1/31/11

Day 31 - Tears of Zeus


All Nas needed was one mic, all I needed between 2004-2006 was one whiteboard and the precursors to the Gang of Four to entertain. This week is dedicated to the 110Crew, and the unending giggling that came out of one whiteboard!

Q: From where does humanity's champion come?
A: Zeus' tear!

1/30/11

Day 30 - Chicken!

I am unapologetic about loving all things chicken (well ll things except eating them, which I suppose is a big thing). A potential candidate as proof that evolution has a sense of humor, chicken are hilarious (though they can also be pretty terrifying).

On the subject of chickens, giant ones are the best. People in chicken suits, plastic dinosaurs terrified of said people in chicken suits - all recipes for hilarity.

Finally, to the hand full of people around during the clucking period of 2006-2008, this one goes out to you.

1/29/11

Day 29 - Ninjas!

It is tough to argue with the awesomeness of ninjas! Be they mutant turtles (which incidentally, how awesome is it that Kevin Eastman and Peter Laird were sitting around one day and just decided "Dude, you know what would be cool, mutant ninjas"..."dude, you know what would be cooler, Teenage mutant ninjas"...You know what would be bananas "Teenage mutant ninja turtles") or just plain old american ninjas (Dear Michael Dudikoff - you inhabit a place somewhere between Christopher Lambert and David Carridine in my martial arts universe!), ninjas are just plan baller.



1/28/11

Day 28 - Tuft Envy

The handful of slice elctrophysiologists that follow this blog will appreciate the anthropomorphization of neurons and the anguish that must come from having ones dendrites lesioned because of slicing. The even smaller group of people who record from mitral cells in the bulb will find this mildly amusing. The three people that were present when tuft envy emerged among a group of bald(-ing) slice physiologists will basically loose it!

Happy weekend, happy slicing, and may your apical dendrites be intact and fully arborized!


1/27/11

Day 27 - Moustache


A foreshadow of things to come in the following week. I am part of a nontrivial number of men and women who thing gigantic moustaches are basically awesome. Think this, only the 2011 version.

1/26/11

Day 26 - Abstract 3

Another abstract piece - this one reminds me of a design I did for a yoga mat about 2.5 years ago.

Done on the iPad with Sketchbook Pro

1/25/11

Day 25 - Dog

As those who know me can attest, I am a huge fan of dogs - more so than the average dog love - but not to the extent of calling a dog my kid, or dressing the dog up on some outfit. I should also note that with rare exception, a dog is only a dog when it is big! And while my foray into the world of canine ownership was brief, I will venture there again. Ending this little tangent on my love of dogs, the feeling is mutual - 9 out of 10 dogs basically think I am awesome.

I really like this drawing because it captures why I think dogs are basically amazing - they have such an emotive quality, and such a willingness for affection that it is rare, even among humans.

Finally, this was passed along to me - and it seems fitting for the post - if for no other reason than because it illustrates the genuineness of a dog's emotions (and the suspicion with which I look at all cats) and the extent to which they are basically amped about everything

1/24/11

Day 24 - Face on another

These is something really nice about this - The half obscured eye was mainly out of laziness - didn't want to ensure symmetry of the eyes, but this really adds something.

Tools: iPad, Sketchbook pro, finger!

1/23/11

Day 23 - Passenger 57

Wesley Snipes' legal troubles notwithstanding, he is pretty awesome. While most will remember him from this scene in Passenger 57, his acting range has really developed to include ex-CIA hostage specialist, CIA sniper, UN covert operative, ex-Special Forces bad ass, ex-security specialist, etc etc. One acquires this information about Snipes acting when the weather outside is -5 degrees and the entire Wesley Snipes film library is on Netflix.

I am increasingly convinced that the war on terror will only be won when Wesley Snipes helms our intelligence agencies.

Tools: iPad, Sketchbook pro, finger!

1/22/11

Day 22 - Black Swan

There is a pretty visually striking moment in the trailer for Black Swan where black feathers emerge out of Natalie Portman's back. Have not seen the movie, but I suspect that it primed my mind for this image, that and a similar Sorayama image from TimeCop....

Tools: iPad, Sketchbook pro, finger!

1/21/11

Day 21- Rapa Nui

I have been a huge fan of Rapa Nui for a long time, but my interest in the island was rekindled when I saw the beautiful surf footage from Step into Liquid.

Plus the line about "you would think there would be some goofy ugly looking people because of all the inbreeding, but some of the most beautiful people I have ever seen in the world, inside and out." is just priceless!

A quick technical note:
My solution to copying/cloning an image in Sketchbook Pro, Duplicate it as a layer and then move the image around. Not ideal, because the ability to subselect a part of the image is not available, but as a first pass, this seems to be ok.

Tools: iPad, Skechbook Pro, finger

1/20/11

1/19/11

Day 19 - Sad Audi

Audi released this distinct head light LED setup (I think first with their R8, and subsequently) in all their models. The S5 has to be my favorite, but in looking at the lighting, it occurs to me that they resembled eyes - I tried my hand at making the "head lights" have an emotive eye like quality - this is the sad version, and I will post the angry more Audi like version soon.

One of the things that occurs to me is the difference in where "eyes" are placed in making cartoon cars. In the Pixar film "Cars", the eyes are at the windshield, making them really conducive to conveying emotion.

Tools: iPad, Sketchbook Pro, finger!

1/18/11

Day 18 - Comic book nostalgia

If you were a comic book fan boy in the early 1990s, you probably recognized Jim Lee's work, first on the Uncanny X-Men, then on the revamped version of the X-Men , and when he left Marvel to found Image where he launched WildCats. His style is really distinct, and he influenced a number of artists - I was a big fan of his work, as well as some of the other Image artists, and this quick doodle brought back some memories of that early stylistic influence.

As an aside, I think an under-appreciated part of the visual change in the way comics looked back in the 1990s was the work of Steve Oliff and Olypotics, the guys that introduced color separation and computer coloring to the medium. I think the visual quality of the first titles out of Image, specifically Spawn, Cyberforce, and Wildcats was just something stunning and so different from the work at Marvel and DC....

I will now stop my fanboy geeking out...

Tools: iPad, Sketchbook Pro, finger!

1/17/11

Day 17 - Eyes

Again with the eyes.... and the ladies

Tools: iPad, Sketchbook Pro, finger!

1/16/11

Day 16 - Abstract reduex

This reminds me of a set of shapes that I played around with on a previous oil painting.

There are certain arrangements of lines that I keep coming back to.

Tools: iPad, Sketchbook Pro, finger!

1/15/11

Day 15 - Penguins

Penguins are really overplayed in terms of cuteness. That being said, I like the idea of the penguin as a flightless bird. Consider the longing that must exist if you knew that all the others like you weren't confined to terrestrial bounds....

I just like the idea of longing...

I will try to post the original sketch also, especially because the doodle that set up the layout is somehow more compelling. I have heard other artists say that all of art is trying to capture the energy and feeling of the original sketch. True by leaps and bounds in this case.

Tools: iPad, Sketchbook Pro, finger!




Day 14 - Patches

Our aesthetic sensibilities seem by some measure to be rooted in ideas of symmetry. The eye patch is something that interrupts that symmetry, but the intriguing thing about it is the notion that behind this black is something interesting - I guess it illustrates to power of finding balance between symmetry and mystery. The tough thing is to get the rest of the proportions of the face correctly...I would say, meh in terms of drawing, but I will probably revisit this.

Tools: iPad, Sketchbook Pro, finger!

1/13/11

Day 13 - Abstract them revisited

There is something floral about this - I think i might be aching for spring already

Tools: iPad, Sketchbook Pro, finger!

1/12/11

Day 12 - Rubens


Peter Rubens' first wife - Isabella Brant adapted from a version of this image I found in a Dover thrift edition - not especially happy with the drawing using the iPad and my finger - in large part it occurs to me the difficulty in drawing with ones hand instead of a pencil/brush.

Rubens is striking in that he does mass with an incredible weight.

Tools: Sketchbook Pro, iPad, right finger!


1/11/11

Day 11 - I Robot

Much of the iPad art that I have done comes by way of a great app/program called Sketchbook Pro. The load screen includes this really elegant red robot in the rain, and that somehow triggered this image in my mind. As I write this though, I am reminded of this 2005 movie Robots and this image possibly shares some similarity with the main character of the film (ok... mainly in color).

A lot of human-computer interaction comes by way of how much of the computer/robot's "face" can be used to convey emotive information, and I like the idea that this robot has a spartan set of features but manages to convey something in its expression.

Tools: iPad, Sketchbook Pro, right finger!


1/10/11

Day 10 - Lemmas

A few years ago, I became obsessed with lemmas. I imagined them as little fuzzy creatures, distinct in personality and ability.

A gallery of lemmas makes me smile...

Tools: iPad, Sketchbook Pro, right finger!

1/9/11

Day 9 - Silhouette

Nothing to be said but a quick exercise in green.

Tools: iPad, Sketchbook Pro, right finger!

1/8/11

Day 8 - Polar Bear

On the Pittsburgh Zoo blog is a really beautiful picture of a polar bear in the water - watching really massive mammals navigate effortlessly through the water is a pretty powerful thing to see.

Tools: iPad, Sketchbook Pro, right finger!




1/7/11

Day 7 - Milne's classic character

Whinnie the Pooh is awesome for a number of reasons. The one that I find most interesting is his curiosity. What is remarkable is that the original drawings of Pooh captured this emotion with really simple sparse lines...

I played around with sparsity here....

Tools: iPad, Sketchbook Pro, right finger!

1/6/11

Day 6- native colors

The colors came by way of a wedding I was at - the green and purple is really quite nice

Tools: iPad, Sketchbook Pro, right finger!

1/5/11

Day 5- Awkward

Awkward, animals, preferably ones that are surprised or made uncomfortable thrill me to death. It is not so much the prospect of them being made uncomfortable, but the idea that there is something that makes them fell this way. The sentiment is totally different that fear, which I suspect that animals feel often.

Maybe I just like the idea of googlie eyes!

Tools: iPad, Sketchbook Pro, right finger!

1/4/11

Day 4 -Eyes

Eyes are always fun to draw...especially those on women.

Tools: iPad, Sketchbook Pro, right finger!

1/3/11

Day 3 - Abstract in green


abstractions of the kind that I like. You will probably recognize this style from some of the other things I have done before and posted on this blog.

Tools: iPad, Sketchbook Pro, right finger!

1/2/11

Day 2 - Shock and awe



I suspect that this is the face I would have if confronted with the prospect of drawing something new daily. Thankfully, if I were anything but a human or nonhuman primate, the difficulty of holding something without thumbs would outweigh any concern I have for a daily drawing!

Tools: iPad, Sketchbook Pro, right finger!

1/1/11

Art a day

One of my laments has always been that I am not being as creative as I would like - or more specifically, that I do not draw as much as I would like to. In an attempt to remedy that, I have made a mini resolution to do a drawing a day this year and post the images to my blog. Partly inspired by Chris Ayers' "Daily Zoo", my goal is to just draw something - anything daily.

In my city, the sun is a rare visitor, and my thought is that painting/drawing something everyday will somehow ward off those rain cloud blues. In that spirit, my hope is that some, if not most of the drawings are colorful and mildly luminous!

Fell free to forward this blog to your friends, or send me suggestions of things you would like to see, or let me know if you want an image to use because you just have to link to my website, of if you just want to let me know that a drawing was especially hilarious or awesome.

Sometimes the drawing will stand on its own, other times there may be a bit of commentary. Some of the drawings will be done digitally (on an iPad with my finger and Sketchbook Pro or using a stylus and Photoshop) and others will be hand drawn/painted and scanned or photographed.

Some of these drawings will be from my head, some will be sketches of more finished pieces I am doing, and on occasion, when things really hairy, I might throw in a filler sketch or a finished painting. Some of the drawings will be my interpretations of other artists or styles, and when that is the case, as much as possible, I will try to link to the original for context.

Some of the drawings will be good, other will suck.

Regardless, this should be a total blast. Best wishes in 2011 and hopefully you will enjoy a day or two in this journey of art a day!

K