Sword and Pistol VI

The band and the front door are about done. I think I'll crawl up the left side next.

The snake at the top sure didn't take long.

Sword and Pistol V

Alien at Work

Sometimes I draw with a mechanical pencil for a change of pace. They have their limits and aren't a very high-quality medium for artistic purposes, but they can help me to concentrate on line, and no sharpening breaks are needed. It can be freeing to do casual sketching and drawing with crumby pens and pencils; it can even lead to experimentation that I wouldn't have done with my more expensive supplies.

This was a fun little drawing. I've been working on filling entire pages and paying more mind to backgrounds and detail (not always easy with my poor vision).

Merry Christmas

It's been a good Christmas spent with family and friends. This has always been my favorite season, and the over-abundance of snow in Wisconsin this past month happily added to the spirit of things.

This is an old life drawing from college (my art productivity has been low this past week). I thought of a good children's book idea as I was falling asleep last night and wrote it down. I'll have to keep developing the idea while fully awake.

Peace on Earth and to men of good will!

Faces

Cardinal Illustration: Christmas

Here's a Daily Cardinal illustration from the Christmas season one year. I think it was for a food article.

Beards

Initial Invite

This was my initial idea for the Christmas party invitations. I don't think it's a bad drawing, but it didn't feel right for the purpose so I started over and came up with the one below. This drawing was much bigger (and would have been more time-consuming), and not as playful as the one I ended up using.

This one is still on the block though and I'm considering coloring it anyway.

Eggnog Invitation

Here is what the completed front of the invite looks like.

Eggnog

This is the cover illustration for a Christmas party invitation.

Sword and Pistol IV

Henry Hyde

Henry Hyde died a couple days ago on the 29th. DIH has a good post on it here. He died at Rush hospital in Chicago where I spent one of my work trips this past summer.

Sword and Pistol III

Animal Court Start to Finish

Sword and Pistol II

More progress on this front. I'm very tired of drawing bricks now though.

Elephant Painted

This is my twin sister's birthday present. It's based on this sketch that she liked:

Wolves

Old Men Sketch

Here's a small sketch I was able to do while I was out of town for Thanksgiving.

Cardinal Illustrations: Thanksgiving

Cardinal Shirt Design

The final design that we used is a little different, but this was one of my ideas for a Daily Cardinal t-shirt.

Daily Cardinal Illustrations

I drew a lot of non-editorial illustrations for the Daily Cardinal during my time there. Here are a few from 2004.

More Animal Sketches

Market Start to Finish

I thought it would be nice to have the whole process in one post.

James Jean

One of my favorite artists working today is James Jean. Joel and I recently bought this book of his work. We also have the entire Fables series for which he created the covers. Bill Willingham is an excellent writer and I highly recommend these books. We've been big fans ever since I heard about them on the Chesterton and Friends blog (you will have to scroll down to the "Comic Books" post to read what they had to say about it). I mentioned it to Joel and he picked the first book up on one of his many trips to the comic book store.

Phenomenal.

Sword and Pistol I

A small start. These portrait-style pictures aren't very big on Blogger, but as always you can click on it to see a larger image.

Final Market

On to other things...

Market IV

The changes are getting less noticeable, but I'm still working on this little world.

Illustrated Confessions

American Papist found this via Ignatius Insight Scoop. I was interested to hear about an illustrated version of St. Augustine's Confessions. In part:

"In this first modern illustrated edition of the Confessions, St. Augustine's words are accompanied by beautiful medieval and Renaissance illustrations from manuscripts in the collection from the British Library."

Here's the book in the Ignatius Press store.

It was interesting to study and look at illuminated manuscripts in school. Quite beautiful. We were able to look at some very old (not the originals) reproductions of manuscripts in the art library, as long as we washed our hands thoroughly first.

Market III

Market II

Market I

I'm starting with a thin layer over the whole thing. This should help with some continuity and color issues I've been having.

Market Inked

Animal Court Framed