New resolutions

Maybe it's silly, a bit delusional even, but this past New Year's Eve felt like a fresh start. I celebrated with some very good friends, and maybe that's part of it - but I feel hopeful about 2011, I really do. Lately, I just haven't enjoyed drawing at all (which my lack of blog posts will attest to), so my new year's resolution was either going to be to draw more, or to quit drawing completely.

I've decided to let doubt be a thing I leave behind in 2010. If and when I draw, it's going to be because I want to. 2011 is going to be the year I take my artwork to new places, creatively and even geographically. On the other hand, if I do decide to quit drawing, I'll find a new pursuit and I won't look back. Whatever I decide to do, I will do it wholeheartedly. I'm barrelling full speed ahead towards an unknown goal, and I quite like it.

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One of my pals, Johan B, is getting married next summer and he asked me to illustrate the wedding invitations. Considering that this is a day that will hopefully live in their memories "till death do them part," it was very flattering to be associated with this in some small way. Johan and Pia had a very clear idea of what they wanted, which was very liberating for me in a way, because that meant I could focus completely on making their vision a reality, to the best of my abilities.

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One of my favorite drawing tools is Sakura's Pigma Brush. It's a pen with a flexible brush-like tip that allows for a nice varied line with a high quality fade-resistant ink. The only thing that bothers me is that the tip pretty quickly frays, making the line fuzzy. On the other hand, once the tip becomes frayed you can use it to get a cool dry-brush effect (like you see above - I probably went a little overboard there actually), much easier than you could with an real brush.

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To be honest, I like the idea of blaxploitation movies more than I like most of the actual blaxploitation movies I've seen. After the racial strife of America's civil rights movement, I think it was an awesome idea to do movies for a black audience, with black protagonists, but too often, the black people were portrayed as pimps, drug dealers or monsters (Blacula or Blackenstein, anyone?) - hardly any more empowering than the butlers and mammys of Old Hollywood. Most blaxploitation movies were really low-budget which meant a pretty cool anything-goes, "underground" kind of attitude, but also poor production values and often subpar writing and acting. There are some good ones, like Shaft, but frankly most of them are just trash.
Having said that, I wouldn't mind drawing a blaxploitation graphic novel some day. A good one.

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Wolverine sketch that isn't quite 100% of what it should be. Looks more like a hiss than a growl, but ehhhhh. Whatever. Good enough.

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(click to enlarge)

Another quick sketch I drew at work when I had nothing to do. Might explain why he looks so miserable.

So I've been thinking about repurposing this blog a bit. I started this thing as a way to exercise my drawing hand and to advertise my artwork. Now, I'm gonna try updating a little more often, but unfortunately I haven't drawn much lately. So, I figure, I'm going to give it a shot supplementing the occasional sketch or artwork with regular text posts without artwork. Revolutionary, I know.

So there it is. If you have any input, don't be shy, post a comment. Whether you think "this is great news, can't wait to read more" or "just shut the hell up and show us more purty pictures", now's the time to let me know.

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Okay, so I was out drinking with some friends tonight and I decided to draw something, as an experiment. Trouble is, by the time I got home I was no longer drunk but just slightly buzzed. So this is what I ended up with. It looks sufficiently different from my usual stuff that I thought it was interesting but I don't feel like it's completely successful. I was hoping for spontaneous and inventive but it just feels more sloppy than anything else. Next time I try this, I'm gonna be falling-off-the-chair-drunk. We're talking serious lack of hand-to-eye coordination; that ought to look interesting...

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I can scarcely believe we live in a world without Dennis Hopper now. Not that he had any deep personal significance to me (though I enjoyed Easy Rider and whatever else I'd seen him in) but it seemed to me like he was some kind of force of nature, like he always existed and always would. People age and die. Brando and Newman are gone; Morgan Freeman and Michael Caine won't live forever, but Dennis Hopper seemed timeless in some way. Rest in peace, mr. Hopper.

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These last few months I've been drawing a lot of this kind of stuff... cartoony faces, as goofy as possible. A lot of these were drawn on envelopes, work schedules, movie tickets and basically whatever scrap of paper I happened to have in front of me at the time. Alas, that also means that a lot of them are lost in the waste paper basket of life. But I saved some of my favorites, as seen above. I think in this age of information where everything is constantly archived and catalogued, it's probably a good idea to throw some crap away now and then...

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Happy birthday to my pal Raz! Only had time for a quick sketch today - sorry buddy!

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I found a new notepad that I really like. It's a pretty thick paper with a smooth finish. The pencil glides along smoothly on it and it seems to hold ink very well. The problem is that it's pretty small - about 4x4 inches. There is no brand name on it but I'm gonna ask the art supply store I bought it at to help me find some of the same paper in a bigger format.

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Unintentional likeness #5.

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A tip of the hat to Alan Moore and to my friend Mario C.

Happy Birthday, gentlemen!

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"The paint on the walls was matted from years of cigarette smoke and pale regret. Glancing over her shoulder, she saw her future reflected in the glistening sweat on his back, and it scared her. As soon as she had finished her cigarette, she would defy the fates. She would walk out the door and leave forever. If she loved him at all, she loved him too much.

But then he smiled at her with half-open eyes, and she held back the tears and returned to bed. She thought to herself, if she was doomed anyway she might as well enjoy it."

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I like drawing black people. They often have very interesting faces.

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I wish I'd had time to color this. Oh well. Maybe another day.

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