Midweek art - Flame Punk

I had one of my rare bouts of inspiration last week and quickly drew a sketch on some scrap paper, my idea grew into this. Apparently he has some superpowers involving fire. This is ink with digital color. Enjoy!

Illustration Friday - Remote

I was not happy with my entry for last week one bit. Mainly because I threw it together at the last minute half-ass'd, and I hate doing that. Well this week I was determined to come up with something unique. Every week I start out with the same thought process. First I try to figure out what the most common illustration might be and try to avoid it and come up with something unique. In this case "Remote" only leaves you with a few options of subject matter either it's going to have a remote control or a "remote" place as a subject. I couldn't find my way around them this week & gave in to my first impulse, a zombie eyed kid pointing his weapon of choice "a remote" at an unsuspecting TV. For only spending a couple hours on this I am happy with the finished work. I've included the original B&W below. Let me know what you think of my entry this week. It kinda keeps me going in the right direction.

Illustration Friday - Cold

This week I needed to take a little break from spending so much time on an illustration, so all I did was a Star Wars sketch which only fits the topic because all of the things I sketched were from the bleak frozen planet of Hoth which can be seen in Empire Strikes Back. I know, this week I'm reaching to fit the topic but oh well. So I've included an added bonus below.

As you may or may not know I am a very huge fan of movies, and I'm even more crazy about a particular series of movies...STAR WARS. Here are some photos of my immense (and always growing) starwars action figure collection. Let me know what you think!

Illustration Friday - Lost

UPDATE: Here is the FULL COLOR version! Enjoy.

Locke, Kate and Jack from LOST

All right I have to admit, as soon as I saw the topic I knew exactly what I was going to draw. I am completly adicted to J.J. Abrams series LOST. You may not be too familiar with abrams but you'll probably be hearing about him sooner rather than later. He is not only the creator of LOST, but he's also created other shows such as ALIAS, FELICITY, and will soon have his movie directorial debut with Tom Cruise in MISSION IMPOSSIBLE 3. So if you haven't seen LOST your missing out on a really great show full of mystery and suspense! Watch it Wednesdays on ABC!

Alright enough shameless plugging. I may or may not ad color to this weeks illustration due to time constraints. I would really like to know what you think, so leave me some feedback!

Illustration Friday - Float

"Floatin on the Blues"

Every week it seems that I am getting my submission posted later and later. Where does the time go? It feels like I'm getting this done early enough, but once I post this it will only be valid for like 3 days. I feel like I'm being picked next to last for kickball or something. But instead of the jocks picking me last it's my busy crazy life. This scares me when I think about it because I would like to start doing some more freelance in the near future, but when will I have the time? Sorry for the rant, but ideally I would love to have my illustration posted Sunday night or Monday morning.

Okay enough complaining. Here is my submission for Illustration Friday with the topic of Float. It's kind of off topic a little, but I was thinking isn't it great how the blues can make you feel like your floating a few feet off the ground. So here it is "Floating on the Blues".

Illustration Friday - Fresh

Okay so it's been a busy week and I finally had time to sit down for a bit and draw something. I had a more grand image in my head for this but time constraints dictated otherwise. at first I didn't have a clue what I was going to illustrate. Then it came to me. The coffee where I work can be a scary thing. Sometimes it is so far from fresh because it's been heated all weekend that it's just sludge. After several gross encounters I won't touch the stuff anymore. So I realized that every weekday morning I go out of my way to get a FRESH cup of Joe somewhere else. Thus, the idea for an illustration of coffee in a cup came to me. Ta-Da!

On a side note, I want to thank everyone for all of the really great comments that I've received. Frankly I was in a slump and couldn't draw much of anything in the last year or so, until I started participating in Illustration Friday. All of your positive comments have given me the boost I needed to start drawing and being more creative & productive. THANK YOU! Also I would like to thank my beautiful and talented girlfriend Jenna for all of her support & understanding. I LOVE YOU!

Illustration Friday - Escape

This week I wanted to do something a little different. I thought about what kinds of things you would need to escape from, and how I could make that work as a painting. What better subject than a high profile thief stealing some item of great value, stashing it in his bag and finding his escape by crashing through a window into the night air (with the safety of a climbing rope of course). I did this with ink and again did all of the color in Photoshop. Please let me know what you think. Enjoy!

Upon request, here is the original black and white version for your viewing pleasure.

Illustration Friday - Depth

Well, here is my Illustration Friday project for this weeks topic of depth. It's a bit late, but I can't seem to make time to do this on the weekend. So I saw a great movie last week called Sahara, and it got me in the mood to draw something adventurous. So what's more adventurous than a diver searching for sunken treasure. I approached the project differently this week and did all of the color in photoshop (to save time). Needless to say I spent more time than usual on this but I'm really pleased with the results. Click on the art to see a larger version and you can see the original black & white art below. And as always your comments are welcome.

Midweek art - Werewolf

I was feeling like drawing something a bit more intense & scary, and since Halloween is now right around the corner it makes for a spooky addition to my blog. Boo!

Illustration Friday - Roots

I found this weeks topic a bit dry, and I really had a hard time deciding what I would draw. Even though I've never seen the movie "Roots" all I could think about was LeVar Burton, reading rainbow and Star Trek. As I looked over other peoples entries on friday. I could tell there were going to be a lot of drawings of trees with roots, drawings about ancestors, and my favorite, drawings of girls who need to re-dye there rootastic hair! I decided since I couldn't come up with any ideas that didn't include any of the top 3 choices. I would combine a couple and see what happens. Actually I'm lying. I didn't purposely combine the tree roots and ancestery idea. It just came from my frustration of not being able to create something new. So I just started drawing a tree. What you see before you is a combination of what my old art teacher would call happy accidents. Enjoy!



Here is a photo of LeVar Burton (who was in the movie "ROOTS") Click on it to see a uselessly huge picture of him!!!

Illustration Friday - Dreams

The topic this week for Illustration Friday was "Dreams". I started racking my brain for an idea and it didn't take me long to come up with one. For years I had dreams where I could fly. And they always gave me a really great feeling when I flew, which must be what Superman feels. It's a feeling of complete freedom. It's been 5 years since I've had a dream like that. But I think that maybe it's because of the strange and kind of scary thing that happened with the last one.

I was busy with school at the Art Institute of Pittsburgh, and living on the 9th floor of a 10 story apartment building with my 2 roommates. My room, if you could call it a room (Technically I lived in the dinning room) was connected to the kitchen and the living room. Off of the living room was our balcony, other bedroom and bathroom. Soon after I fell asleep one night I began to have a very vivid dream. In my dream I woke up from sleep to find it a bright sunny day. I walked to the living room, opened the sliding glass door, and stepped outside to the edge of the balcony, gripped the railing and pushed off into flight. I flew around downtown pittsburgh, dodging buildings and swooping under bridges. I even saw someone else flying around, but damned if I couldn't catch him (he had a rocket pack on his back). After giving up on catching him, and flying around for what seemed like many more hours I started to get cold and decided it was time to go back home. So I flew back to the North Side, found my apartment building and landed back on my 9th floor balcony grabbing the hand rail as my feet touched down. Still feeling cold, I started to feel the pull of reality and began to wake up. Something was wrong, instead of feeling the warmth from my blankets I was still feeling a bit chilly. Which was strange. I opened my eyes and was surprised to see that I must have still been dreaming because I was still on the balcony, but instead of a bright blue sky there was a hazy black one. As I stood there and realized that I wasn't dreaming, I noticed I was still gripping the handrail and felt that I was leaning slightly over the rail. At that point I got really freaked out, because I had apparently sleep walked right out onto the balcony in the middle of the night and almost leaped to my death. I realized how much it would suck if I woke up from my dream and was falling to my death. It took me a few day to get over it, and it took me almost a year before I told anyone what I had almost done. How weird is that?

Anyhow, have a great week, your comments are welcome as always.

Midweek art - Windy Girl

Here is another illustration I did last week. With ink & colored pencil. I was feeling really eager for fall to get here when I drew this, after having such a horribly hot summer. Comments are welcome, have a great day!!

Illustration Friday - Reflection

This week for some reason I had a really hard time coming up with an idea. My first idea was of a child looking at himself in a puddle, but after looking at some of the other entries I realized that alot of other people had the same idea and I didn't want to be lame and copy them. So I scrapped it. I then remembered a photo that I had taken for the local newspaper I work for, and it had everything that I was looking to capture in this weeks illustration. This is a drawing of a mill viewed from underneath the bridge in downtown Kent, Ohio. This is kind of a departure for me I usually only use people as a subject, but I thought I would try a scenic view this week. Your comments are more than welcome. Enjoy.

Illustration Friday - Wisdom

This is my first drawing for illustrationfriday.com Basicly, there is a topic posted every friday, and you have a week to finish it and post it on your site. It's pretty neat I think, plus It will get me back into doing sketches more often, which is an exercise that I need some discipline on.

So anyhow I chose an old man because the older we get the wiser we get. So I've heard. Although I've seen a few older people who seem to contradict that.

First Post Ever!

Hello, and welcome to my very first blog post. This will be a place where I will post my art, photos, comments and ideas that flow through my giant melon of a head. Mostly this is so that the things I think of won't just flash through my brain before I can write them down or draw them. keep coming back to see new stuff!