100 Watercolors #38 - Abandoned

I'm not going to lie, this week's theme is kind of a bummer.  As some of you might know, I am a pretty big pinball nut, so when I started sketching out ideas for the idea of "abandoned," pinball came to mind. It used to be at the forefront of entertainment, but has since taken a back seat.  I tried to capture our culture's "abandonment" in this illustration:

1980 seemed like a good year to depict, because of the introduction of Pac-Man, which was a real turning point in arcade culture.  Black Knight was also released in that year.  Like I said, this image is kind of a bummer, but I would just like to go on record to say that those kids are making a huge mistake!  Black Knight is an awesome pinball machine, designed by the great Steve Ritchie, and it is a thousand times more fun to play than Pac-Man... at least for me!

Next week's theme: Dreams!

100 Watercolors #37 - Eyes

For this week's theme I decided to create a Halloween image, with a witch.  It was really hard to not make her skin green!  I guess The Wizard of Oz is pretty deeply embedded in my visual vocabulary...

I have long since learned that it is easier to work on two of these paintings at the same time, so that I can switch back and forth as I'm waiting for paint to dry.  So this one, along with last week's, really felt like a breakthrough.  I kept dropping more pigment into the larger areas while they were still wet to get some cool blending effects.  I will definitely experiment more with this technique in future posts!

100 Watercolors #36 - Precious Treasure

For this week's theme, I decided to rework an image that I used a while back on a promotional postcard.  I decided to make the dragon a bit smaller so that I could place more emphasis on the pile of books, which in this case are the "precious treasure."

I feel like something clicked with my process on this painting.  I feel like I have a better grasp on how to attack different sized areas and I'm getting better at mixing colors.  I don't have everything figured out, but I definitely feel like I am improving.  Luckily, I still have another 64 of these to go, so hopefully by the end of the project I'll really know what I'm doing!

100 Watercolors #35 - Hold My Hand

This week's theme is another one of those ideas that I came up with at the same time that someone else did.  About two years ago, I did the following sketch, while trying to come up with an idea for the theme of "Holding Hands":

Ha ha, get it?  Two zombies "holding hands" except that they are hands that have been detached!  But then, last year, my buddy Scott C.'s great book Zombie in Love came out and he drew almost the exact same gag:

So when it came time to paint this painting, I debated whether or not I should use this idea, but in the end I decided to go for it.  It's pretty easy to argue that Scott's is the better gag (hands holding hands, holding hands!) plus his watercolors > my watercolors.  So it's not like I'm going to steal any of his thunder...  On a side note, I got to hang out with Scott last week!  We were both on the faculty for The Center for Cartoon Studies children's book summer workshop.  He did a watercolor demo, and it was very inspiring watching him work.  He's also got some really cool projects in the pipeline!

Anyway, below you will find my version.  It was only my second time ever drawing zombies, so I'm not positive I got everything right (do they still have their brains?  or do they just eat them?)  But it was still really fun painting this one!  It had a more muted color palette compared to the rest of these paintings.

Next week's theme: Precious Treasure!

100 Watercolors #34 - Stars

For this week's theme, I recycled an old gag idea that I pitched to Nickelodeon Magazine, which involved a bunch of different shooting stars.  For this painting I pared it down to just two stars: one shooting hoops and one shooting a photograph.  Eh?  Eh?  Get it?

I thought about trying to layer a glowing effect around the earth and the moon (as I did in my previous theme that involved space) but I thought this joke was such a stretch, it was best to keep things simple.

Next week's theme: Hold My Hand!