Air Guitar

Back in 2006 my buddy Aaron Renier gave me one of the most amazing birthday gifts I have ever received: an original drawing by Carson Ellis (who is one of my favorite illustrators).  This was very cool of Aaron, because he had had to trade Carson one of his original drawings to get the piece in question, but it was also very cool of Carson, because she had no idea who I was.  

I decided to send her a little painting as a thank-you present:

I always like this idea of playing a guitar in a thought bubble as an "air guitar."  Anyway, you can see that my watercolors have come a long way since 2006!

I am posting this old work to get it back online after I stopped using Flickr to display my illustration work.

A Crane for Galen

A few weeks ago, my sister Galen sent me this photo of her writing desk, and all of the art that is hung above it, some of which I drew, and some of which is by other folks.

Mainly she sent me this photo so I could see where she hung the Christmas present I got for her, which was the original art for the cover of her first published picture book, Yes Let's which was drawn by the extremely talented Maris Wicks.  You can see the black and white line drawing on the top left (in the green frame), which I bought from Maris at SPX last year.  Here's how it actually looks on the cover of the book, in wonderful full color:

There are a ton of places you can order this book, which are all listed on the Tugboat Press website (including at Powell's!) and of course I'm biased, but I highly recommend that people pick up this book.  It's about a family making a day trip out into nature.  Galen wrote it in delightful rhymes and Maris's illustrations add a lot to the story and will have you smiling through the whole thing.  Anyway, highly highly recommended.   

Another item on Galen's wall is a crane that I drew for her a few years ago when she was living in Portland, Oregon.  At the time, she was really fascinated with cranes, so I drew this for her birthday.  I think during this period she also wrote an alphabet book all about cranes and their many parts.  I've never read it, but hopefully some day that will see the light of day! 

Baby Nogard for Sam

At the end of last school year, the CCS operations manager, Valerie Fleisher, gave birth to her first child, Sam.  Here's Sam with his Mom a few months later, at the 2010 CCS graduation party.

Because CCS is a school full of cartoonists, our boss James asked us all to make some drawings for Sam, which he collected in a book and gave to Val after Sam was born.  I decided to make a drawing of my Nogard the Dragon character as a baby, sort of like the Muppet Babies or Tiny Toons or something.  I tried my best to make it as cute as possible!

Liz Prince Thank-You Paintings

As some of you might have seen on on my other blog, I recently bought a Pinball machine. This all came about because of my good friend Liz Prince, who put me in touch with the previous owner of the pinball machine. Not only that, but Liz also introduced me to my amazing girlfriend Claire. Liz ALSO put me up at her place a number of times while I was visiting Claire's family in Santa Fe, traveling to a comic convention and buying the pinball machine. I therefore decided that a thank-you painting (or two) was in order!

I decided to take a leaf out of Gabby's book of tricks and try to do paintings of Liz's two cats, Wolf Man and Dracula, whom she loves very dearly. Step one was to find some reference of Liz's cats, which was super easy, because Liz has tons of pictures of her cats up in a Flickr set. Below is an example (can you guess which cat is which?)

Next, I wanted to get some reference from some old monster movies, because Liz had no Wolf Man or Dracula MONSTER stuff in her apartment. I found some old posters with really great hand lettering:

Next I drew the cats, and the lettering, then lightboxed them onto some watercolor paper and painted them. I used some Martin's Dyes for the lettering and bases, to really make the color pop. This is not the best scan in the world, and as you can see, I'm no Gabby Schulz, but you get the idea.  (Click on the image to make it bigger!)

I waited for a few days, and didn't hear back from Liz...  I was starting to get worried that the paintings might have gotten lost in the mail.  Then, one day I found a letter from Liz in the mail!  (Click on the image to make it readable!)

You're welcome Liz.  Thank YOU!  So yeah,  if somehow you don't already know, Liz is a really great cartoonist.  You should totally go take a spin around her site, LizPrincePower.com  It's got an awesome art section, with tons and tons of her comics posted online for FREE, and there is also a store section, where you can buy all of Liz's minicomics (including her BRAND NEW comic, I Swallowed the Key to My Heart #1).  She's one of my favorite cartoonists, so if you haven't already, you should definitely go check out her work!

Nate Beaty Thank-You Painting

I made this little watercolor for my good friend Nate Beaty, who helped me update my personal site when he was visiting a few weeks back. This, hot off the heels of his massive Top Shelf overhaul. Nate spends A LOT of time on the computer and one of the main themes in his comics work is his hatred for the machines, so this image seemed like something he might like.
I'm still focused pretty heavily on comics and teaching right now, but I HAVE done some illustrations recently, so once they are public, I will post them here!

Custom Bicycle Helmet!

I have a few new illustrations in the works, so until those are ready to post I thought I'd show some photos of a custom bicycle helmet I recently painted for my friend Jon Chad. Jon is a great cartoonist and illustrator who rides his bike a lot, but didn't have a helmet, so I thought I'd try to make one SO COOL that he'd want to wear it. Here are some photos!

2009 Blogging Schedule

One of my goals for this year is to not stress out as much about my work. So with that in mind, I'm going to throw away my old system of posting here once a week (which was stressing me out plenty!) Instead I will post new illustrations or drawing challenges in this blog whenever I can. Sometimes I will post a lot. Other times not so much.

Okay! So here are a few drawings that I made for my girlfriend Rachel over the holidays, posted with her permission! The first is yet another cover image for a mixed CD I made her. (Hedgehogs are one of Rachel's favorite animals)

The other is an image drawn specifically to be used as a desktop image for Rachel's new computer. (Rachel's favorite holiday is Halloween). The chicken is dressed up as my dragon character, the snake is dressed up as Max from Spiral-Bound and the hedgehog is dressed up as Harry Potter (OF COURSE).

Alright, well, I hope you enjoyed these drawings. I'll update again as soon as I can!

Rachel CD cover

Whoops! I wasn't able to find an internet connection this weekend at The Small Press Expo so I am a little late in posting.

This illustration is a cover for a mixed CD of Harry and the Potters songs that I made for Rachel. Back in May, Rachel and I went to see a free HATP show at the main branch of the New York Public Library, which was pretty epic (they had a HORN section!) There were two people dancing around in lion suits (as Patience and Fortitude) and Rachel also screwed up her ankle that night, which is all pictured here. The title is a play on words, spoofing Brad Neely's brilliant Wizard People, Dear Readers. Inside jokes abound!

I've got a few things in the works... so I will definitely have some stuff to post next weekend - on time!