I’m supposed to do one of these end of the year posts, right? Except my head is deeply buried in work and I used my favorite New Year’s quote last year. I must say, this has been quite the crazy, stressful, wonderful year. Moving to a new state and selling a house in the old took over my life a bit. So there is much I will be celebrating as this year ends and a fresh new one spreads out in front of me, full of a lovely new city to explore and much art that is begging to be made. A few years ago I had what I called my Year of Destruction, in which my world was turned upside down in what seemed to be a couple of unfortunate incidents until I found it was simply clearing the way for something new to be built. This year has felt similar to that, a series of endings and beginnings, but I’m not quite sure what to call it yet. I have new projects to look forward to, and this new year feels full of promise.

Screw it. The man is wise, and this beautiful sentiment can not be said enough. Enjoy your evening and new year.

May your coming year be filled with magic and dreams and good madness. I hope you read some fine books and kiss someone who thinks you’re wonderful, and don’t forget to make some art – write or draw or build or sing or live as only you can. May your coming year be a wonderful thing in which you dream both dangerously and outrageously.

I hope you will make something that didn’t exist before you made it, that you will be loved and you will be liked and you will have people to love and to like in return. And most importantly, because I think there should be more kindness and more wisdom in the world right now – I hope that you will, when you need to, be wise and that you will always be kind. And I hope that somewhere in the next year you surprise yourself.

- Neil Gaiman

As I mentioned before, I had the good fortune to attend a recent lecture by Debbie Millman, former president of the AIGA. It was inspiring, even if she wasn’t able to show the slides she normally presents with the lecture, and it was a lot of fun to hear her talk about how various designers work. The main gist of the talk was how much designers affect change in the world, how people perceive brands and the role of story in design. Of course I took notes.

Read the rest of this entry »

As promised, here is the final image from my VIPink poster. If you like it, head on over to the Busted Art page, where you can buy one as well as browse the lovely posters that the other artists submitted. You should hurry, though, as the posters are only up until the end of the year, and mine is a limited edition print. If you’re beginning to think about holiday shopping, the Busted Art posters would be a great way to share some art and donate to a good cause. Also thanks to everyone who came to the event, and to the organizers who were so great to work with. To see images of the work in-progress, please click here.

Strength

In the spirit of the holiday, today’s sketchbook pages come from the recent Danzig Legacy show. (Yes, I took my sketchbook to a concert and drew.) The pages have been split in half, but each pair would be a facing page. Originally I was going to add in an accent color, but it seems more appropriate to leave it black and white. Very black.

Read the rest of this entry »

I realized I haven’t posted very much from my sketchbook recently, which is a shame. In the last month I’ve drawn cats, baseball players, a design lecture, a night out with friends, protesters, and black-clad concert goers. I’ll be posting some more of this work, but let’s start with the protesters.

I went down to the Occupy Chicago protest about two weeks ago to check it out and draw some of the people. I hadn’t gotten around to scanning the pages until tonight, but here’s what I was able to accomplish while standing on the street, brush in one hand, ink bottle in the other. By now there are many more people down there, so another expedition may be forthcoming. In case you’re curious about the whole Occupy Movement and Occupy Chicago specifically, you can find out more here.

Read the rest of this entry »

I put together a one page book of Edgar Allan Poe’s “The Raven” for All Hallow’s Read. You can learn about this new tradition here. The text is from the Project Gutenberg website, and I created the illustrations, including the hand drawn portrait of Poe above.

Download the pdf so you can print out some to hand out with candy this Hallowe’en. They print in black and white on 8.5″ x 11″ paper, and instructions on how to fold these mini books are here. If you’ve never made a book before, this is one of the simplest forms out there, perfect for children. Enjoy!

I can’t remember exactly where this idea came from. I was researching St. Agatha with the idea of making some sort of prayer card style poster, but then I started looking at the Strength card in Tarot. This somehow led me to Sekmet, the lion-headed Egyptian Goddess of war and healing, who led me to female lion tamers. I quite like the idea of cancer being a wild beast that leaves its mark on anyone who gets too close, but my favorite part is the look on the girl’s face as she wrestles it into submission.

Read the rest of this entry »

So the reason for the radio silence is over – I have really actually moved from St. Louis to Chicago. I’m slowly getting settled into the new apartment, figuring out the el (or ‘L’, if you prefer), and eating tons of fantastic food. But more on that later, as well as an update on the Artcrank Interbike awesomeness.

This is more of a quick check in and a first mention of another poster show I’ll be in coming up in October. It’s for Bright Pink, an organization that “provides education and support to young women who are at high risk for breast and ovarian cancer”. Check out their website, they’re good people. And they’ll be hosting their first St. Louis event on October 22 at RGG Photography (info & tickets here). You obviously should go. The official flyer is below, and more info to come, including in-progress shots of my poster.

OK. I’ll be honest here.

This drawing has only a smidgen to do with the prompt, which this week was imperfect. It has far more to do with the song “Isis” by the Yeah Yeah Yeahs. You can listen to it here. So in a loose, no one is perfect, especially if they bury their lovers in the sea kind of way, this drawing is about being imperfect. Seems a bit of a low bar, really. And strangely, (if you do watch it) I finished the drawing before I watched the video, so the color is a coincidence. I turned down the saturation so that the drawing is a bit more legible, but originally it was pretty much the same. This is also why the girl is braiding (or unbraiding) her hair. Priestesses of Isis were rumored to be able to control the weather by combing or knotting their hair.

Read the rest of this entry »

This week’s theme was gesture. Put together some reference photos of modern dance and an off-hand reference to a Portuguese man-o-war, and you get the following illustration. I’m also including the sketch because I really like how the dancer looked before I turned her upside down and drowned her.

Original sketch

Gesture