The Old Dusty Trail, and Hitting It.

Hey there Everyone, I haven't been posting as much as I'd like in this past week or so but I think I've been making quite a bit of progress in that time.  I've found a bit more direction with regards to the sort of style I'd like to pursue in my more illustrative work, huzzah!  And with that jubilant declaration I present to you my most recent Illustration Friday submission, meet Dusty (the only man who could ever reach her, was the son of a preacher man, yes he was).

I'm really happy with how this turned out, and moreover I am very excited about what it holds for my future work.  While working on Dusty here I reaffirmed why the idea of flats is such a good one, particularly when you use them correctly!  I'm not gonna get into what I was doing incorrectly just yet, but I might in a follow-up process post.  I also found more insight into how it is exactly I want to use secondary and tertiary layers of texture to bring a more conclusive/cohesive appearance to my finals.  ALSO I think that I've finally spent enough time familiarizing myself with Photoshop that it's becoming much more of a genuine aide rather than a frustrating intern who never shows up on time and you suspect is stealing all of the red paperclips (which are, of course, your favorites).

Honestly the biggest irritation I have with this piece is the drawing itself.  It was a bit rushed and I could have definitely considered it more fully.  However, because these are due within a week of the subject being announced I needed to cut corners a bit somewhere, sorry draftsmanship.  SO for the next projects I will be taking a long hard look at the actual drawing itself, the color relationships, and a bit more preliminary planning, whew!  

Also, this piece is dedicated to my good friend Karl LaBarbara, who recently moved from the Philadelphia area to San Antonio, Texas (turns out dedications make people sound deceased, I promise he's not).  Good luck hitting the Ol' Dusty buddy, here's hoping it doesn't hit back.

Tune in sometime later in the week for some sketches or something!  Who knows?!  Thanks for stopping in, and happy viewing!

Illustration Friday: Resolutions

This piece was done in response to the IF prompt "Resolutions."  Fitting that a prompt regarding resolutions should help me on the way fulfilling one of my own: DRAW MORE.  I did a lot of playing around with this one, especially in the drawing and the textural bubbles.  Both of those techniques will probably find their way into my more final style, but definitely with a lot more clarification and technical direction.  I'm also going to be exploring a "less is more" mentality a bit, we'll see where it gets me.

I will also be finishing up a number of gifts that didn't quite get wrapped up in time for the holidays so expect to see a couple pieces within the next week or so.  Thanks for stopping in and taking a look at the work, follow me if you wish and as always, happy viewing!

I Also Submitted Another T-Shirt Design...Months Ago.

So here is another design that I submitted to Threadless for review as part of their 10.10.10 competition, THAT MEANS IT WAS LAST YEAR!  Anyway, I'm still waiting to see the results for the competition, so who knows, maybe she's a winner.  Regardless, I'm happy with the way things turned out, particularly the type.

 And if for whatever reason you wanted to see the design on Threadless itself, you can do that here:

Yeah more frequent posting!  One more for tonight and then I'll be out of the interweb's hair for a while.  Thanks again for stopping in, I hope you enjoyed yourself!

Dear Blog, I'm sorry for neglecting you. Love, John (Your Benevolent Creator).

So it's been quite a while since I posted anything of note on here, and I wish I had a better reason for it than I do.  Frankly, I haven't had the urge to do so.  I've been wrestling a bit with what type of style to pursue for my illustrative work and that uncertainty hindered my creative progress pretty substantially.  I also took up recent employment at an Art Supply store near my home in PA and what with getting used to the job itself and coping with the busier schedule of the holidays I just plum haven't had the energy to keep up the pace I started during the summer.  But now I feel my creative juices flowing a bit more and I've resolved myself to draw a lot more during this coming year.  SO hopefully that means more posts, with hopefully being the operative.

I've accomplished a couple goals my blabsence (that is to say, my absence from blogging), first and foremost of which is create a tentative website with the tremendous help of my good friend and collaborator Jake Hiller, or Jay Killah as he is known in certain circles.  You can find Master Hiller's portfolio here and follow his tumblr here.


AND YOU CAN FIND MY WEBSITE HERE, check it out if ya like.

I'm basically looking to pin down a concrete style and begin making pieces in that style within the month.

As I mentioned earlier I'm going to be doing more drawing, which means more sketching, which is going to mean more sketch posts.  In the spirit of those intentions, here is a drawing, it is of a monkey.  Enjoy, and thanks for sticking around in my absence.  Happy Viewing!

P.S.  Expect a rash of posts to compensate for the past few months.