New Pokémon Drawing – Marill

By on May 1, 2017

I’m still building my colored pencil collection so we are sticking with the blues. I don’t know why I’m doing more Pokémon. I guess I like how simple they are and how it is to make subtle changes to make them even cuter. I am still playing Pokémon GO so seeing them everyday probably has something to do with it.Speaking of Pokémon Go, my nephew was confirmed this last weekend so we went on a little road trip to see him. As a surprise my brother-in-law took us to see a play. Being a surprise we didn’t know what to expect. It was a musical based on “Finding Neverland.” It was wonderful. The cast was great. The production was spot on. It has been a long time since I’ve seen a well produced play so the use of screens and moving images in the background was a bit of a surprise.The kids in the performance were amazing. I don’t know exactly what...

Booze Post

By on Apr 17, 2017

I have established that I like beer. I mentioned last year that I gave in and tried some seasonal pumpkin beers. That didn’t turn out too bad. There were a few that were, to quote “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” “quite atrocious,” but most weren’t too bad.Now that a new season is upon us, I’ve decided to start tasting the seasonals. I fell in love with a seasonal beer along time ago and had my heart broken. It was an Irish stout called Snake Chaser. I would look for it every St. Patrick’s Day and every year it would be in fewer and fewer stores. Now I own a pint glass for a beer that no longer exists. I’ve tried to find a replacement but none have filled that particular hole. Since then I tend to stick to things that are more reliable, but sometimes variety is nice. Now that the Spring seasonals are coming out I thought...

Layered Drawing

By on Apr 10, 2017

This is the drawing I started over a year ago and set aside. The detail picture above didn’t turn out that well but I think you can see what I did. I have always been obsessed with creating dimension through layers. Maybe it goes back to the old side scrolling parallax of Nintendo games or just something I saw in passing, it is a technique I seem to revisit regularly.A few years ago I picked up a collected trade paperback of Usagi Yojimbo stories. Stan Sakai is amazing. I have to admit, I learned of Usagi Yojimbo from the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles. When I was little I move around alot. Sometimes making friends was hard. Sometimes we wouldn’t live in one place long enough to make friends. So I would skateboard and draw. My older cousin was a huge influence on me. He turned me on to rap music, skateboarding, drawing and comic books. Oh and ninjas.Right before one of my...

Old Artwork

By on Mar 31, 2017

So I was digging through some old files and I ran across something I totally forgot about. My brother was a screen printer. He and some friends started up a t-shirt/skateboard company called Head First. This was back in the days of Myspace. To help, I started a weekly art page on Myspace where I would take suggestions for art, do a preliminary drawing, post it, take feedback, and then produce final artwork for t-shirts and skateboards. I still have a skateboard I designed hanging on the wall in my office. This was one of the final designs from the request page. All the artwork was vector 1 color but built with vector shapes and trapping so color could be added. I learned alot about building production art and how I really did not be a professional illustrator. Milwaukee’s Best PrinterOnline Print On Demand

Origami Saturday – Princess and the Frog

By on Mar 27, 2017

“Lousy Smarch weather…” Homer J SimpsonSaturday was lousy. We try to keep busy. During the winter we often go to Milwaukee’s Public Museum. We get a membership so visiting doesn’t cost anything (at least at the time) and it allows the girls to run around while looking at things and being mentally stimulated. The only problem is our membership always seems to expire around the end of January. We usually don’t renew it until the following Fall because we also have a Zoo membership. We go to the Zoo all the time. Saturday was horrid. The temp was just above freezing and it was lightly raining or misting all day long. The zoo is great for just about any weather with the exception of that. So we took the kids to the mall. The girls like to eat at Red Robin so we often take them there for lunch, partake in an alcoholic beverage and then let the kids...

Lunch Bag – Moana’s Pua

By on Mar 22, 2017

My oldest has a field trip today to see the Symphony. My girls are currently obsessed with Moana and I needed something quick so Pua was the answer. We had a minor crisis with our dog. Poor guy had a cyst on his leg rupture. There was lots of blood and crying. The crying was all done by my youngest who through her tears kept asking, “Is Zero get dead?”Zero didn’t seem to mind much. He didn’t cry or whimper so I’m hoping it wasn’t too painful. We were able to get him all cleaned up and stop the bleeding but the poor guy is getting old. I have to take him to the vet today and have everything checked out, but he should be just fine. It was a tense few hours trying to assess the damage and try to figure out how we should handle it. Nevertheless he is a tough old bugger. I did have to get up early to clean and dress his wound so I wasn’t able to...

Dragonair Drawing

By on Mar 20, 2017

I have been coveting high-quality colored pencils for some time now. When I was in high school my teacher loaned me a set of colored pencils that were amazing and amazingly expensive. I used them over a break, probably Spring Break, but I can’t remember which now. Since using them I have always wanted a set. Every now and again I will be at the art supply store and I will eye those pencils but the basic set is about $150 and I cannot just drop that kind of dough on some pencils. I have a mortgage. Lo and behold, there is a store that sells them individually. Sure they are more expensive in the long run but this way I can slowly build a collection and if they are not as good as I remember I didn’t waste too much money. I started with blues. That is the other problem, I want ALL the spectrum. I want white, light blue, sky blue, cerulean blue, ultramarine blue, cobalt blue,...

Ahh Crap..

By on Mar 16, 2017