elie's show

My friend, Elie, has a show this weekend.
If you're in town, you should check it out.

everyone's got a story

Years ago, in another life, I was a Graphic Design major. At that time I acquired some graphic design magazines for reference and inspiration. After a couple of years, I changed my major and then dropped out, moved to Portland, etc. I have held onto these magazines for almost ten years, after moving six or seven times, traveling across the country despite their physical weight and increasing demands from the wife that they disappear (apparently, in a 760 sq.ft. house a handful of magazines take up a lot of space ;).

Well, the reason I've held onto them is that I wanted to draw some of the images therein. (admittedly, I did go through a brief collage phase, and I had thought these would be nice for that, too, but no!) I am starting a small series of drawing montages using these ancient images.

Here's the first.

card for ruth

Well, this past weekend was a busy one for the old letterpress biz. We printed up some fliers in exchange for a C.S.A. share -- a pretty good deal I think. We also designed a new "thank you" card and a new birthday card for Alia's grandma, "Gma", who is turning 70(!).
Those pictures will soon be posted on our other blog, here.

In addition to all of that, I still had time (well, I stayed up until two in the morning, after the fam went to sleep) to finish inking our friend, Ruth's, business card/hang tag. Most of the elements were from her sketches. I just arranged them nicely.

Photo by Alicia Carrier

Note: This is not the actual size for the card. I will, of course, shrink it down.

The next step is to contact a die-maker in town who can make us a die.
Woot!

the usual suspects

Two of the biggest trouble makers I know -- happy as clams.

This drawing is mostly about the telephone pole across the street. I stare at it whenever I'm waiting for the bus. Slowly, it's percolating into a painting. I just have to stare at it a little more...

stay the course, making progress, honor and sacrifice...

This is Four Star General So-and-so at a photo-op, speaking to the troops in Afghanistan. I liked this AP photo especially for the body language of the guy in the front row. He's like, "WTF?"

magnanimous magnate

This is the second time I've tried this drawing. Sometimes the idea for a drawing is as far as it should go.

view over cavanaugh

This was a recent commission for a friend's mom's boyfriend who is a rocket scientist/bull rider.
What do you get the man who has it all? A portrait of his plane, of course.

sketch and a haircut, two bits

Things are so crazy right now, I had to squeeze in time to do a drawing while Alia gave me a haircut in the kitchen. I used one of those Copic pens with a brush point... pretty fancy. They work really well for producing a variety of line thicknesses and quick pools of pure black.

mother of all comebacks

Well, after an unusually long hiatus I have decided to start drawing again. It's not that I haven't been posting, I really haven't been drawing. With my new job taking so much of my time, the lack of a dedicated studio space, and launching a new business venture, I haven't had time to draw daily, much less post and blog about my drawings.
My wife and I started a letterpress business last December, Darling Press, and this is a sketch for a Mother's Day card idea I had. Alia and I are both strongly influenced by the aesthetics of Art Nouveau. This drawing was done after spending four or five hours researching borders, fonts, imagery, and artists. It's a slow process, but looking at art is always fun. It might be obvious to see Gustav Klimt's influence on me.
I am leaning towards a four color card, we'll see what happens!

a mildly surreal wedding reception

jer gives eric good advice
alia ponders paper folded
and annelise knocks three times

nadir malfunction

Well, I got the extension.
This is what I came up with.
I hope they like it. These last two drawings were pretty complex.

lovejoy looking west

I was commissioned to draw two images over the weekend, but I spent so much time on this one that I haven't started the other, yet. Now it's too late to start. I hope they don't mind if I ask for a day's extension to do the other one. I mean, look! It's gorgeous!
The problem was, I used too small of a pen, so it took too much time to fill in the detail. I had too much room to work with, I guess.

big head little girl

This is a portrait of my wife and daughter,
and, believe it or not,
the source photograph looked even weirder.

cephalopod

This is Simon B'diddley.
Borne in the winds,
he's my new protagonist
a one-legged elephant.

wagonride

This is just a proof. I still have to fix the type so that it prints darker.
I haven't been drawing lately because I have been working on this, so I thought I would post it. The image is a linoleum cut, and the type is 10pt. Caslon. The whole thing is printed with rubber-based ink on vegetable parchment.

by Wednesday

Technically, there is no drawing in this piece, but I just made it, and I wanted to include it here, too.
The real piece is blue ink on white paper, but for some reason, when I uploaded it, it came up as brown on Blogger... I don't mind so much. Originally, I'd wanted to print it in brown, but changed to blue when someone in the studio had some extra blue ink and someone else had some extra black. I don't know why it's brown here other than some synchronistic happening to allow me to see what I missed.

sometimes a great notion

I just finished reading Sometimes a Great Notion, by Ken Kesey, who is now my favorite author (sorry J.D. Salinger), and which is now my favorite book (sorry Franny and Zooey). I have recently been trying to meet friends out and about so that we can sketch each other and talk drawing talk, but, somehow, things never work out, and we never meet up. I don't think it's because I am overly flaky. It's just hard to coordinate between people when life is so fluid.

birds of a feather

Alia's Birthday Card

I barely got this one done in time!This is probably the weirdest thing I have ever drawn..