be fun and fast but looking back at them a little over a week later, I kind of miss the detail work. The next batch of cards will be all watercolor and the subject is Nightmare Before Christmas. I started my next batch of cards that I'm currently working on are going to mix the watercolor with the markers.

I have also been working on oil painting these past couple of weeks. I'm really into painting right now and I just finished my first oil painting. One of my goals this year is to do a painting a week. I'm not quite up to that kind of speed but you have to start somewhere. The painting is too big for my scanner but as soon as I can take some good pictures of it I will post it.

On a side note, just finished a great book, "Inside the Business of Illustration". I heard about this book on the website http://www.escapefromillustrationisland.com (which is a most see site for any artist). Last month there was an article about most have books for illustrators and this was one of them. The book is mostly a dialogue between an art director and an illustrator. It looks at topics like style, ethics, promotion and the changing landscape of the illustration world. The book reads very quickly and offers some great insight.

Monster-A-Go-Go

2010-01-21T05:32:00.000-08:00

Here is another round of monster sketch cards. Once again they are done in Prismacolor markers. I was trying to be very loose with these and just use the"fat" tip of the marker. I would block in the shapes of the shadows and would keep going over them to darken the shadows where needed. I think working with the markers is fun and fast, and I feel it works well for sketch cards.

2010-01-19T21:13:00.000-08:00

With the start of the new year I decided to try some new things. First thing was to start an artist journal that should lead me to posting more often. So what should I start with? How about this first drawing here to the left, is a picture of Lon Chaney Sr from the movie London After Midnight. It is a 3.5" x 2.5" drawing done with Prismacolor markers. I used warm grays on the face and French gray for the background. I had a gift certificate from Christmas that I used to buy some markers so I thought I should put them to use.

Another thing that I did to start off the year was to set some goals: short and long term for my artwork. This was a new experience for me. After years of false starts or little artistic output, I've decided this is the year I really start ramping up my art career. The idea of being in a non creative job is draining me. So, how do I end this rut I'm in? The first step is for me to take myself and my art serious. Step two is just doing the artwork. So that is what I plan on doing.

One of my goals is to get into the sketch card buisness and that is where these three drawings came to be. All of them are mixtures of different gray Prismacolor markers. I will be trying different styles and medias on these cards in the coming weeks. So this week is bringing us some of the classic monsters. I am trying to use little line work and concentrate on value shapes.

I hope you enjoy this new direction for the blog and return for more. Along the way I will have some other stuff to talk about like books I'm reading or comics I enjoy. See you in a couple days!

Star Wars: New Hope Sketchin'

2009-12-08T23:22:00.000-08:00

I just decided to draw characters from my favorite movies, Star Wars. o I thought I would start with New Hope characters. These are quick little sketches I did on my lunch break or right before bed.

Batman sketch

2009-11-29T08:58:00.000-08:00

Here is a sketch I did for a friend. It is on toned paper with ink and color pencils.

Animal

2009-07-09T21:53:00.001-07:00

Here is the second Photoshop painting in the Muppets line. Of course it is the drummer of the Electric Mayhem, Animal. He is such a great drummer he doesn't need no stinkin' sticks!

Kermit

2009-07-05T19:48:00.000-07:00

Ok, I'm trying to throw my hat into the Photoshop ring. I have always been resistant to working on Photoshop, but I sadly realize that it is the way art is mostly being done now. So, I'm trying digital painting. It still doesn't feel right, and I think it doesn't help that I'm working off of an ink drawing. I'm going to try working over pencil sketches and see how that goes. I do have more Muppets paintings coming soon. They are all going to be from ink drawings I have done. And i will be posting the line drawings and the painted versions on my Deviant Art site.

Kiss shirt designs

2009-07-02T20:41:00.000-07:00

Here are some shirt designs I did for a contest to create Kiss shirts. The first 2 were colored in Photoshop. While the last one was colored with Prismacolor markers and watercolor. Being a huge Kiss fan I know that most of their merch features photos of the band members. I wanted to try something more graphic for the first design. I took the cover to the Rock & Roll Over album and I tried to update it. I never really cared for the cartoony version of them on the cover so I tried for a more realistic version of them but I tried to keep the feel of the original in the backgrounds. The second design was for a girl's shirt. I figured most designs would be more for guys so I did this one to try and stand out a little. And the last design is of Gene Simmon's Dragon Boot. I did this one because I'm tired of Kiss stuff with just their image on it. So I went for something I thought looked cool and only fans would really get.

But, unfortunately I didn't win. I got mixed up on the due dates and only got the third design in. Well, it was still good practice.

Muppetcast

2009-03-05T20:35:00.000-08:00

I forgot to mention that this blog was mentioned on the Muppetcast podcast. It was a great surprise for me. My daughter thought it was cool that I was mentioned on it! So, this extra Muppet drawing is for Steve and the Muppetcast listeners.

Friday The 13th a few weeks late

2009-03-05T20:27:00.001-08:00

Last weekend I had the chance to see the new Friday the 13th movie. The movie was a bit of a disapointment for me and my wife. I've never been the biggest fan of the franchise but it did make me want to take a stab (bad pun) at drawing Jason. And here are my lunch time scribbles.

Godzilla Vs Bettie Page

2009-03-03T21:35:00.000-08:00

Today's post is a picture I did for an online gallery of "Godzilla vs" artwork. I was turned on to this project from Nicolas Caesar at http://www.scary-art.com/. He was very kind to let me in on the fun. The only rules for the artwork is that it has to be Godzilla vs something. For some reason I thought Godzilla fighting a huge Bettie Page would be fun! "Two enter only one can leave." The piece is 11" x 17" and is done with Prismacolor pens. The gallery itself can be found at www.myspace.com/godzilla_art. If the gallery proves to be popular the plans are to move the show into an actual gallery in the Sacramento area, so check it out!

First Post-Muppet Monday!

2009-02-23T20:32:00.000-08:00

Hello everyone to my first blog post! What better way to kick things off then with a Muppet Monday. This picture is based on the cover to the first Muppet Album from 1977. I still have the record(which came out the year I was born). For Muppets fans it is a great album of fun Muppet songs and skits. The drawing was done on an 11" x 17" board with ink.

I find the muppets to be very fun to draw and I will be drawing Muppets often. If you are interested in learning more about the album check out http://muppet.wikia.com/wiki/The_Muppet_Show_(album)

Or if you love podcasts(like me) check out the great Muppet Podcast

http://muppetcast.com/

If you like send me some comments. And stay tuned for more!

James