Concept for my next book

I've self published two books and have an idea for a third. Over the past couple of years when I work with my students I mostly use blue pencil and black line. It's kind of a traditional medium in animation. The use of blue pencil goes way back. I've been doing enough of these sketches to easily put together a third book which I'd like to title "Black and Blue". Here's the latest example. The blue line is topped of with ball point pen...

I'd like to launch a small Kickstarter campaign to pre-sell the book and and see how it goes. It'll give me a chance to check out crowdfunding and get some experience with it as marketing resource. There's a large inventory of images for Black and Blue ready to go. I'd like to mention that I have plenty of recent Crash blue / black drawings that I could include as well. 

Your feedback is welcome. Let me know what you think. Thanks and remember to keep creating till you're you know what.

Artshark returns

I enjoy drawing my own characters and one of them is the legendary Artshark mascot who made his mark on the cover of the schedules I sent out in the first few years of my school. I recently began circulating a newsletter to our email list and thought this would be a good time to bring him around again.

Here's how Artshark looked on the heading of the newsletter...

And here's Artshark on his own in the final illustration...

Let's go backwards and see where this came from. Here's the line clean up done in Photoshop by hand with a little Bamboo tablet...

And in the beginning...

Creaturish concept painting

Sometimes when I get art together that's been lying around for a while I think better of it then upon its creation. That's the case with this ol' sport from April 26 2012. A month before I revved up the blog. It's from a class demonstration using acrylics on punched 2 ply Strathmore paper. The paper is antique. Who knows how old but it did pretty good holding up to the pigment. This was fun.

Sometimes girls can be dangerous

I found these drawings while organizing art I created in class over the past couple of years. I drew them in April 2012 the month before I started the blog. They were faintly sketched so I finished them with a stronger line and here we are.

Still another girl head doodle

Further exploration along this theme from an idea I had the other day...

Yet another girl head doodle

Here's the latest image along the thematic line of what I've been sketching lately...

Different versions of Crash

One of the things that makes Crash Bandicoot an interesting character is in the varying ways in which his design can be altered. It's one of the unanticipated aspects of his look that has fostered different approaches to his appearance and something I like to experiment with on occasion.

Here's an example. I sketched these concepts last evening for some drawing practice. I used a straight ahead drawing method I call free form which utilizes a non-erasable medium such as a simple ball point pen. This is what I came up with...

Another girl head doodle

Following along the theme of my last post here's something I sketched this evening while in the company of a friend. Blue pencil and black line ball point pen on 11" x 17" paper. This is good practice on several levels. Glad to have a little time cleared out for coming up with some art. Hope you enjoy it and are perhaps creatively inspired.

Girl head doodles

Thank you everyone for all your visits to my blog. There is hardly a time of day when someone isn't accessing a page somewhere. I'm grateful for the attention you're giving my art. I ended 2014 and started 2015 with these doodles that I got into. The first with a few students and the second while hanging out with a friend. They were both initiated with blue pencil and finished with black ball point pen. I like the idea of using hair as an element for graphics and I may follow up with the theme in days ahead. I hope you have a fun and positive year to look forward to.