Cover Me Shakespeare

Little Mermaid

2011-06-05T06:48:00.000-07:00

Limited Edition Stickers!

2011-06-04T18:08:00.000-07:00

I've just brought home a batch of Red and Wolf(see image below) stickers from the printer. Want one? Contact me privately (as in, not in the comments below, use email or something) with your mailing address and I will send you one! I promise not to keep your address, add it to my mailing list or anything else. I'll just use it on the envelope, then away it goes.

Oh, and should you see one of my stickers somewhere, say, in a public place, you might take a picture and send it to me...

Latest art

2011-05-29T13:25:00.000-07:00

Drawing-a-day isn't going so well. Day job gets in the way, at the very least because who has time to come home, scan a picture, clean it up and still have the energy to blog it around here and there? Not me. I'm trying hard to make up for it on the weekend. So here is what I expect will be the last image for a few days at least. Somewhere between Twelve Dancing Princesses and Childe Rowland, this is a scene from a non-existant fairytale. An excuse to draw lots of people in silly animal masks. It is, of course, also posted here: http://angeldevilland.deviantart.com/#/d3hjbxj

I've left the color off this one. Because I like it in monotone, but also because the next step is going to be working in a large format with non digital color color. Wouldn't that be fun? Or possibly maddening -- all those dots!

Red and Wolf

2011-05-28T11:18:00.000-07:00

Still playing with my light table and stippling. Wishing now I had a large glass desk or even a picture window so I could do some serious pieces with oversized paper. I have ideas for putting color into the images before scanning, but I think I need a sizable canvas to do it with. In the mean time, I'm considering experimenting with silkscreening these once I get something that resembles free time again.

Drawing Progress

2011-05-23T07:13:00.001-07:00

So, this started out as a rough pencil sketch. Then I tossed it onto my light box and inked over it, fairly standard. Most of the details and the background were done freehand with a pen. On a lark, after stippling on the line art version, I went back to the light box to see what it would look like if I just stippled and used no lines. The results were interesting enough that I've made an animated image to show the progression. Next step is color...

(click the image to watch the progression)

Drawing-not-quite-per-day

2011-05-09T16:26:00.000-07:00

Drawing-not-quite-per-day

2011-05-07T16:25:00.001-07:00

Due to factors beyond my control...

2011-05-02T18:04:00.000-07:00

I'll return to sketch a day when all the drama cools down. Until then, a Facebook post lead me to search Paul Williams (my hero!) and Muppets (my first love!) -- the results are as follows:

http://youtu.be/31guvXTYT9Q

Welcome to the limited TV viewing of my childhood.

In memoriam

2011-04-30T15:44:00.000-07:00

I had a less-than-usual relationship with my grandfather. He was an academic painter and artist with high standards and I was the only other artist in the family. The art we created could not have been less similar, but he took me on as a student like-it -or-not on both our parts. As I grew older, he became less critical of my work, but his judgment was always a driving force in my career -- I wanted to create something that would impress him. I wanted to be the sort of artist he could be proud of. He died Wednesday morning without me ever having brought him that one thing I knew he would praise. But, his death isn’t about my art, it’s about him.

As I grew older and he did too, I found it hard to communicate with him in any meaningful way except through art. We had a gap of fifty eight years between us and all the uncomfortable family baggage that goes with it. But art is pure and does not require an exchange of words. He was good at that. While he chose classical subjects for his focus -- portraits, landscapes -- and focused on technique rather than emotion, there is emotion still in those lonely farmland scenes, punctuated by a tiny figure, a marooned sailor in the wheat. Not to make mention of the portrait that hung in the living room if his house, over the sofa -- an intimidating thing to have looming over me as a young artist. A portrait of his daughter with a small dog on her lap -- quite and composed, but breathing out an otherworldly glow. Strange, because in some ways his painting often felt like a product of his younger day -- a taste of the nineteen forties and early fifties in his color pallet, his use of lines. A difficult esthetic to create beauty in. He did, though. I remember wanting him to paint me the way he painted that portrait of Alice, the only time I’ve ever wanted to be the subject of art rather than the creator.

As an adult and no longer his student, he sometimes talked about his other art, the sculptures he did before he decided painting would be his lone focus. In one corner of his cold studio was the serene bust of Abe, a man I’d never met, but even if I had, the sculpture seemed more alive than any person could have been. Like a secret, my Grandfather explained his planned sculpture of Adam and Eve under the tree, showing me the partially finished Eve -- the rest only existing in his head. Eve holds the apple in her hand, her mouth open in surprise. He face holds not fear, not the misery to come, but a split second where everything makes sense. He captured it perfectly. I don’t believe he was a religious man, but simply saw an opportunity to show an emotion, a scene, and ran with it. Echoed again, in an ink and wash illustration of Don Quixote, a slumped old man on an angular horse. Classical subjects, sure, but each with a life of their own.

At thirty six, I have still accomplished little in life, much less as an artist. He may have felt this way from time to time himself, though he chose to be a father, a teacher, as his first priority and found success in that. I’m sure it stung him, as it stings me. He leaves behind a body of work seen by few enough, but I doubt anyone who has seen his work has been immune to its touch.

Good bye, Graham Burmeister.

Sketch a Day (again and again)

2011-04-27T10:36:00.000-07:00

I watched Nochnoy Dozor(http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0403358/) again. I think this was meant to be Kostya and Anton. I am guilty of the occasional fan art. More nearly dried out Pitt brush pens.

Sketch a Day (again)

2011-04-26T10:34:00.000-07:00

Day two of a sketch a day. Some girl in a dress, and me using up my poor, dried out Pitt brush pens.

Sketch a Day

2011-04-25T10:27:00.000-07:00

I'm already going to fail at this, because I have a harrowing work week ahead. But here we go, a sketch a day for as long as I can manage it. Maybe some of them will get stories, too. Maybe some will not need stories.

Day tripping

2011-03-13T16:14:00.000-07:00

Today took me north along the Hudson to the "Gold Coast" area of New Jersey. That means lots of Korean and Japanese businesses. First off, I found myself with a few minutes to spare and made use of my rolling office (a 2009 Scion xb).
If you look closely, you can spy my ipod (Playing Young Knives, I think), my Macbookpro with a manuscript in the editing stage (complete with margin notes) and the ever-present Japanese coffee. I think I like canned coffee better than fresh, even, and the BOSS CAFE LATTE is just about the best one yet.

Next up, my pastry haul:
ROYAL PUDDING (which is creme caramel or flan):

An assortment of sweets from FUGETSU-DO:

Some other thing I found at Mitsuwa Market:

Not a bad for a working sunday.

Art break

2011-03-11T10:08:00.001-08:00

I have work to do. Loads of it. So of course, I'm playing instead. I started this sculpture a while ago, maybe a month? More I guess, and then I didn't finish it. I like it though, and pick it up every now and again and sand it a little or draw eyes on it with colored pencils. I used to only want to sculpt things that had moving parts, but lately I've become really taken by simple sculpts, all one smooth piece. Strange.

Outpost

2011-03-10T18:46:00.000-08:00

I can hear water dripping in from the storm, smell it also. Not sure where, though. Really hoping it's not soaking my books -- I keep all my bound trades - comics, over by the window where I can get to them when I want them and right now, looking over there, I'm wondering if I should reread my RASL collection so I can figure out where I am in the series and order whatever books I missed since I last went through a buying binge.

Recently my rampant consumerism has been all about films (job related, after all) and novels (ditto). Last art-related book I bought was an out of print copy of The Art of Okami (yes, the video game). But as I near what I imagine to be an end point in my current writing project, I have been telling myself it is time for another try at all long-form comic. Or a bunch of shorts that tie together. Really itching to do some serious drawing soon. Or play video games. Or read comics. Missing them, all three.

Wow the rain is coming down. Nothing quite like the Hudson River in March.

Sparknotes Othello Video

2010-05-29T18:24:00.000-07:00

Sparknotes Hamlet

2010-02-07T14:43:00.000-08:00

New project:

2010-01-30T22:22:00.000-08:00

Untitled Project (The Dead Man):
Concept art

Reya sketch by *angeldevilland on deviant ART