Alright, still.

I was just listening to Lily Allen on my iPod and drew up this pic. I was wondering when she was coming out with a new album and low and behold a new single was released the day before yesterday! Synchronicity in action (thank you Karl Jung and Sting).

That's Dr. Jones to you, lady!

Since I was a kid Indiana Jones has been my icon for real manliness much as John Wayne was for my father. So when last year's Indiana Jones and the Crystal Skull sucked it, I took it personally. I only mention this now, months later, because I stumbled across(t) an entry on the aptly titled blog Temple of the Seven Golden Camels where the author gives what I feel is the best reason for the failure of said flick.

My contention was that all of the sequels suffered not just from George Lucas' goofiness, but that they didn't have the one thing that the original did: that Raiders of the Lost Ark introduced us to a world that was seemingly like ours and it wasn't until the end that we realize that things like the Ark of the Covenant really were radios for talking to God and such. The other films begin with the premise that these kind of objects already exist and so we expect it.

The aforementioned blog posting agrees with my postulation somewhat, but insists that the real reason is that Indy has gone from a morally ambiguous character who grows in the first film to a flawless and boring hero in the others. When Belloq says to Indy that it would only take a push to make our hero more like the villain, Indy gets pissed because he knows it's true. It's not until he witnesses the power of the Ark that he realizes the power of the artifacts he hunts and their value.

Anyway, aside from that, the last film was a steaming pile of poop, it's only saving grace was the casting of Karen Allen. Here's my depiction of everyone's favorite archaeologist.

Sept. '75 I was 47" high.

The musical stylings of Mr. Ben Folds!

Eye Prep Too!

Here is a simple logo design I'm currently working on for a sales application called I-Prep II. I started working with the integration aspect of the application by using interlocking bars. I then moved to interlocking the i and the P while still keeping them distinct. It came together rather quickly and all that was left was to pick a pleasing color combination from a limited corporate approved palette. Below are the refinements as I worked toward the design that I presented, which is pending approval.







Update: Here's the first set of changes.

And the latest version as of 2/20/09:

I'm in stitches!

My friend and co-worker Deloris Rose has stitched up some panels for a monster quilt, some of them based on this Halloween poster I did a few years back. Check out her amazing handicraft!

To be updated as she adds more.

First Sketchy of the New Year

The first Dr. Sketchy of 2009 saw Metro Detroit's Art Monkeys congregate once again at Blick's Art Materials in Dearborn. Our model this time: the lovely Regina Sweet of the Tickled Fancy Burlesque Troupe. This was her first time, so we were gentle, hopefully convincing her and her friend to come back again with more of thier troupe. Below are my watercolor and ink sketches of Ms. Sweet, along with Azucena in her red hoodie, Matt Feazell's profile, and a pencil sketch of Suzanne Baumann drawing an impromptu stand-in model while we were waiting for Regina to arrive.

Ellie Squared

A self promotion postcard idea.

Himself & Herself

My favorite song this week is Why Do You Let Me Stay Here? by the duo She and Him, comprised of M. Ward and Zooey Deschanel (who was the female lead in Elf and the craptacular Hitchhiker's Guide To The Galaxy). Their album, Volume One, was on many best of '08 lists. Good stuff.

Tattoo Youth

I was asked by a friend of mine to design a tattoo for her to give as a Christmas gift to her daughter. The girl wanted something with big wings featuring the word "Mom" in the middle to cover her back. Her mom suggested that she might not want to have motherly love emblazoned across her back for the remainder of her life so asked if I could make it less obtrusive. Here is the resulting design. I understand she liked it!

And here's an artist's interpretation of what it might look like in real life. Photo, minus the tattoo, swiped from somewhere on the internet.

New Year, New Look!

Well? Whattaya think?

I was getting tired of looking at all of my artwork on a dark background so I thought I'd switch things up a bit. All of my favorite sites have a nice white backdrop to show off all of their colors. Makes everything look all fresh and new. Plus I switched to hosting the blog here at Blogger.com as opposed to my own server. There were features that I wanted to incorporate that just weren't available otherwise. The old blog is still there, but will soon be replaced with a link to this site.

In other news, over the past year I've been doing most of my artwork on my Motion Computing LE1600 Tablet PC. It's a fine piece of equipment that allows for an endless amount of experimentation and is very flexible to work with. One drawback to my mighty tablet I discovered upon reading Danny Gregory's book An Illustrated Life. Gregory put together a book about other artists' sketchbooks and why they do what they do with them. And the one thing they can do with their sketchbooks that I cannot is take them off the bookshelf without having to plug them in or make sure the batteries are charged when they want to look at them or show their moms.

To make up for what was lacking I called on Blurb.com's services once again. I previously used them to put together a little 80 page hardcover book to use as a portfolio. They're very reasonably priced, so I put together a two volume sketchbook from the past year. Each paperback book is approximately 260 full color pages comprising over 700 individual electronical pages from my tablet. Now they can be looked at anywhere, even the bathroom.

Below Bijou languidly poses with my tablet and its literary progeny.