HIGH AND LOW

Here's a sketchbook study from Akira Kurosawa's "High and Low" - one of my all-time favorite movies.

PISSED

AN IDEAL BOY

I bought a used copy of this book recently - "An Ideal Boy" is comprised of illustrated educational posters from India. Some of the drawings are really beautiful, and some are very bizarre, and many are both. A large chunk of the images are based around ideal behavior (or the opposite) for young boys. The drawing above is referenced from a great chart called "Human Stages And Duties", documenting several stages of life, from birth to old age.

FNUH

Tumblr "studies" - haha!

CHICKEN

TRAVIS

CLOPS

Sketchbook drawings + Life of Pi

Here's some recent sketchbook work.

This is Audrey. Audrey's been a good friend since I was a snotty teenager, but I've never been able to draw her accurately. Some likenesses are just naturally elusive. I was talking with Warren Linn once (Warren was one of my professors in college, and a huge influence on my philosophy and work ethic) about the pursuit of the accurate likeness - we agreed that sometimes, you just have to give in to the drawing, and let it develop independently of the need to accurately represent something. Sometimes a portrait can fail as a description, but succeed as a drawing, and that's okay. At the very least, it's a comforting excuse for when I fail to nail down a portrait.

This piece was made for my friend Alyssa's new blog project, Ten Paces and Draw, in which illustrators sketch based on a theme, and swap those sketches to let someone else finish the image. The theme this time around was "Literary Characters" and this drawing is based on a sketch by Erica Sirotich, who chose the book "Life of Pi". Check the rest of the drawings (including my Captain Ahab sketch) out here

Cubes

This is actually a couple months old, but upon reviewing my sketchbook I decided it might be worth sharing.

I hope everyone's having a great weekend.

Valley Life

My buddy Nick sent me a sketchbook from NY Central Art Supply. It's a total pleasure to draw in.

Single-Cell Organisms

Big things coming - for now, microscopic things.

Amoeba head

From summer

It's a very rainy day here in Los Angeles - this was drawn on a bright sunny day in a very different time.

HRGGHGLG

I never liked sports as a kid, since I was (am) a whimpy nerd and spent all my time doodling, but recently I've found myself enjoying them, to my own great surprise. Hockey is my favorite - people get punched a lot, and that's really fun to see.

Burger

Hamburgers are, obviously, one of the most enjoyable things to eat, but also, perhaps less obviously, one of the most enjoyable things to draw. I really, really like drawing burgers.

01/09/2011

A little late, but happy new year, folks.

2010 was pretty big - I graduated, got my first real professional gigs (the first of which came the day after graduation, as I watched the moving trucks take my belongings away from Baltimore), etc. I won't bore you with the details.

I'm excited for 2011 - I think some more big things will happen.

3 strikes

This is just a little warm-up - brush pen doodles out of my sketchbook with some photoshop work. Makes me want to give screen printing a shot.

Have a lovely day.

A Stranger

Without a studio, I've taken to going to Starbucks to draw sometimes. The coffee helps, as does getting out of the house. This is a warm up sketch of a guy with one of those e-book readers - Still a strange concept to me.

Oh! Happy Hannukah, everyone! I haven't been home for this holiday in a few years now and it's been really great. Lots o' latkes, and at least one really successful party. It really is wonderful to share the holidays with family and friends.

Sketchy

This man sat perfectly still, and had glasses on his face AND hanging from his shirt collar. He was just begging to be drawn, despite a permanent grimace.

Thanks very much to Zach over at Supersonic Electronic for featuring me on his blog today.

Tu

This is Tu. This is also my 100th post. WOOO