Category: Art

Art, Main

Dr. Sketchy’s Sketchdump! (Plus some other nonsense)

Last night I finally made it out to a Dr. Sketchy’s meeting in Portland and boy howdy am I glad I did. Awesome people, sweet prizes (lascivious burlesque paper doll book, anyone?), good drinks, and a fabulous model. What more can a girl ask for? I spent the night mostly challenging myself to bust out some quick watercolor renderings for the 5-10 minute poses, then did a few inky things later on.

20 minute excuse to draw a big ol’ dragon.

And my response to the “Make this pose into the best noir poster you can manage in 20 minutes” challenge. This was a blast, although I’m really not a fan of inking lettering in a timed environment. Waaay too much stress. Also ran my pen out of ink in the process of making it atmospheric enough.

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When not drawing scantily clad babes in sketchy bars, I’ve also been doing some rendering and style experiments for an upcoming project. Hence quick comics about footwear!

Also been really into the way Aaron Diaz renders faces, so I’m trying that out for a while with the G nibs I got for Christmas. Those things are nifty!

Who is this dapper fellow? What is he so excited about? We may never know.

Art, Main

My Grandmother’s Beast (Part 1)

First off, happy festive season to all you blog-following types. It’s been a sunny one down here in California, but soon enough I’ll be back in the Pacific Northwest slogging away at the drawing board.

In the meantime, I’ve been remiss about getting these files optimized for the web, but here, at last, is my most recent project! This was a challenging story to tackle, since it deals with my grandmother’s battle with Alzheimer’s. I wanted to attempt a full-color rendering technique and practice my watercolor skills (still woefully lacking) while sticking to a relatively simple page layout. I believe the result is more illustrated story than comic, but it was a learning experience nonetheless. I’ll post the story in four updates of a few pages each, since they’re so minimal. Here’s the first!

Art, Main, News

The Final Fenton

And here we have it: the dramatic conclusion to Fenton’s 4-page spotlight.

And that’s that! Since this comic was completed in a rapid dash for a deadline there’s still a lot more painting to be done to bring it up to snuff, so I may update these images sometime in the future with cleaner meaner versions. But for now, in typical style, my next comic will probably be about something completely unrelated to this! Get ready for excitement and…I don’t know. Manatees? You tell me.

In the department of exciting news, I have a piece in the upcoming Top Secrets-themed issue of Portland’s own Stumptown Underground! This is my first anthology inclusion so I’m extra thrilled and would love to see your grinning faces at the release party this Friday. The shin-dig goes down at In Other Words (14 NE Killingsworth St.) this Friday from 7-9pm. Hope to see you all there!

Art, Main

Roger Fenton vs. The Crimean War

To whet everyone’s appetites, here’s the first page of a short comic I just finished about Roger Fenton’s photographic exploits during the Crimean War. The comic is partly a response to this piece in the NYT, which discusses In the Valley of the Shadow of Death, Fenton’s most famous shot. This was some wild speculation about where the image came from with a healthy dose of artistic experimentation thrown in. I’m getting more and more excited about watercolors these days, and wish I’d had more time to tackle painting this, but I may still go back and add some more detail. The inking was all done with a fountain pen in a sketchier style than I generally go for. Any thoughts on the difference greatly appreciated. I’ll post another page tomorrow. Enjoy!

Art, Main

Bros of the Crimean War

The massive post-poly/mono-comic site traffic explosion (more on that later) has tapered off somewhat, but I still feel bad that people seem to be checking back and I have yet to do anything new. So, here are some Crimean Bros to be going on with. Bask in all their muttonchoppy glory. A choppy sea of mutton. And so on. The comic that I’m working on around these studies will be up by Sunday, so check back thereabouts for fun new material that has nothing to do with my previous work (sorry, you fierce poly-mono debatin’ dudes). Might also have a quick bonus comic done in the next few days. Keep checkin’.

ON WITH THE MUTTON.

Art, Main

Wherefore: The Box

Finally got around to properly photographing the sculptural container I created for the preliminary Wherefore illustrations last term! Woo!

The premise of this project was the creation of an interactive structure that could contain the six illustrations I completed while integrating text from Hélène Cixous’ Coming to Writing — an extremely beautiful and provocative essay about cultural identity and the power of the multiplied voice. I highly recommend it.

There was a vague thought of making the final volume of comics small enough to fit in said box along with the folding art/text piece, but I realized the resultant work would have to be laughably small. Still, there’s the potential for a massive Turkish Delight box in my future if I want to create one that can contain a full-size book.

Anyway, on with the piccies!

Art

Annual Badgers

Hello all! I return from California (not particularly) bronzed and (moderately) well-rested. As I scan a few things and prepare to reprint the Baggies, I thought I’d post a few badgers to be going on with. For the past 3 or 4 years I’ve drawn my father a badger every year for most major holidays. It’s about as close a thing to a spirit animal as I think he’ll ever have, and it’s been his nickname forever and ever. Fitting. Anyway, some of these rely on strange Bellwood family in-jokes (or, in the case of the most recent, a familiarity with Eddie Izzard), but I thought they might be amusing for the general public as well. Here are three of the most recent to keep you occupied.

(Art-Stix is an artistic endeavor launched by my father last year. He designs awesome artistic bookmarks.)

Enough badgers for now.