graphite – Derwent Graphic 4b

As you can see, he’d rather investigate than complete his mission:

digital painting – Corel Painter

graphite – Derwent Graphic – 2b, Pilot – P-500, Prismacolor Greys

This was more of a mental exercise than anything else.

pen in sketchbook – pilot p-500 extra fine

Dreams are a wonderful thing.

digital painting – corel painter

Here are some additional rambling sketches for the topic, done with a Berol Verithin Sky Blue 740.5 blue pencil I found deep in my pencil case:

digital painting – Corel Painter

If you are curious, you can see my other Flying Fish concept sketches here.

This time of year, one should be careful what they advertise.

digital illustration – Corel Painter

This is my second contribution to the Illustration Friday site.

digital painting – corel painter.

concept pen sketch on blue steno pad.

Now that work has slowed down a bit and my freelance gigs are all completed, I had some time to play more with Painter.

I based this sketch of a duck with rubbers and a rain coat from wooden sculptures I saw in an store window two weeks ago. They were of a mama duck and her chicks all dressed in rain coats and hats with tiny foot rubbers. It was the cutest thing I’ve ever seen.

My first submission to the Illustration Friday site.
Sketched with Derwent graphite 4b, Prismacolor greys and thin lines with my friend, Mr. Pilot P-500.
I’ve been struggling with coloring the Mariachi sketch in Painter. I’ll chip away at it more this weekend .

Several weeks ago, Dan Segarra’s AM sketch topic of the week was “Mariachi”. I whipped out some thumbnail sketches which evolved into this. I never posted it because it was stuck as a bookmark between the pages of Al Gore’s book “An Inconvenient Truth” which I thought I lost, but later found underneath my bed.

As for the animation, besides polishing some of my past AM assignments, I’ve been working on some thumbnails for a 2d pencil test, inspired by a Duke Ellington jam I stumbled accross on iTunes called “Track 360″ on his “Blues in Orbit” album. Originally recorded in 1959, this “impression of a train ride” was only released on CD in 1988, then remastered in 2004. I’ll post the thumbs and some quick tests in PAP in the coming weeks.

This is my first attempt at coloring with Corel Painter. I wanted to take this application for a spin, figure out the dense interface and play around with the pens and brushes. I’ve always wanted to try it, but I never had a wacom. Now that I dove in and picked up the Intuos 3, I have no more excuses

Inspired while watching Kill Bill, Volume 1.
It’s been a while… the cpu/scanner was outta commission because of a BIOS error. I finally fixed it… after not knowing what the heck was going on. Oh wells…

In addition to more sketches, I’ll be posting some animation soon

I was in the city today and had some time to walk around the pier 39 area.

rough sketch – 60 seconds – 2″x2″

detailed sketch – 30 minutes – 7″x5″

Click here for the 900px wide version.

I really don’t know why, but lately I have been dreaming about the balloon that got away when I was 5 years old.

My dad was driving us home from McDonalds in his 1975 Volkswagon Beetle. I was a happy little boy, full from my mini hamburger and fries and a green balloon handed to me by the big happy clown, Ronald. Maybe it was the sugar in the soda or the desserts, but I was pretty hyper. So hyper, that when my dad pulled up to our driveway and my mom got out the front seat to pull her chair back, I jumped out and tripped on the running board underneath the passenger side doorway.

As the balloon disappeared in the sky, I felt like the I lost the best gift I had ever received…

until we returned the next weekend to see Ronald again.

Sketching on a small canvas, waiting for my doctor to arrive at Kaiser.

Here’s a detail of the Japanese Maple outside my window.

Since it has small foliage, I had to squint to capture the shape thru the contrast of values from the sunlight.

Whenever I receive a “courtesy call” during dinner or at 9:00am Satuday mornings from a bank or credit card company asking me to buy into one of their useless products, I am always curious what the person on the other end of the line looks like.

With her calm and soothing voice, I assume she looks like this:

But after 20 minutes wasted listening to her marketing drivel, I end up picturing her like this:

mingus

thelonious

coltrane

billie

getz

louis

ella

miles

These were the table names and cards for our wedding.

2nd in the mad scientist series.
See the first one here: subdued mad scientist

I’ve been sketching a bunch lately. It’s very therapeutic!
This is a quickie while waiting to depart on the train.