100 Watercolors #11: Memory

This week's theme is Memory.  Even though this image is kind of sad, I still had a really fun time painting it.  One of the watercolor tips Claire gave me is that if you're filling in a big area (like the blue sky background here) you should wet the area down first with clean water.  That way it's easier to spread the color around and mix it with other colors while it's still wet.  I'm pretty happy with how this one turned out, though I think I overworked the tree a little bit.  Live and learn!

Next week's theme: Insanity!

100 Watercolors #10: Breath Again

This week's theme is "Breathe Again."  Those words made me think of being trapped at a party where everyone is smoking, and the wonderful feeling of being able to breathe again after you have left.  This happened to me a few times in college (somehow, both of the girls I dated in college smoked - blech).  While drawing this, I was thinking about those ol' college days, so I made the protagonist in this drawing my best friend from college, Gabe, who is the most outspoken anti-smoking person I have ever met.

Next week's theme: Memory!

Watercolor Warm-ups

Hey, does anyone remember my 100 Watercolors Challenge?  I won't blame you if you don't!  It's been almost THREE years since I last posted a painting.  That doesn't mean I haven't been working on it though!  For this past year, I have been secretly chipping away at some of the preparatory work for the project: brainstorming visual ideas for the different 100 themes, penciling them out, transferring them to watercolor paper, etc. etc. etc.

I have also been getting mentally ready to paint watercolors again.  Last October, my girlfriend Claire Sanders moved in with me, and she is a watercolor wizard!  Here's an example of an awesome watercolor present she made for our friend Liz.  It's a reimagining of the Monster Bash pinball machine's backglass, but with all cats, because Liz's cats are named Dracula and Wolfman, remember?

Talented, no?  Yes!  So much so, that soon after she moved in, I asked Claire to collaborate with me on my yearly blog archive image.  We did it as a watercolor, so I could learn some of her tricks.  This was the first time I had used watercolors in a long time, but with Claire's help I already felt like I took a step forward with the process.

Then, in May, Claire and I headed up to Montréal for a 24-Hour Comics event, and again, I asked her to collaborate with me.  I did all of the drawings on watercolor paper and Claire colored them all.  It was a crazy eighteen hours of work, but when we were done, we had a pretty cool 24-page comic, and I had learned a TON about watercolors, from working side by side with Claire.  You can read the whole comic over on Grandpapier and here's the cover image to give you some idea of how it turned out:

So!  With all of these warm-ups done, I feel like I'm ready to dive back in on the 100 Watercolors challenge.  Starting next week, I will be posting one painting a week, unless I have some other exciting illustration stuff to share.  As I stated at the beginning of this project, my main goal here is to get better at watercolors, so hopefully by painting the remaining NINETY-ONE themes I will accomplish that goal!

Weezer Icons: Hurley

Today I am posting the last batch of Weezer Icons which covers Weezer's latest studio album, Hurley.  There are also a few bonus icons.  Descriptions below!

In comics order:  1) my drawing of the Hurley album cover  2) A weezer soccer ball, from the bonus track Represent, which Weezer wrote for the USA Men's World Cup team  3) "playing hacky sack, back when AudioSlave was still rage" from Memories  4) a Moog synthesizer, a brand of keyboard sometimes used by Weezer over the years  5) the lightning bolt guitar strap that Rivers uses.

So there you have it.  61 icons in all!  I hope you all enjoyed seeing these.

Next week I will change it up again and show a new project... or maybe an old project with some new work in it!

Weezer Icons: Make Believe, The Red Album and Raditude

This week I've got another double dose of Weezer Icons, this time from their fifth, sixth and seventh studio albums.  As ever, I'll put descriptions below for those of you who are not hardcore Weezer fans!

In comics order:  1) The "weeze" T-shirt from the end of the Perfect Situation video, which Karl modifies with a sharpie, to make the first "weezer" T-shirt  2) That famous sign for the song Beverly Hills  3) a perscription bottle, for the song We Are All on Drugs  4) The chorus from the song Peace  6 - 9) these drawings are of the Weezer band members, based on their personas from the cover of The Red Alubm.  I like to think of them as "Badass Brian" "Professor Pat" "Cowboy Cuomo" and "Stylin' Scott" :P

In comics order:  1) a can of Pork and Beans  2) one of the cows that Rivers's friends used to tip over, from the song Everybody Get Dangerous  3) Rivers's parents Tercel, which he drove 65 in a 25 zone, also from  Everybody Get Dangerous  4) Heart Songs  5) Some new ninja sword, ALSO from Everybody Get Dangerous, which I guess has a lot of awesome imagery that I was picking up on  6) Pig, which was a bonus track for The Red Album, but which I moved into regular rotation  7) Sydney the jumping dog from the cover of Raditude  8) the official Weezer handsign thrown up at weezer concerts.

I've only got one more set of Weezer icons to upload next week, which will bring us up to the present day in terms of Weezer's musical output.  Until then, have a rocking week everyone!