Faulty Memories

By on Jan 31, 2017

When I started college, I was working at a big department store in their shoe department. I worked really early hours starting around 3am. I had several radios positioned throughout the stock room all tuned to the local indy station. 3am wasn’t the busiest time for the DJs so I would often call in and they would play my requests. I would win free tickets to shows almost weekly until they put a rule in place saying you could only win once a month.Those were the early days of craft breweries. One local brewery that made a hard push was Henry Weinhard’s. Henry Weinhard’s had a Red Lager. I was not of age but even then the independent nature of the brewery appealed to me. They expanded their advertising to include a Root Beer. The root beer was from the days of prohibition. Weinhard’s started brewing it to keep the brewery from going under. Being that...

Anatomy of a Drawing

By on Jan 4, 2017

So I had an idea for a drawing. Actually it started with the desire for really expensive pens. Every time I go perusing art supplies I see these really expensive Copic pens. Some places actually lock them up. They are around $8-$14 dollars a pen. I have problems doing washes and would like to get better at doing them but I hate wet paper. The way paper wrinkles and curls when it is wet drives me crazy. That is the sole reason I cannot stand watercolors. I thought I would find some nice light grey pens or markers to add some new dimension to my drawings. I then started thinking about the moon. The moon has a lot of texture and would be good for experimentation but I didn’t want to just draw a moon. I did some sketching and came up with this.It is rough I know but I like the idea of dealing mostly with negative space. At this point, I’m a little worried that I will not be able to pull...

Coloring Books

By on Dec 28, 2016

Professionally this has been a pretty good year. It has been incredibly challenging, but I’ve learned alot and it has been very rewarding. With the extra hours all of my free time has been dedicated to staying connected to family and making that time spent with them count. Unfortunately I have not been a very good friend. I have neglected most of my friends. When they have needed me over the past year I have tried to be there for them but I’m sure there have been times that I wasn’t. One friendship in particular has probably suffered the worst. That person and his wife have become family friends. We have vacationed together and we have even attended comic book conventions in Chicago. He knows that one of my favorite comic book artists is Skottie Young. I found out about Skottie Young when he illustrated a Wizard of Oz mini-series. I met him at one of the first...

Thanksgiving Greetings

By on Nov 28, 2016

Hey it’s been a while. I haven’t posted anything for a couple weeks so I thought I’d just post a little something. I don’t really know what to write about but Thanksgiving just passed so I suppose that is something.As is usually the case, we spend Thanksgiving with my wife’s family. Her mother likes to have all the family over, so we all cram into her house and hang out for the weekend. The men, of which I am not one, go hunting and watch football. Normally I just hang out, drink beer and try to sneak in a nap or two. This year was a bit different though. My nephews and I went Poké Hunting. We had a great time. I originally started playing Pokémon GO to hang out with them and this weekend was exactly why. The three of us got all bundled up and went out in the chilly weather.We played the game a bunch but we also walked a four mile nature trail that went...

Paper Toys

By on Nov 8, 2016

As I mentioned before, we are doing some papercraft. Origami, but not so traditional. I had a phase where I made alot of paper toys. As a joke I once folded 50 chickens, packed them into a box and sent them without a return address. I never heard how they turned out and there was never a news story about suspicious boxes so I can only assume the people who received the boxes full of chickens just stood scratching their heads wondering what exactly was going on. By the way, if you received one of the boxes…SURPRISE! It was a fun thing. Small communities were created on the internet. Artists would collaborate and even release “special” and “limited” editions. I still have a folder on my desktop full of jpgs and pdfs. I made a few of my own designs but I never uploaded them or directly participated in the forums. I was more of a lurker.And then I was walking...

Origami

By on Nov 2, 2016

Here it is. Our first attempt at origami. I thought we’d go traditional for our first ones. Here are our cranes. A little rough but not bad.Milwaukee PrintOnline Calendars

Halloween 2016 Has Come and Gone…

By on Nov 1, 2016

Another year of Tricks or Treats has passed. We all had a wonderful day. We invite over some family and fiends and spend the day carving pumpkins, drinking pumpkin beer and eating pizza. This year was one of our best. We didn’t have as many people as usual and tried to cut down on some of the other stress. Instead of running and picking up pizza mid-afternoon, we picked up a couple Papa Murphy’s pizzas and made them when we were ready. We weren’t able to make pumpkin seeds but all the kids painted their pumpkins and seeds were in short supply anyway.After spending a few hours carving pumpkins and eating pizza we all got dressed-up and went trick or treating. The girls all dressed up as kitty-witches. Not cats and not witches’ cats but black cats that are also witches. My wife went as a black cat, sans witch. I dressed up as Finn the Human from Adventure Time. We...

Happy Halloween

By on Oct 27, 2016

I finished my drawing. I just want to say that I am not a digital colorist. Colored pencils yes. Photoshop, no. Anyway, Happy Halloween. I’m dressing up as Finn from Adventure Time for Halloween. The costume is pretty silly so I’m excited about it. Here is the final picture uncolored.Milwaukee’s Best PrinterOnline Digital Printing and Customizable Calendars