Sometimes You Get What You Want (even a BOOK DEAL)

Being an artist is really hard on your self esteem. I graduated from art school 9 years ago. I consider myself a good artist. I'm a good draftsman, pretty decent with color and composition,  but those 9 years were full of doubt and self loathing. I would get the occasional commission, art show, or illustration gig, but nothing that I would call a full time career. During those same 9 years I watched my friends start and succeed in their own careers. They bought houses, cars, had a savings account, and probably some sort of plan about retirement. I had a couple close calls with starting a real art career, but things fell through.

Then I got a book deal. I'm so so so excited about this. Having a book deal has been a life long dream of mine. To walk into a store, and see my book on a shelf. To see a kid reading my book. To see MY kid reading MY book! And now, in the Spring of 2014 it'll happen. 

I'm very pleased to announce that I'm illustrating a middle grade graphic novel called Muddy Max, written by fellow Portlander Liz Rusch, to be published by Andrews McMeel/AMP! Comics for Kids. Muddy Max tells the story of Max, a sixth grader who discovers he's transformed into a super hero when he gets muddy. 

Here's some early promotional artwork for the book.

Sometimes you get what you want!

Women of Wonder Day 2012

For years I've been meaning to contribute to the awesome Women of Wonder Day fundraiser. Every year they auction off art featuring strong female characters to raise money for domestic abuse shelters. Its a great cause and the events, hosted at comic book shops, are a ton of fun to attend. This piece will be up for auction in Portland at Excalibur Comics on October 21st.

This year I started early and have just finished my Women of Wonder: Dana Scully. She's smart, she's strong, she's complicated, she's a red head. 

Dana Scully

11" x 17"

Watercolor, Ink wash, Colored Pencil

Detail

Web Comic

I've started working on a web comic that I'll be launching this fall. I am really enjoying working in a horizontal frame, as opposed to a standard comic book page. I've been re-drooling over the Calvin and Hobbes Sunday strips and have taken those wonderful images as my inspiration. The entire comic will be done in watercolor and ink, I'll letter on the computer, but for the most part this will be a hand made comic.

My goal is to have at least a 3 month supply of pages before launching the comic, I'm a third of the way there.

Penciled page from my sketchbook

Finished page, watercolor and ink

Other Worlds cover for Comics Forge

I was asked to do a new cover for a limited edition comic from Comics Forge collecting three of Justin Zimmerman's Other World's stories (one of which I drew). The comic is the first in a series of books coming out called Comics Forge Presents that showcase indy comic book types like Justin and me. The art direction was pretty simple: "sexy space lady fighting a  monster". This is what I came up with.

My initial thumbnail

The inked drawing

11x17, watercolor and colored pencil on Arches hot press

sold

And finally, the painted image. This was painted with watercolor with a little bit of colored pencil for highlights. I don't have a title for it...so I've been calling it: 

SEXY SPACE SIREN TRIUMPHS OVER INTERGALACTIC CEPHALOPOD!!

Its fun to take a break from my kid comic stuff to do some high brow art like this.

Mural Design

Hopefully I'll be spending my summer painting an 800 sq ft mural in Portland, here's the design. The mural committee didn't have a theme in mind, so I got to wing it.

I drew this thing in ink and then painted it in Photoshop

Wild Boy

Wild Boy

9 x 12 acrylic on canvas

I painted this for my best friends' baby shower, they're conveniently making my son a best friend, so they get a painting. I've never painted something out of my head with acrylic on canvas. The surface was a bit too rough, but I had a lot of fun being able to paint over my mistakes instead of hiding them like I do with watercolor.

Facebook Portrait #2

Tyler 1/18/12

My friend Tyler, who also posed for me awhile back for my Little Shop of Horrors painting.

Facebook Portraits

John 1/18/12

In an effort to paint as close to every day as I can, I've started a new project where I'll paint one of my friend's facebook profile pics every week in my sketchbook. These are 4 x 6, which allows me to work on them upstairs whenever my 10 month old refuses to go into the basement studio.