Birthday Wishes

My birthday card to my wife this year. This may not seem like the most romantic of cards, but, as someone who is plagued by mosquitos, she loved it!

More Cowball

 My wife wanted me to draw a cute cow for her Chinese New Year post. My first one was too skinny. So I decided to go full round, and she loved it. 

Happy Chinese New Year!

Poor Carl

I was carving a pumpkin, and it occurred to me what pumpkins would think of the whole thing. Didn't stop me from carving a bunch more, but it did bring this to mind.

Happy Halloween!

Nose

I dreamed that I made this drawing last night, so when I woke up I drew it. Dreams can come true!

I'm pretty sure I was dreaming about avocados because my daughter and I were looking at Halloween costumes yesterday, and one of them was an avocado. I'm seriously thinking of that one for this year.

Bridget Bishop

Starting a new thing here - I've decided that whenever I read a book, I ought to illustrate something from it. I just finished "Witchcraft at Salem" by Chadwick Hansen, which I picked ip in the Salem Witch Museum bookstore. After reading it, I was inspired to do this portrait of Bridget Bishop.

And Halloween coming up as well wasn't a bad incentive either.

According to Hansen, there were a lot of innocent people executed in the Salem witch craze, but Bridget Bishop was not one of them. Totally a witch, willing to use image magic to get back at people she didn't like. And creepy enough to freak people out enough to believe her curses actually worked. So a good first choice for my drawing project, especially in October.

As for the book, I can't recommend it highly enough. Aside from being really informative, it's just so well written that it was a joy to read.

On a completely unrelated note, I think "Chadwick Hansen" is the best name ever. Had I known about this book earlier, I may have named my son "Chadwick Hansen Valentino." I told my son about this. He said if I had, he would have always harbored some resentment towards me as long as he lived. So probably for the best that this is a recent find.

Sumo Claus

As I was drawing Santa for a friennd, I realized that if I were to draw a sumo wrestler, I'd draw him the same way.

Jingle Bell Rock

...beats Jingle Bell Scissors.

The Onion King

This was just one of those random things that came up in conversation. And then it just screamed out to be drawn.

My Last Drawing of Last Year

For the last class before Christmas break, I decided to teach cartooning, with action and expression. And what better way to start kids on it than gingerbread men - they have emoji-like faces, they have stick-figure like bodies to help learn motion, and, best of all, they're edible. Not the drawing kind - the ones that my wife made to give to the class after they finished drawing. So the first half of the class was pen-and-ink, the second half was cookies-and-icing.

They asked if every class could end that way.

Fishing

I based this drawing on a sketch I did while camping (same camping trip that I came up with the Hobbit Day idea. Did a lot of sketching that weekend!).

One evening we went down to the lake to go fishing, me with sketchbook in tow as well as tackle. At first, my daughter tried fishing. Then, she tried skipping rocks. THEN, she decided it was more fun to just take big rocks and hurl them into the water.

Surprisingly, we caught no fish that night.

Hobbit Day 2015

We all went camping, and one night before bed my wife checked her phone to see what the weather would be like the next day. When she woke up, she couldn't find the phone. She was looking around the sleeping bag saying, 'Where is it? Where IS it?" so insistently that I imagined her following with, "Nasty theiving Hobbitses!"

So I drew the first draft of this cartoon in my sketchbook sitting around the campfire that morning.

It probably helped that the kids watched The Fellowship of the Ring in the car on the way to the campsite!

Happy Hobbit Day everyone!

Cartooning for a Cause

Allisa is the daughter of a friend of mine. She's in second grade, and unfortunately is struggling with brain cancer. She's responding well to treatment, but it is expensive.

So there was a huge fund-raising event - people around here are awesome, everyone was willing to help - where people could donate things for others to bid on to raise money. My offering was a cartooning class.

One of her fellow second-graders was very excited about getting to do cartooning, and convinced her mother to bid on it and win. She got to invite friends with her as well, and, since it was such a nice day, we got to hold the class outdoors:

Is there such a thing as Plein Air cartooning?

After teaching them how to create their own characters, I also wanted to show them how to draw those characters in action. They all voted to see super-hero action, naturally:

Apparently, I gesture dramatically when I draw dramatic things. As one should.

I liked this one too - along with superheroes, they wanted to make their characters spies. So I had to show them how to draw one scaling a building, to break in and do spy-stuff:

The mask was their idea. A creative bunch!

One of the best things about the class was that I was just giving examples here. They didn't all copy my hippo character, they made their own - dogs, penguins, tigers, monsters. Their creativity made it a great class to teach.

Also, if anyone out there wants to help Allisa, you can go to the donation site here. Thank you!

I'm on They Draw and Cook this month!

The recipe/art site They Draw and Cook has six "Giggling Good Recipes" as the highlight this month, and my art was one of the six pieces included! You can see their site here (which I recommend – a lot of good art there). Or, when they have a different feature some other time, you can see the art here.

The Coffee Queen

A perfect match! The Donut King and the Coffee Queen.

I based her on my wife, which may be one reason why the kids think that I'm the Donut King. This is pretty much how I react to her. Initially I was just going to do a drawing of the Queen's portrait, but thoughts of my wife inspired me to draw it the way I really feel.

Although if I ever grew facial hair like the King, I'd find myself sleeping in the bathtub. And shaved when I woke up.

Christmas Book 2012 - the Donut King

Yet again, it was time for the kids' Christmas book! Was initially planning the pirate story, but wanted to get back to some watercoloring roots after all the computer art I'd been doing lately. So I did The Donut King instead.

Here's the man himself, looking all round. His title isn't a misnomer. I'll put up more pictures in future posts.

The kids liked the book! I got a few comments that are either praise or slights, depending on how you take them. One was that the Donut King is supposed to be me. I think that's because of the facial expressions, since I'm not round (although my wife, with her great cooking, is working on it) and I don't have facial hair. In addition, I've been known to eat things other than donuts.

Second, my oldest daughter said, "You wrote this? Really? It seems like a real book!" I'll take that as a compliment and not a reflection on previous books. Although to be fair, my then 4-year-old wrote last year's. But to me it seemed like a real book, from a clever and precocious young author.

But I may be biased.

Even Gooder Good Guys

Back to the Pirates... and, of course, the kids have to be on the crew. But as usual, they're very inspiring, so when I first saw them on a blank white page I knew that it wasn't quite there yet. So, to make a page worthy of these swashbucklers, I decided to put it on paper the like of Old Flint's map.

11

An 11th anniversary card I drew for my wife.

The Jungle Explorers - the book

I finished this book a while ago, and always wanted to put the whole thing up. And now I can! The blog won't let me post a multiple-page PDF, but another site, called Dribbble, will. Here is the book in its entirety! Just click on the attachment below the picture.

Leprechaun

A cover illustration for the program of a Saint Patrick's Day auction.

Valentine's Day 2012

A picture of me singing is infinitely preferable to me actually singing.