As the current headline of this blog implies, every once in a while... i get bored at work. yes it's true. when i do, i find myself reverting to some primeval state of mind where all i can do is anything but the task i am assigned. This happens probably more than it should. In fact a little known secret is that it's happening right now..... yeah. anyway here are some sketches from the inside of my staples brand steno book that i drew instead of working or paying attention in meetings.

What represents winter? snow and ice? freezing wind. a blue old man with a beard of icicles, exhaling? ugh. boring. I'm trying to motivate myself to start up illustration Friday and this week's theme is winter. go figure its the week of Christmas. but what does winter mean to me? Excessive amounts of tea and coffee and empty glasses covering my room. dead crickets that came inside from the cold but froze to death under my desk anyway. blankets of all different patterns and colors, piled around me all at once because i insist on sleeping with out any clothes on but it is 15 degrees in my room. my space heater. drawing next to the fire. haha my dog jack covered in snow rampaging around my living room. big furry hats. but those are all shallow surface level wintry things.

i am an ar-tist. shouldn't my thoughts be all existential and philosophical and deep and interesting? there should be more layers of visual metaphor than layers of clothes that im wearing at any given moment. (right now, 4) and how could i ever do an art piece about winter and not pose a question to the viewer about the cycles of life, death and rebirth as symbolized by the changing seasons? because i'm just so fasinated by blah blah blah bhalljksdf.

i wish i had my camera with me right now. the gritty remains of my chai latte mix look really cool at the bottom of my company's mug on my desk. kind of gross but there is pretty interesting lighting for an office.

i need a haircut. i like to grow out my hair during the winter because i like to pretend that it makes me warmer. maybe thats what i should do my drawing about. hahaha. there is the real process as illustrated by my last post. start thinking about it. start thinking too hard about it. go off on a tangent and the tangent will bring you right back to where you started with a halfway decent idea. i should be working right now but.....engh..... i'm a week ahead of schedule and i'm having a caffeinated mental outpouring and all i really feel like doing is writing down what i'm thinking. i was originally writing in my sketchbook but all i was writing about was ways in which i need to improve and it was getting too whiny for my taste. all the characters were far too two dimensional ( ba dum chsh). i like this. if i could tell myself at age 15 that one day i would actually enjoy writing about something i would not have believed you.... me.... i hated writing. possibly why i went to picture school rather than a regular person paper writing school. not that i am suddenly kurt vonnegut or any good at writing at all but i'm having fun just illustrating what i'm thinking and that has to count for something right? see there. i just posed a question to my readers. ohhh i'm a literary genius already! but wait. i already did a hair themed winter illustration. that poster i did for that song by devendra banhart "long haired child" well shoot. harumph. what else happens in the winter? things hibernate. bears. frogs and turtles. haha dead crickets hibernate. FOREVER. but dead crickets are depressing. i guess the winter is depressing as a whole. but as someone who likes an excuse to be antisocial and stay inside and draw or just laze around on the internet i kind of like winter. also i really like snow. SNOW. it snowed yesterday. just a tiny bit. ok so what do we have so far. staying inside, blankets, tea, afro's, space heaters hibernating animals and dead crickets. can we make an illutration out of this?

i think we can.

*(royal we)

For those of you wondering what my creative process looks like, your hearts deepest desire is about to be granted. A look into the mystical, powerful and much debated inner workings of the right half of my brain. OOOOOOHHHHHH..... AHHHHHHH........Ok here goes:

Step one.

Sit on couch:

Step Two:

+

Step Three: Start drawing relevant stuff.

Step Four: STOP drawing relevant stuff.

(non relevant stuff includes but is not limited to: stuff you see around you on fire. stuff you see around you breathing fire. and things eating other things. or both.

Or really just whatever.

After that you can revisit step Two as many times as necessary to get back to step 3. and just keep going through until you either

A) get bored

B) get stuck at the coffee step

C) go do something else entirely

D) God forbid arrive at a clever original idea.

The End.

(all images other than my drawings are the property of whoever put them up on google images)

Here it is! If you live in Arlington go see the show! I will be there selling prints of the poster and you will get free stuff from the band! Exclamation point!!

Here is an update on the new torches poster. I am actually way more done with the final version but i'll just put up the process stuff for now. This is a sort of color comp sort of thing. I am thinking of using the hermit crab by it self as a Christmas card maybe. if you are in my family and reading this disregard the previous sentence. OH i was going to add headphones on him! OK well ill go draw those now. or maybe i will get back to work seeing as i'm at the office.....

Yet another torches poster is in the works! They will be giving out a special gift at their upcoming show and the poster is meant to advertise that fact. still going to do a few more sketches to work out the details but the hermit crab is a sure thing. i love that guy. I have to say that my phone camera is really awesome. Who needs a scanner when you can just email yourself pics from your phone!? Kids these days and their internet cellphones. HA!

ok. the changes to the blog are ground breaking i know but what did i tell you about hanging on to your toupees? its time to shake things up a bit. lite a fire under my chair and DO SOMETHING!!!

Oh so i may have forgot to mention that several weeks ago a good friend of mine in a very good band, THE TORCHES, Asked me to do a flyer for their up coming show. This is what i came up with for them. I will be doing another one for a show in mid December and i will hopefully be selling prints of it AT the show. But look for process stuff for that on here.

oh and a link to the torches website is HERE!!

oh. hello. i didn't notice you there. it has only been two months since i last posted on this blog. what can i say. the CIA has been on my tail since Shanghai. I've had to fly under the radar for a bit. But since i've surfaced i now have a shiny new job and a shiny new car and airplane and a bitchin' mustache. Also i did some doodles on post-IT notes to decorate my otherwise fair-to-moderately un-interesting workspace.

What can i say? i need to get the creative jucies flowing. Yes. creative juciy-es... There are mosquito larvae growing in my brain. . . . ok that metaphor was way more gross than i intended but you see my point. I have hit the doldrums and i am in great danger of scurvy. SCURVY! so please if you can. send me limes. or star-fruit.

There have been great changes to my life over the past year. Some small things. But mainly big things. But thats not what this blog is about. This blog is about me diverting my 100% mental focus FROM the important, payed task at hand; TO art or something much more interesting than whatever it is I'm working on. Glorified power point presentations namely. Anyway. i have a fancy new fangled internet wachama-hoosit that can simultaneously take pictures, and send them to the internet and call you all at the same time. my point is now i don't have to dig my scanner out of the pile of paper scraps paint tubes and pens that is my desk. also i can do it at work. so all seven of you dedicated followers can just get ready to hang on to your toupees cause its about to get all artsy up in this bitch.

i am still alive i promise!!!!!!! now that i look at the date it has been way too ridiculously long since i've posted anything. but it doesn't feel like it. i got a job at UTRECHT art supplies in DC and that eats up just about all of my day. EVERY DAY. but i still find time for art. but not for sleeping. never sleeping. for instance, now. its 3:00 in the morning and i should be sleeping and packing for New Orleans but here i am doing art related stuff. sheesh! anyway. . . not only have i kept up with the exterior art but i have taken up oil painting as well and lots of pencil drawings and life drawing sessions and acrylic paintings and sketch sniping people... so much art has happened this summer. to be honest i'm surprised, i thought that i would have a hard time keeping myself working on art but here i am. i'll scan in stuff and start this thing back up real soon. i promise!!!!! (for my hardcore base of followers that still check this thing religiously even though i havent posted in 3 months.)

oh by the way the pic is a margarita mix label that i just finished tonight for Wilder Bros. Craft Margarita Mix. They are the Jack Daniels of Margaritas. Or thats what they told me they wanted to look like anyway.

So it has been a while since my last post and i figured i should share my recent goings on. I have not stopped art-ing in my break from school. i have been drawing and painting just about everyday and i have taken up the profession of Non-Commissioned Exterior Decorator*.

(*That is not an admission of guilt to any future vandalism charges.)

There are a bunch of these that i don't have pictures of yet but these are some of the important ones. I will be photographing the others shortly. You may also notice the spiffy new layout of the blog, i was getting tired of all the interesting and vibrant colors so i switched to a dark grey. by the way for the three of you that will probably ever read this that was sarcasm.

The last painting is courtesy of Gadzooks.

some day i will get a better picture of the one on the top of the dinosaur breathing fire on the robot. that one was a collaborative effort with a cybernetic luchador compadre of mine.

I just graduated from college!!!!! but this is not the end! no more student work but im in the biz now!

here is an update on the one of the pigeon . . . and the sleeping guy. it is about half way painted but you get the idea. or you will once i paint the pigeon . . .

i ended up going with the one where they are rocking out to congress. that's theo roosevelt on the banjo A-Jax on the tables and G' Wash is going to be crowd surfing with a base guitar once i draw him. im going to go with the blue color scheme *see post below there are a few things missing, like andrew jackson's neck for example, but i'll get to painting it soon enough.

here is a quick color comp for the t-shirt i am going to make as a leave behind item for my self promo prof. i asked him what his favorite food is and he said it was eel sushi. so here it is in all of its majesty. better known as unagi domini. still trying to decide whether i should make the eel the orangy color it is after being cooked or to have it green. also i may or may not add other smaller sushi(s) below it in their own rice mandorlas. oh and the more orangey yellow is actually going to be gold paint like a proper byzantine mosaic.