P.Hos' Art

"Mom! Look! It's Santa, mom!"

2011-12-04T12:16:00.000-08:00

So my X-mas cards are almost ready to go out. Anyone who isn't in the publishing industry who might want one ought to contact me about that.

Fictional Stories of Real People

2011-10-30T09:01:00.000-07:00

Sascha here is a Russian immigrant. Her father is ex-KGB and has only one arm. She studies political science in the hopes of one day reaching an office where she can possibly gain proximity to -- and thereby exact revenge upon -- the man who severed her father's arm: Joseph Biden.

Amelie here has successfully hacked into the NORAD missile system five times. On two separate occasions she has remotely launched experimental warheads over New Mexico. Amelie is the leading cause of UFO sightings in the United States. The government disavows any knowledge of her existence.

Fenwick has taken guff for the past 23 years over his foppish name. A lifetime of verbal abuse has left him alternately sheepish and charming and psychotically violent. During those times, he locks himself in his room and tells his friends he is a werewolf.

Edward is known as "Radical Edward" in his Computer Sciences study group. Since he is not a fan of Japanese animation (ironically, since he's the only Japanese in the class) he has no idea that "Radical Edward" is a character from a popular anime show. The character is also a girl.

Boston has seen more in his lifetime than most kids will see in their lives, all combined together "like a big ball of soap flakes" as he put it. In his time, he has punched the following things: fourteen kids, a bear, two naked women who had pulled guns on him, a werewolf, a brick wall, many hippies, an experimental warhead, and Joe Biden.

Scary Stories

2011-10-30T08:47:00.000-07:00

Fairly straightforward. A man telling stories to kids around a campfire. He has a scary face. But is he the scarer or the scaree?

Leftnecks

2011-10-20T20:05:00.000-07:00

This is for the Utne Reader. A very compelling and heartwrenching tale of people with liberal ideologies who are forced to vote Republican because they are also NRA members. It brings tears to my eyes to think of it... No! Look away! I don't want you to see me cry!

Occupy Charlottesville! Moreso!

2011-10-19T20:46:00.000-07:00

A picture I drew of the Occupy Charlottesville crowd, at one of their marathon meetings. I love 'em, but I left right after I finished this. I hate parliamentary procedure.

Odds and more odds

2011-10-02T14:58:00.001-07:00

This time around, since it's been a while since my last post, and because it's grey outside, no matter how many programs want me to spell t "gray", and because I feel like it, allow me to immerse you in the warm bubbly glow of my pseudo-intellectual, pretentious musings on the true nature of each piece here within, the sum total of which I might have spent an afternoon on.

Four animals of the Savanna, posing together unnaturally. The lion, king of the animals, looks into the distance, gauging the future of his people, but he cannot contain his basic instincts for personal comfort food. The hyena, physically smaller and meaner, but in reality a much more noble beast than the lion, looks at the viewer unsmilingly, challenging our views of traditional mores and norms, and thinks longingly of corn. If only she were capable of eating such a much more basic food, how her clutch could expand! The bird, normally ignored by larger animals as it picks mites and parasites off of their back, works unceasingly and unfailingly without ever betraying the slightest resentment at its lot in life, but it yearns for conquest and glory which can never be his. The tsetse fly, meanest and most insignificant of all, can cause massive damage to any of the denizens of the savanna, and thinks of sex. Brutal and cruel, it cares not for anyone but itself. Villages and tribes lie in ruins while it buzzes blithely on its way to its next pleasure.

Four men. One has died, and while anther one stares at the corpse in disbelief, the other two celebrate without a hint of regret. They are rich and sexually intimate with a number of women. Material gains stave off thoughts of the grave. There will be no mourning for the dead man.

The old dare not face the young, lest they see what they have been, and in seeing, feel loss and regret for chances missed. Already, the old begins to fade into wisps while the young, bold and vibrant, asserts her rightful place. Beyond each of them, a cap.It will not fit the young anymore, and the old will not wear it out of vanity. It belongs to someone else. A connector, perhaps, between the age divide, one who could unite them for the common good? Alas, he is long gone, if he ever existed.

Two girls talk. Or do they? The divide between them, unnatural to begin with, is accentuated by a stark black line. Though they pretend at intimacy, they are merely shells with designer sunglasses, each speaking blindly to an audience of one, or point one. The other pretends to care, perhaps even desires to, but the all-consuming, turgid, black maw of her soul destroys all feeling, leaving her only with petty grievances and shallow victories, compounded by the equally vapid doings of her conspirator. They wear them like a varnish, beautifully.

An old man gazes into the distance, pondering the meanings of actions and occurrences long past, possibly involving unicorns, while two well-meaning strangers engage in the primitive ritual of conversation not two paces away from him. Their colors fade into each other and reverse, suggesting hidden connections, possibly sexual between all of them. The woman, caught between the future as presented to her, and the future she dare not look at, hints at regret to come. She will devour them both.

a Troubadour moans plaintively about forgotten stories he has since remembered, while strumming a happy tune. His attempts at gaiety and preening before the invisible audience cannot conceal the sadness and chemical imbalances within his pit of righteous despair. He grows to fill the canvas, but can grow no further. He is at his peak, and must strain with Herculean might to stay even at that modest altitude of success. The model of his guitar suggests he will ultimately fail. Only pauper's jail awaits him.

A frentic totem pole to those consumed with obsession. Even as the top most personalities begin to quiver and shake, paranoid about their own fleeting appearances and money, the bottom-most totem busies himself with the basest of material concerns. Though bespectacled, he has lost his eyes. No matter, his path is set, and he will move on it at a steady pace until the road is no longer clear. Then he will be lost. As will us all.
A surrealist portrait of two dogs. One maintains her innocence and wonder about the world, and thus, stays small, puppy-like, and a healthy purple. The other, having decided the world was a feast for it's sensual appeasement alone, has lost its puppyish exterior and become something much more grotesque, and green. The bad doggy is no longer a doggy, but what is it? Both dogs wear collars, though the bad dog's has become loose, symbolic if its morals.

A female thinker, her hair, a royal purple waterfall of toxic chemicals, wonders silently at the meaning of her own glasses. Can she truly see without them? Can she truly see with them? Heavenly light washes over her, showing her the way, but she is blinded by its brilliance, and will neither solve her own glasses, nor anything else. The way of the thinker leads to decrepitude and baldness.

An unnamed bartender shirks her duties in a bar for the most part invisible. She is blind and deaf to the thirsty moans of her customers, for she has fallen in love. Not with a man, but with the idea of man, a lust so raw and luscious it has burned her to a cinder, and the rest of her world to white ash. The denizens of the bar will die there, become skeletons, and then dust waiting for the service of a woman who has loved them more than they could possibly comprehend, without their heads exploding. This is a picture of the best of all possible worlds.

Holy Terror

2011-09-08T16:28:00.001-07:00

It's the name of an upcoming, ridiculously over-the-top comic book by "grim'n'gritty" artist Frank Miller, and also the name of my blog post. Read the adjoining article here, at Bethesda magazine.

Non-napkin-ites

2011-08-27T14:59:00.001-07:00

Kids aren't always cute. Some are butt-ugly. I wish he'd stayed still longer, so I could capture his ugliness more completely. Wow.

Slavic guy wearing metal shoes. Not in real life, but in here. "Internet magical fantasy world." The barista is also cute. You have to work hard to not be a cute barista. Even the guys.

An important lesson in making sure the page is large enough for the drawing.

Will the napkins never cease?

2011-08-21T20:41:00.000-07:00

Space background for space girl with space haircut.

Quite possibly the coolest way to stand while waiting for coffee.

Baristas can do this sort of thing.

So can bakers. (Actually a pizza maker.)

About two hundred miles eat of where he'd look most comfortable. so I put him back.

The floaty-est clothing imaginable on quite the opposite.

If Abe Lincoln and Hugh Laurie mixed genes... Honest House.

Silicon Valley destroyer of worlds.

Back-lit belle.

Waiting for an open chess table and ignoring me.

Neckless in life and napkin.

No earbuds, for sure.

Possibly an english teacher, or a wizard.

If I only drew people without laptops, I would not be able to draw very many people at all.

violent and bloody uprising of the napkin folk

2011-08-06T18:43:00.001-07:00

Jeez, I've got a lot of these. And so far no repeats. A lot of people slide in and out of the Mudhouse.

Assault and Battery of the Napkin folk

2011-08-01T16:04:00.000-07:00

More napkin folks

2011-07-29T14:49:00.000-07:00

Some point in scanning this series, I passed 100 pages. I've drawn far more than that, though. The third and fourth girls are the same person, but her hair made absolutely perfect shapes.

Attack of the napkin folk

2011-07-25T14:39:00.000-07:00

After a short delay, I give you more people from the Mudhouse, now on napkins. This is what happens when I forget my paper. There are about 60 of these.

Sleep

2011-05-31T18:47:00.000-07:00

I recolored this recently. It's from an issue of the South magazine I was in.

Soaked

2011-05-22T16:46:00.001-07:00

I was wearing a Hawai'ian shirt the other day and just felt tacky. Good tacky. Topless mermaid tacky. I decided this takes place in Northern California, though originally, I had been thinking of Maine, and even had a lobster trap tied up near the shore. Blue, green, and grey seem to make everything look wetter, don't they?

This one goes out to Norman Rockwell and his "Fair Catch," and the brisk trade the Atlantean Victoria's Secret apparently does in Disney movies.

It's been (two) weeks...

2011-05-22T15:54:00.001-07:00

After a week's hiatus, during which I drew, but did not post, I return.

The first page actually is from last week. We see here from left to right and top to bottom, a few women standing in line for their expensive fancy foreign-sounding coffee drinks, an off-duty employee, a reader, an attempt to draw with my left hand, and one of the most shockingly beautiful people I have ever met. She looked like how movie stars look in magazines after photoshop, so of course, I went and made her look all nutty and caricatured. Everyone's the same on paper.

And today, sitting outside on the mall, I notice that the view would make an excellent panorama, and that most everyone was involved enough in what they were doing to stick around for that sort of thing. Exceptions: the third fellow got a female companion (not shown), the fourth guy decided to read a book after I drew him, and got up and left as I was coloring him, and the girl cluster grew by at least one more person, and then diminished by two as time went on. You'll notice that the girl on the left is the same off-duty employee who is on the above page.I admire her consistency for hanging out in the same place she works.

And then I went to Monticello, seeing as how it's only 3 miles away from my house and I know one of the tour guides (thanks, Katy) who promised me a secret tour of Jefferson's rec room (what that dome actually is) and administrative offices, and who's leaving for college next week, so my window of opportunity was limited. I brought lunch; a tomato sandwich, pretzels, cheez dip, and ginger ale, read the newspaper (comics), took my socks off and drew this. I snagged a few spring onions and parsley leaves from the horribly unkempt garden, ate a Jefferson snap pea off the vine, wondered about the nonexistence of the Jefferson hemp plantation, and came home at closing.

The day after the Rapture was always going to be a good one.

Blockhead

2011-05-20T17:13:00.001-07:00

Jon Stewart is right. He does look like a real person.

Bizarre Tea

2011-05-08T13:08:00.001-07:00

Well, slightly different strategies this time around. These first two were done, not in the Mudhouse, but in th Twisted Tea Bazaar, in the Hookah room, while sitting next to a gorilla and wearing watermelons on my feet. Actually, those last two are lies; everyone knows shoes go on you feet.

Right, I was very excited to do this particular portrait since Kara (yes, see, that's her name) actually had blue hair that matched my blue paint. Since the rest of her didn't match any paint I had, blue goes it.

On the next page is Ali, who I drew next because she seemed to be the most conscious that I was drawing people (except for the guy with the huge nose who noticed my sketchbook and ran away; smart fellow). You just can't ignore that, even though the other girl I was sitting with had feathers adhered to her hair, and the guys were both making the most hilarious faces.

And then I went back to the Mudhouse on Sunday, the day after the Tea Bazaar drawings. These are usual-style sketches, which I honestly don't have that much to say about anymore.

I've noticed a tendency I have to allow people hair to get away from them.

He was Indian, she looked less like Lady Gaga than pictured here.

Lessons

2011-05-03T16:15:00.001-07:00

This piece showed up in the Utne reader a few months ago. By the way, that's Socrates. Look it up!

Baristas

2011-05-01T12:00:00.000-07:00

I wasn't entirely sure if I'd be drawing today. I'm getting kind of bored with it. Going, drawing, leaving. Same thing every time. I only did one page this time, of the baristas on the other side of the room, serving people who constantly got in my line of sight.

This is going to go up on the Mudhouse wall, even if I have to tape it there myself. But I'm showing it to you internet people first.

Cold as Ice

2011-04-28T15:47:00.000-07:00

I got roped into doing another illustration of polar bears. This time for the Utne Reader. The article is a dramatic 12-page investigative cover story about who was really behind 9-11.

No, not really. You have to read the magazine to find how how big of a lie I've told you this time.

Not in church on Easter

2011-04-24T13:46:00.000-07:00

Given the marvelous weather, I sat outside today and drew the sitting people. I give them to you free of comment, to give you the rare chance to come up with your own little stories for them.

Now on Bookface!

2011-04-21T20:23:00.000-07:00

PhosArt is now a facebook page, which you are free to like, or to love, or have a weird, clingy stalker relationship with.

Happy Earth Day!

2011-04-21T16:21:00.000-07:00

To celebrate Earth Day, I thought I'd repost this festive all-ages comic, to remind ourselves what the real reason for the season is.

Journey

2011-04-18T19:59:00.000-07:00

I did this a few years ago for a thank you card, I think. This bear is either going for an adventurepicnic or stealing and ruining someone else's picnic, in which case that little smile becomes incredibly sinister.

To Bean or not to Bean?

2011-04-11T17:01:00.000-07:00

This week's theme, as much as I have a theme, is "Use up all my Payne's gray." I do believe I succeeded.

So I started out thinking of sumi-e painting, and the economy of line. I figured I'd do a little of that, and immediately broke that rule, adding whole bunches of little lines in an attempt to fulfill another little goal of drawing more of the people. Looking at this, I wonder how I'd do with a marker. I'd try it, but can't find one that doesn't bleed like a stuck pig.

Two regulars, and a guy who just came in from church and didn't sit down. I drew his reflection in a mirror as he stood in line to get something that sounds French/Italian.

This bloke here, whose hair I admire, was talking to the girl whom I never seem to be able to draw from the front. He quickly went back to reading his book and shifting his right hand all over the Goddamn place.

Having grown tired of drawing regular people in a humanistic way (this is called deadpan), I attempt caricature and fail miserably, even with a few of the most caricature-able people on the planet sitting across the way from me. I am shockingly pleased at how well I was able to give individuality to an attractive woman, something that is usually hard to do. Pretty girls tend to all look the same (insert joke about how they especially look the same when you aren't looking at their face, etc.)

And despite the fact that it was only noon, I grew tired with this mortal coil, and started to freak out and see thought bubbles over people's heads. The small child was particularly interested in engaging me in a staring contest, and I'm sure he could have induced a seizure in me if I hadn't torn my gaze away at the last moment. On the top left is primary reason I don't draw baristas.

Bottled

2011-04-09T20:48:00.001-07:00

Not sure how all my bartender friends are doing, but this is for you. It's an old piece, but not as old as my bartender friends.

Egad, is that absinthe?

Flamenco

2011-04-06T20:15:00.000-07:00

I felt like doing something cheesy and outrageously saturated with color.

Back to moleskine

2011-04-03T14:17:00.000-07:00

I don't know why the notebook is called a moleskine. I imagine they were originally made of the skin of moles, and the producers added an "e" to the end to avoid the ire of PETA. Suffice to say, my reasons for turning to the moleskine were entirely practical: I had to go shopping afterward, and the moleskine is about 2 pounds lighter than my other sketchbook.

We start off with a blonde. She was not a happy blonde, but she wasn't as sad as I portray her here. On this scale, being off by a millimeter can mean the difference between someone smiling over a muffin, and someone smiling over baby rape.

This guy was not as badass as he looks here. But he was as nerdy.

Turning my head 90 degrees, I saw these people. One was reading a book/texting/tilting her head to allow her hair to flop around, solely to allow her the chance to run her hands through it and pull it back in a completely different style, and the other was sitting ramrod stright/staring vaguely into space/frowning/thinking about 'Nam/lunch/inappropriate use of slashes.

And we end the tour with this comic-style drawing of a very, very respectable looking woman who became less so when she turned her head. Faces are weird like that. Another woman ordering mochaventilatteccino walked by at some point expressing interest in my water pen, which you will never see here because it moves to much to draw.

Friends Who are Cold

2011-03-27T13:55:00.001-07:00

If there's a theme to the sketches this week, it's: "What the hell?! It's snowing?! Two weeks ago I was playing frisbee on the mall with no pants on! This requires coffee." I gurantee something like that was running through everyone at the Mudhouse's mind at some point this morning. So you get another bunch of people wearing sweatshirts and scarves.

All right. I like to start off by loosening up, like an Olympic runner, or a green rubber band. That's why the fellow on top has a head shaped like malformed croissant. The bottom show my fourth (?) unsuccessful attempt to draw this woman. Seriously, I got this far, then a girl with really big hair comes and sits in front of her, and then she leaves. Do you see?! Do you see what happens when you leave!?

In between not finishing people, I did these people, the top two being lit most magnificently from their laptops. Aware of my sliding hand during the drawing process, I'm just going to go ahead and say that the woman looks "Picasso-esque". The Beard (that's his name now: Beard) has devoted his entire life to displaying his powers of lustrous hair growth to the world. Even his eyelashes blew around when someone opened the door. Clearly, he was a wizard, so I put sparkles around him.

And our last batch of folks here represents characters from places as far away about seven yards from me. One thing about it being cold is that a lot of people who would otherwise have gotten their coffee to go and drank it while riding wild stallions up sheer cliff faces suddenly found themselves exchanging blows and razor cuts over the few empty seats in the Mudhouse. I got my seat by tripping two nuns, a pregnant woman, and a legless orphan. The smug looking guy on top looks that way because he got a table all to himself, near an outlet for his laptop too. The girl, who name is apparently Rose, as overheard through an introduction by her sister to a fellow with glasses and a suit, who, let's safely assume, works at UVA. Now at that point, I was ready to go, but there was still an empty space at the bottom of the page, and a high school girl sat down at the empty seat at my table and we started talking about experiences drawing people in public, and hell, that guy wasn't moving too much, and he had a hat on, so why the hel not draw him, huh? He actually came over and complimented the likeness, which is cool, and I gave him a card. If he cares to identify himself in a message, well, that's cool, but I won't give him candy or anything.

Toy

2011-03-25T20:09:00.000-07:00

Shades of Harvey Kurtzman.

Outside, with butterflies and crap

2011-03-13T12:19:00.001-07:00

It was nice outside today, and since it's March, I had no reason to blame global warming. It's just Spring, y'know. That, and the fact that there were only three people inside the Mudhouse (including Daniel Day-Lewis/Eastwood, who had gotten a haircut, but that didn't warrant as interesting enough for me to stay inside when it was perfect outside.

Across the way, there was a guy across the street reading at a table outside the movie theater. He looked exactly like that guy from "It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia," which, replacing the city, is kind of fitting.

And more in celebrity look-a-likes, Ringo Starr, Martha Stewart, and possibly Jack Johnson. Jack and Ringo were talking about the book Jack was writing about urban engineering. And you thought he only played guitar. Oh, and Ringo actually had a real British accent.

Okay, so there aren't that many tables outside the Mudhouse. After Ringo, Jack, and Martha, there wasn't anyone else to draw. I traversed the downtown looking for other clusters of people sitting down, and found one outside the Nook Diner, which conveniently had non-restaurant seating right next to it. The purple lady had red hair, and like everyone else who was looking for an excuse to be downtown today, was reading. The bearded fellow was eating with his friends in the outside dining. One of them was planning a wedding.

At which point, I became bored and decided to just draw people's dogs instead. The hyper-looking lab belonged to a friend of the oval-faced guy. That lab was really excited about the arrival of Biscuit, the terrier. I forget what kind. The terrier got even more excited about the arrival of the Newfoundland, Godfrey, which is the perfect name for a bear. All dogs are drawn to scale.

Three Fat Pigs in the Middle of the Road

2011-03-12T20:56:00.000-08:00

New piece for The Utne Reader. Fabulous prizes if you can guess what the article is about without reading it.

A Dif' Caf' Shif'

2011-03-06T11:59:00.000-08:00

It was raining today, which left out biking. Being a stubborn goat, I walked, and got my feet thoroughly soaked. I didn't care, though, since for the entire 20 mintues from my house to Mudhouse, I had "Singing in the Rain" stuck in my head. If it weren't for the stachel of precious, precious watercolors on my shoulder, I do believe I would have eschewed the umbrella and splashed, Gene Kelly-style, all the way there.

This guy existed last week, which is good, since it would worry me if people were born looking like this. I decided today that he looked more like a craggy Daniel-Day Lewis/James Brolin than Eastwood or Bardem. I tried something new too, with a ballpoint pen, or the mention that my stuff sketching doesn't look like the swoopy, cartoony stuff that I usually draw. I knew that. The pen frees me up tremendously. Lines are cool.

There weren't too many people in the cafe today, because of the rain. But these folks were at the same table. The girl was interviewing the guy on Strathmore college. Or Swarthmore. Whichever one is in Philly. She wanted to know everything, from the tools in the engineering dept. to the phys. ed. requirements to the microwave situation in the dorms to which local acts (local to Philly) would play at the college. The guy kept up pretty well. To give you an idea of how long they went at it, I started after they started talking, and finished drawing an hour before they left.

It occurred to me around this point that while certainly my favorite caricaturists are guys like Steve Brodner and Gerald Scarfe, when I pick up a ballpoint pen, the results look more like Edward Sorel. The guy at the bottom moved before I could get to watercolor. His head was alot skinnier from the front.

This was, quite literally, the last person in the cafe that I could see. There was a couple behind me, but both their faces were obscured, and they were behind me. So I finished this guy, and left. On the way back, I stopped at the Market Street Market and bought a zucchini. Sarah, the girl I drew last week, left before I got there for an exciting career in massage therapy, and the fellow who replaced her was not as photogenic. Good luck, Sarah!

MOOSE!

2011-02-27T17:00:00.001-08:00

And then he went for a bike ride...

2011-02-27T15:35:00.001-08:00

After getting home from the cafe, I ate lunch, unfolded the newspaper, and became bored. It was a really, REALLY nice day outside, and it seemed a shame to spend it alone, inside. So I took a bike ride. I rode to the Market Street Market, bought a scone (which I didn't finish, but brought home; it was chocolate mint) and read the paper, in the little area they set up for people who buy deli sandwiches. I, a rebel through and through, ate a scone there. And then, since I had my equipment with me (I really thought I didn't) I started to draw.

Now, here's the difference between drawing in a market and drawing at a cafe. People in the market move very fast. Even the eating people were in and out in half an hour. The one person I could draw, and to be frank, wanted to draw, was the girl at the check-out (name unknown). I go to the market every Sunday to pick up groceries, and we have a nice little 30-second exchange about weather or whatever. It's a nice change of pace from the cafe, where everyone avoids eye contact. Of course, drawing her is a different experience. There are people moving through the store, wanting to buy stuff, so painting this was a little like a time-lapse photo. The customers just blow by; you can't even register them, and she stays in the same spot. I could rely on her being there in a few minutes even though at the moment she was blocked from view by an elderly lady pushing a basket.

At those moments, I ate scone.

Also, I finally got in some scenery, which is nonexistent in the cafe.

When I was nearly finished, she came over to see, seemed pleased by the results, and then I had to go.

The End.

NEW CAFE PRESS!

2011-02-27T14:55:00.000-08:00

HEY! New format. In an attempt to appear cooler, and just to shake stuff up, I used my moleskine watercolor sketchbook at the cafe today. This allowed me to used color, which it too hard to incorporate when using regular, ultra-absorbent sketch paper. Let's take a look at the results, shall we?

This guy, drawing him, all I could think was that this guy lookedlike a cross between Academy Award winner Javier Bardem and Benedicio Del Toro. He was writing something, but I don't think it was a screenplay. The other girl has appeared in the cafe before; I've drawn her before, and just like before, she chose a seat that obscured her face. By making her hair purple, (actually blonde) she instantaneously looked like Ramona Flowers from Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World.
I had with me four colors. Red, Blue, Purple, and Payne's grey. This girl seemed to know Javier Del Toro, nodded at him, and sat directly across from me, in exactly this pose, for hours. Yay! Other than leaning over and her hair getting in her eyes, I had all the time in the world, except when some guy sat between us, and I sort of had to bend around him to continue drawing. Oh, well. Success, all around here.

...which makes up for this poor guy. Almost the entire time, I listened to him talking to his friend about consulting and being let go soon. He's a lawyer, which has nothing to do with how horribly I drew him. I wanted to go up and apologize afterward. The girl was also there the entire time, but my success drawing that hairstyle varies incredibly. She was working on a laptop, and nowhere near as Chinese or old as she looks here.

Having grown tired with eye-searing pallets of reds and purples, I decide to go monotone. The half-girl on the left ended that pose before I could finish, and did not once go into it again. I drew a better picture of her on the next page. While waiting for her to resume the pose, I drew blue girl, who was reading an e-book. Fancy! I'm a little sorry I made her look so sad. She wasn't really. Maybe she just looks ghost-like and mysterious. That's cooler.

Well, okay. I went a little overboard here. The girl in the previous picture whom I failed to draw was Indian, and I do believe I made her look a little more exotic and dangerous than she was in real life. Really, she was just a college student discussing birds and learning patterns with some guy. The guy on the left was sitting by the window, and looked like he might be the kind of guy to punch me, so I drew him fast, then he got up and punched me. No, wait. He went outside to smoke. That's what he really did. The guy on the right, the Clint Eastwood with Javier Bardem's hair in that one movie, came in last, and lft just as quickly. Old people are the best to draw, because their faces are nothing BUT lines.

I had forgotten my watch, but at that point, my stomach was telling me it was time to go, so I went. It was nice out.

2011-02-20T12:29:00.000-08:00

Unfinished moose-themed postcard. Would be finished, but I left my ink at work.

I don't even like coffee

2011-02-20T11:56:00.000-08:00

I like milk and sugar that smell like coffee. That's worth $1.60 a week.

Exciting news! Remember that old man with the beard that I didn't have a chance to finish last week? Of course not. No one reads this blog, present company excluded. Point is, he came back, and I came early, giving me enough time for a second chance. Here he is in bearded glory. That wild bunch of squiggles in the back of his head is a pony tail. I good seat this time, with a nice view of a rotating group of mostly oblivious people siting against the wall. The guy (we'll call him "young Stephen King") was talking University stuff to the girl with the sun-glasses on page three. The girl with the non-pearl earring was studying the entire time. I have no idea who I'm going to draw when college let's out.

So young Stephen King leaves and a few minutes later, lady with TV news anchor hair shows up with a bunch of friend and sits with the girl he was sitting with. One of the rotten things about the water brush (it's a pen that you fill with water, and the nib is made of plastic bristles that the water flows out of. Instant watercolor paintbrush) is that it's very hard to control the darkness of the stroke. Anchor hair lady did not look exactly like what you see here, but thanks to teeny imperfections in line weight, it's nearly impossible for me to explain how. Here is my attempt, though: she wasn't wearing that much eye shadow. The girl on the bottom there was talking to two fellows. This is her pose when she was listening to the guy on her right. The scrunched guy I drew while he was in line, worked on while I couldn't see him, and finished when he sat down.

The guy on the top left was not wearing make-up. I blame the pen-brush again. Ah! Sunglasses girl. to be honest, I don't know that she was wearing sunglasses when I first saw her. She was the constant of my visit. Always there, but I didn't get around to drawing her until page three. Why? Because as a profile, she only needed to turn a half a degree to either side and all points of reference disappeared. Was her nose this long? That long? Shape of her lips? Can't tell. They moved. After anchor hair lady and her boyfriend left, a few more people sat down with her and they were talking about internships and foreign countries and Olympics and such. One of them saw me. I can tell because she walked behind me, sat down at their table, then everyone started whispering and making eye contact with me. I had already finished, and was drawing beard-hat, so I waved back. Diane Sawyer look-alike complimented me on her likeness as she left. Of course I did a good job on her. She was watching me too!

The dark-haired girl was studying. She had on a striped sweater, and a lot of the time, she was hunched over a book, and I wanted her face. So in between her lifting her head for a few seconds at a time, I drew blondie. The dark haired girl put on her jacket and left as I was finished her. I can honestly say I drew her up until she walked out the door. I need to start leaving my cards at the Mudhouse. I want more people to see this stuff.

Coffee sketches

2011-02-14T20:25:00.001-08:00

Let's start with the woman here, who looks like a hobbit. I mean that in the nicest possible way. She was short, and her massive coat made her look even shorter. She was reading some sort of book, which I'll guess was a novel, because it didn't look like a cookbook or a bible. She got along quite well with the dad of the kid on the second page. The thin, cropped guy here was boring, and too boring at that for me to remember even an hour after I had drawn him, much less two days. If you want people to remember you, folks, make an effort to at least look interesting.

Oh, hey, interesting people. Clock-wise from the top-right, there's the toddler, the hipster, the porn star, and the skinny pierced girl. We'll start with the kid. He had an actual story. Coming in with his mom and dad, he was gifted with a hot cocoa. THere must have been separate orders, or else the parents were ordering one of those ungodly complicated Italian coffee concoctions, because the dad was stuck sitting at the table with this kid, sucking away at his cocoa, waiting for his drink. Eventually, the dad asked if he could have some of his kid's cocoa. Answer: vigorous head shake. There are comments from the hobbit lady, during which the mom comes back with brown liquid caffeines for all, and utters the words on the page. Then they leave. I think, though, that that saying should be on a fortune cookie. In bed. The hipster is in fact a guy, but he had awesome, awesome hair. He and that kid could have given Justin Beiber a run for his money in a Hair-Off. That kid's hair was like a helmet. The porn star and the pierced girl, who I'll note now was of Indian descent, were at a table together, and I'll assume they were going out. It doesn't matter to me, but the point is that other than the kid, who was interesting by virtue of being maybe five and adorable for the time being, all of these people put a little effort into their appearance.

Confession will start now with the fact I was feeling under the weather on Sunday. I still biked out to the Mudhouse though. Wild Horses with laser guns on their head breathing lava couldn't stop me. This is my excuse, however, for slacking off on the first two drawing on this page. The blonde on top wasn't really that heavily made up, or that small compared to her hair, and the scruffy fellow is just sloppy, I'll admit. He had that "just woke up to another day in Queens" look that I tried to capture and then gave up on. Determined not to end the day on a sour note, I took it upon myself to do a really good job on his dame on the bottom there. They were playing some sort of custom card game, involving two decks and considerable strategy. She kept bending forward and getting her hair in the way of my pen.

Reverse

2011-02-08T17:55:00.000-08:00

Thought I'd try something different, since this is the exact opposite of what I get to do at work.

Moose Sketch

2011-02-07T19:56:00.000-08:00

I put this up for critique. I want it bloody perfect in final form. Incidentally, started some time before 10, finished at 11:00. Good time.

More Coffee sketches

2011-02-06T14:36:00.001-08:00

For some reason, the cafe was emptier this week. There was a greater proportion of women in too. Now, might this have something to do with the Superbowl? I don't know. It was 11 AM. Do people who usually drink coffee on Sunday morning also take entire days to prepare for TV sporting events ("It's not an event, it's the event!"). There were more cars than I usually see in the church parking lot. "Let's go, Steelers. Steelers, let's go. Amen."

Ignore the girl on top. These are sketchbook pages, whole and unedited. And I drew her last week. The woman on the bottom was reading children's books, and she had on a huge sweater. i assume she was a librarian or a pre-school teacher or something. Perhaps a decade or two ago, she might have been a social worker or an arts coordinator. I'll bet she was a liberal too. All this I got from the way her hair was tied back.

The bloke on bottom was working on equations or Physics or taxes. Whatever he was writing, numbers, and words combined in a singularly unpleasant way, I could see because he was sitting right next to me. He was also muttering in such a way that the vein on his forehead popped out. It made me think he didn't want to be disturbed, so I had to draw him very sneakily. Then he got up and left before I could get to his beard. He had a beard. Imagine a white beard on the bottom of that face. The girl must have been studying too, on the other side of the room. I only saw her smile once, when a toddler wandered by and said something darndest.

Here we have a short girl, a tall woman, and a man in a hat. The girl on top was sitting in a big easy chair to the left of me, doing what I assume was college work, completely undisturbed by the two other girls on the couch next to her, who were moving too fast to draw, and who were talking about either a fantasy ficiton or a game or possibly both. They were havinga grand time. She was not. Neither was the short-haired woman. She was more contemplative. Long periods would pass with her staring into space. I drew her hand in that position while she did that once, and she never did it again. At one point, she got up and left the cafe. Then she came back a few minutes later and sat in the same spot. Huh. The fellow looks like one of those kind of guys who thinks he plays more sports than he actually does. His hat was not really crooked.

Way far in the back of the cafe was the girl with the swoop of hair over one eye. I couldn't see her very well, and was therefor immediately consumed with the desire to draw her as detailed as possible. Why she was wearing such a light dress in 40 degree weather, I don't know, but I appreciated it. My attempts to capture the pattern of shadows on her shoulders were only semi-successful, but only because the lighting back there was so complex that every twitch changed it completely. I have the notion that I had seen the short-haired girl before. She came in late and talked for a long time with her two friends (backs to me) about this other friend she knew who was totally gay, and totally didn't know it, even though he accepted a date from a guy, and oh my god! And y'know, his fraternal twin sister is a lesbian. So, like, that might be the genes, do they share genes, if, y'know, you believe the genes, like, dictate whether you're gay. I'm trying to figure out how to tell him.

It worked with Nixon

2011-02-04T06:26:00.000-08:00

Marvin K. Mubarak Would You Please Go Now!
Just Go. I don't care how.

2011-01-30T17:12:00.001-08:00

I got a new seat in the Mudhouse this week. One by the window instead of the back. As a result, all of a sudden, everyone wasn't backlit. This made for more line-intensive drawings.

I also put enough sugar in my coffee to make a little slurry in the bottom that was too cold to entertain lapping up.

I started with the fellow on top, who stayed at the same seat, diddling away on his laptop the entire time I was there. The half-finished fellow found another seat with his girlfriend before I could complete him. I would have started with his girlfriend too (she had glasses) but she had the annoying habit of noticing me when I was working. Screw you.

The moptop there with the eyebrows had the audacity to ask to sit at an occupied table! Imagine! There was a guy at the table, and this bloke asks if he can sit there and read his book, and he does, very intensely. He had Andy Warhol/excited composer hair, and a minute or two after drawing him, I noticed that I made him a little lopsided. The guy on the bottom looked like the son of Jeff Goldblum, so I had to draw him. And the girl looks almost/not really like someone I work with.

Midway through my visit, this bloke comes in, plops down on the couch and falls asleep like a cat in the sun. He stayed absolutely motionless for the better part of an hour, and he had a mustache. Of course I drew him. The thin man I've seen before, the past two weeks. He's probably working on a book or something. Far as I can tell, there aren't too many people who come in week after week, routinely. Just me and him.

There can only be one...

I was getting around 1, and I was thinking about leaving, but the paint was still wet, and my drawing finger was still itchy. Like an angel from heaven, or, more realistically, outside, this comes in and sits down where the sleeping hobo used to be, and starts reading some photocopied class assignment. I draw the hell out of her, working around her slight movements and changes in position, deciding halfway in that I'd had enough line drawing, so hell, let's put some shadows in there. I'm pleased, and next week, I'll start with the bottom of this page.

Uh-oh.

2011-01-28T16:50:00.000-08:00

"Surrender". Sumi-e ink and brush. 11:45 PM.

Coffee sketches 2

2011-01-23T16:16:00.001-08:00

The second week of drawing people in the Mudhouse coffee shop on Sunday. One fellow gave me his card. I'll e-mail him after I turn the heat up here and I can feel my fingers again. I also saved myself a dollar by getting a black coffee and filling it halfway with milk instead of ordering a cafe au liat and letting the barrista do it for me. Sunday morning is the only day of the week I drink coffee. It's the cheapest thing there.

The two older men were sitting together discussing politics(?) There were four at the table, but obviously, two had their backs to me. A woman came up to me and said, "I recognize who that is, but I don't see her." So I pointed. I wonder if people notice me drawing. She was more active than I would have liked, (as an artist) but made up for it by just looking hot.
The hatted man on the top had really grungy hair. He was standing up, so I had to draw fast, but I wasn't fast enough. The girl was not as French as she looks here. She had pitch black hair, and I think I need another, fatter brush to really (insert proper word here*) it. The last fellow needed to be drawn, despite his wandering hand, due only to the facts that he looked exactly like Bon Jovi, and whose hair was exactly as pictured here.

I tried to exaggerate the teased out, "Liz" hair on the bespectacled girl, and ended up failing miserably. Maybe it was just the coffee, but she was the daintiest person I have ever seen. The other two folks were talking to each other. The man is a prime example of how you really shouldn't try to draw someone whose head is almost completely obscured by someone else's head, whose head was completely obscured by itself. She doesn't appear here because her head does not apparently occupy Euclidean space.

*the word is "Captured"

Coffee sketches

2011-01-16T13:28:00.000-08:00

If I can make it, I'm going to start a new "thing": Sundays, go down to the Mudhouse cafe and sketch until I get hungry. Here's the results of today.

Having forgotten my pencil, I started straight sketching with my water pen and payne's gray. The guy on top was reading a book. When he left, I drew his chair. The guy on the bottom looked like Andy Serkis, but he left before I could finish.

The skinny guy looked like he was writing a book. Or studying, or something. The other two girls were playing chess on the other side of the room. For some reason, the one with the ponytail ended up looking Chinese, but she isn't.

This girl was very good and barely moved the entire time I was in the cafe. Except her hand.

I dropped too much water in my color tray and made up for it with broader strokes to soak it up.

Happy Kwanzaa

2010-12-18T10:54:00.001-08:00

Incidentally, This was not planned out at all. Just me, a brush, and a paper, and a nice bottle of sumi-e ink. And Photoshop for the color.

Happy Saturnalia.

2010-12-18T10:49:00.000-08:00

Do you see? Do you see what happens when you put a really, really big piece of paper in front of me and shut off the internet?

New Rules

2010-11-19T09:03:00.000-08:00

Full body scanners: bad news for terrorists. Good news for nudists. Bad news for nudist terrorists?

In the Cooler

2010-11-10T08:22:00.001-08:00

Well, the new fall postcards have just arrived. Unlike some of my other postcards, which were based in fantasy lands and had no connection to anything anyone would really do or say in the real world, this one is based on true events that occurred in Sheepshank prison in 1952.

Butterball was a model prisoner, and oversaw the prison library during his stay. He befriended a young human child, whom he named Cluck-wal-warl, and raised from an infant. After being pardoned by the President, Butterball drifted aimlessly before finally committing suicide by jumping in front of a gravy train.

The turkey pictured here was incarcerated for double homicide. As seen by his tattoo, he also killed a man while in prison. He is due to be executed on the last Thursday in November.

Hanging on the wall is the November "Winged Babes" calendar. The model this month is the Pink Flamingo. The calendar also hides a hole the turkey has been carving out with his beak after hours. Tomorrow he plans to penetrate the final layer of plaster and jump to freedom by landing on the guard's head and posing as an extravagant hat.

This guard is also actually the cousin of the other red-faced portly guy on my Spring postcard, who takes his lawncare very seriously.
See the family resemblance?

Living Like a Liberal

2010-10-28T12:28:00.000-07:00

Hey, look! This little half-page ditty appears in the current issue of The Utne Reader, which features, besides me, Nelson Mandela, on the cover. There appear in the magazine two other illustrations by me for the same article, a witty jaunt by a conservative writer into the morally upright and logistically difficult world of being a liberal. I won't show them because, this being a nationally published magazine, there is no reason you can't pick up a copy for yourself and write the editors on how you thought my illustrations were the selling point, which, if you are reading this, they would be.

This video accurately portrays my current feelings on the subject of being published by Utne.

Tee for Two

2010-10-28T12:25:00.001-07:00

The new Bethesda magazine is out, which means the new "Domestic Disturbances" is in, which means my illustration once more graces the final page.

New sketch

2010-10-27T21:42:00.000-07:00

Having eschewed with my previous sketch due to technical difficulties, I present this one, which I should have finished and sent out before Thanksgiving. I hope. Perhaps in the final, it will be clear that the turkey is playing a harmonica and his November swimsuit calendar features a flamingo.

The Political Spectrum

2010-10-27T13:51:00.000-07:00

Welcome to the Political Spectrum, a work in progress. I made it when it occurred to me that there were more dimensions to political ideology than mere conservatism and liberalism. In an effort to map this out, I decided adding the spectrum of radicalism versus conventionalism, which measures how much a person's ideas would change the status quo.

You'll notice that as one becomes more radical, the harder it is to identify them as either liberal or conservative. For example, Joseph Stalin's dictatorial rule can hardly be called liberal, however, he rose in power under a leftist Communist political system. Stalin's placement on the liberal side of the board shows tells us more about the rhetoric of this administration than about his policies. I also had to view everyone through the lens of history, which is why Ronald Reagan now looks like a conventionalist. This was harder to do than it looks.

As I put names in, I also noticed a V-shaped pattern appear. Perhaps because it's hard to be a radical moderate, just as it's hard to hold strong political views if you think everything is fine. Most of the American population, I believe, lies in a soft triangle between John Stewart, George Bush, and Barack Obama.

Of course, this is very far from done. This is the work of one man, and in order to fine-tune it, I need input. Let me know where you think people on the chart should be. Let me know where you think other figures from history, media, or politics should be. Let me know where you should be.

Let's spread the world. The more nuanced our understanding of the Political Spectrum, the smarter this country becomes.

Fall cards

2010-10-06T08:09:00.001-07:00

Well, okay. I'm now working on my fall promotional postcard. I've gotten some sketches done too. Shame I got started so late, or I could do something more seasonal. I wanted to draw Halloween monsters.

Victories, large and small

2010-09-07T10:18:00.000-07:00

I did the green lines. Kudos to Lindsay Lusby and her amigos for filling in the lines, stenciling in the lettering, and priming the whole thing in advance. Celebrating literary life on the Eastern Shore of Maryland is thirsty work.

Publishment

2010-08-27T09:13:00.001-07:00

Since I don't get out too much, I'll just say that this came out "recently" but it features my art in it, and the dewy-eyed teenager on the cover seems like a nice kicker to what is apparently my first paying published work. Everybody buy a copy, and maybe they'll give me a raise next issue.

By popular demand (two people) here is the final. Go buy the magazine anyway and read the article, a witty a beautifully written little column called Domestic Disturbances by Sarah Pekkanen.

You Have Been Caged!

2010-08-08T14:14:00.001-07:00

This sort of looks like a really horrible reality show on MTV or something, in which Nicolas Cage would run around playing pranks on people, then jumping out and yelling "You been Caged!"

I wouldn't be surprised if he does this already in his spare time.

Trumpet, Part Deux

2010-08-06T08:06:00.000-07:00

Yes! After a seven-month absence, I am back on the instrument kick. I'll re-do a few pieces, put them in a rough book, and send it to publishers, who will be so stunned by my brilliance, they will parade me around town in a gold sedan and shower me with confetti and strudel.

Art-ificial

2010-08-04T21:28:00.001-07:00

There's this reality show about "Fine" artists on the crappy cable channel Bravo (purveyor of fine works like "Real Housewives of Orange County" and "Top Chef") called "Work of Art: Finding the next Great Artist" and sufficed to say, fails to live up to any part of its name.

Except maybe "Next". I say that a lot when I watch this show.

The "assignments" given to these moderately talented and very, very pretentious reality show people are so transparent, and the commentary so flaccid, the opinions expressed so blase and trite, that if you said that art was artifice, and asked me to give you an example, I would hand you a dictionary, with the definition of the word artifice, which is what this show is!

P.S. I completely messed up that girl with the hair that looks like a mop. They never show her for more than two seconds at a time, and of the remaining artists, she's the most boring. Probably why she got booted off today.

Double

2010-07-29T09:35:00.000-07:00

Illustration Friday topic: double. I was too tired this week to be clever, so I'll just have to settle for being pleasant and diverting.

Verti-Gal

2010-07-15T20:10:00.000-07:00

The Daily Show is on vacation for the next two weeks, so I find I have large swaths of free time to spend experimenting. So I did a superhero, who is based off of a character I invented in 8th Grade french class (only it was a guy, wearing a purple windbreaker and a sheet of cardboard over his face, which goes to show that every single idea you have in 8th grade will probably end up embarrassing you later on) and whose costume I stole from a design for my college sophomore psychology class.*

Oh look. A picture.
This lady, in turn, was a rip off of "Brilliant Pussy", a character designed by "Scud the Disposable Assassin" creator Rob Schrab.

Look. another picture.

I could still learn a lot about digital coloring from this guy.

Go to http://www.sketchoholic.com/Talent/member/my_contest_items.php?ContestID=506 and vote for my entry, which won't be hard.

*It's a psychology class at an art school. This is what we do.

Dear Diary

2010-07-09T21:48:00.001-07:00

Illustration Friday topic: diary. I just decided to let loose and do something completely fun and wild. It turned out surprisingly coherent, which means, I think, that I held back.

Next time I won't.

Sat ellite

2010-07-01T14:17:00.000-07:00

It's Illustration friday, which means that the following Thursday, I post a relevant picture. Today's word: Satellite.

Evolution

2010-06-08T09:40:00.000-07:00

Almost final piece. I'm going to tweak the colors and lettering, but, yeah. Going to the beach is a horrible, horrible experience.

Half-a-way done. I plan on weathering the poster in photoshop after the whole thing is done.

a sketch for my new promotional piece.

Beeline

2010-06-05T08:39:00.000-07:00

An older piece, originally made for my website, which exemplifies the spirit of the term "trail" as well as the meandering of that crazy Billy in "The Family Circus". If I can get off my butt, I may post a newer, better picture for the topic.

Ick

2010-06-03T09:30:00.001-07:00

This is the first acrylic I've done in a while.

On top is a more recent version, with color corrected in Photoshop to more accurately depict what the piece actually looks like.

The Early Bird...

2010-05-26T20:44:00.000-07:00

...has as rough a morning as the rest of us, and you'd better not even talk to him before he's had his worm. Not decaf. Venti.

By the way, that's an accurate coloring of a European Robin "red breast".

From pencil to posting here, this dude took me less than an hour. Why I don't update more often is a mystery for the great minds of our generation to solve.

The Give and Take Tree

2010-05-09T14:55:00.001-07:00

I always thought the tree in Shel Silverstein's The Giving Tree got a bum deal. Did that little kid ever even say "thank you"? Then again, at least he asked.

Getting Ahead

2010-04-29T13:53:00.001-07:00

Eventually, after millions of years of progress and evolution, we just start faking it.

Raising Arizona: starring Danny Trejo

2010-04-28T10:40:00.000-07:00

This is what happens when Danny Trejo is pulled over and asked for his papers. Because Chuck Norris dresses up like Danny Trejo for Halloween.

Earth Daze

2010-04-22T09:27:00.000-07:00

Earth Day is here, and I'm proud to say that it's the first holiday since Christmas that contrasts the popular Who-ville morel of "Stop being such greedy little wenches!" with the unrestrained capitalism of "Hey! buy our product! It's green now!"

I should point out that all the numbers in this comic are as accurate and up-to-date as I could find. Most of them came from 2003 to around 2006. There are no statistics on how much trash the entire world throws away each year, so I used estimates based on America's output. What staggered me was that we produce more air pollution than we do physical waste--by weight! Do you have any idea how much a ton of CO2 is? Holy crap!

Linked

2010-04-14T10:03:00.000-07:00

I like puns. Also up at Illustration Friday, through the link.

Zoo Loggy

2010-04-02T15:24:00.000-07:00

Went to the zoo today. Really really crowded. Glad I didn't go on Saturday.

Ol' Greco

2010-03-30T15:44:00.001-07:00

I was flipping through one of my old sketchbooks today, and came upon this motley trio. Apparently, at one time, I had delusions of creating a series of updated Greek Gods. I abandoned it, possibly for these reasons. It didn't seem all that original, so I quit before I could get to a hacker Hermes, oil baron Hades, or Poseidon, who, I imagine, would have some hand in making all those Blue Planet films.

Ah, the more I think about it, the less this sounds like such a bad idea. Maybe later.

Tea Bomb!

2010-03-24T14:22:00.000-07:00

Now this went through a number of phases, but the point remains the same: in an open democracy, parties that collude with extremist groups will not do well in general elections. In one, there was a Trojan Tea Pot. There was a Russian Roulette Tea Party. Tea pots filled with acid. A Shining-like moment with a giant teapot spilling over with blood. Sharks in a tea pot. Snakes in a tea pot. The possibilities are almost endless.

Democracy in ACTION!!

2010-03-12T12:59:00.001-08:00

Quickly now, vote for your favorite caption! Or come up with your own! Or come up with some one else's! Or just tell me what you think!

Chumming

2010-03-08T14:43:00.000-08:00

Boaters who want to attract sharks have this practice, called chum, of throwing scoopfuls of blood and fish guts into the water. Sharks smell the blood, and swarm. Now, most intelligent boaters, the ones who know what they're doing, know when to stop chumming. If too much blood goes into shark infested waters, a frenzy could occur, which is bad for everyone, including the guy hold a dripping bucket of fish guts over the water.

This is what I see on the Right right now. Demagogues and pundits are throwing hateful, bile-filled misinformation out into the culture, and the disaffected, potentially violent, and racist members of our society are swarming.

Let's hope they're smart enough to know when to stop. Before someone gets bit.

Red States

2010-03-06T20:10:00.001-08:00

This recent grassroots swing to the radical right is toxic. We're seeing it getting people hurt and killed already, and anyone who dares to touch will be stained by it. The Tea Party movement seems like a phenomenon right now, but in a decade, its followers will be seen as the evil twin of the hippies.

Animalapropism

2010-02-24T11:41:00.000-08:00

Specific Sure birds.

Lurid-keets.

A horse is a horse, of coarse, of coarse.

Funemployment Checks

2010-02-21T18:56:00.000-08:00

Process work for the good folks at Funemployed. I'm not ashamed to show you how bad I usually am at caricaturing people the first time round, but I am a little too embarrassed to show you the other six full pages of trying to get these people to get past "likeness" to "caricature".
On the bottom are roughs for the final postcard design. The one on the lower left you might recognize as the poster to "Smokin' Aces 2". I ended up with something a little more like Grand Theft Auto 3, which I'll post upon final design approval.

Here's to Cheap Candy

2010-02-13T09:57:00.001-08:00

It always struck me as ironic that being shot through a vital organ was a symbol of love. I would say I'm cynical, butI'm probably just bitter.

Are You Funemployed?

2010-02-12T14:45:00.000-08:00

I'm currently working on material for a webisode series by a bunch of fellow SCAD-grads called Funemployed. It's quite a zesty enterprise, and involves such erudite and saucy topics as beard-growing, chugging contests, self-defense, and internships. From the top, that's Jay (Michael Lippert), Lockwood (Alex Harris), Ted (Ted Evans), Amy (Kate Carson-Groner), and Bill (Dan Hale).

Above are the main characters, and more finished design and process work will come soon, because I've been woefully neglecting this blog since December, and you person deserve something big.

More cartoons

2010-01-27T17:00:00.000-08:00

Two more of the choicest cartoons I'm sending to the New Yorker. The first one seems to be more of National Lampoon or MAD cartoon to me, but hey, they published Charles Addams, why not me?

God, my handwriting tilts.

Hey yeah, cartoons!

2010-01-24T08:57:00.001-08:00

For my rather late New Year's resolution, I've committed to doing five of these a week and sending them off to the New Yorker until they get sick of me and publish one. Based on precedent, this could take two years, but I plan on giving up and winning the lottery way before then.

I got a feeling...

2010-01-15T11:29:00.000-08:00

The next few years are either going to be very good or very bad. Either way, I hope they don't get started without me.

And while I'm making predictions, polka dots will be in this year, the Black Eyed Peas will break up, and Christianity will be replaced by Thelemism as the major world religion. Put your stocks in dairy products, and beware of pale men with missing eyes.

Bloody Frenzy

2010-01-09T14:13:00.000-08:00

It is a known fact that if a Republican smells blood, it will instinctively start biting. A number of Republicans in place will start a feeding frenzy, in which they will bite anything to their left, including themselves.

Those not in the water have little to worry about.

Qin The End...

2009-12-31T08:53:00.001-08:00

The Qin is an ancient Chinese instrument that has created the music for many a slow, quiet moment in Kung-fu movies. This old man is taken directly from the Zhang Yimou movie Hero.

Happy New Year.

P.Hos out.

Marac' the House

2009-12-30T14:00:00.001-08:00

The idea for maracas (also known as rumba sticks and shac-shacs) started out as a rainstick, until I realized that very few people actually use rainsticks to play music. But both rainsticks and maracas remind of the sound a TV makes when it's on the fritz. So here you have it: Latin American TV static, in convenient idiophone form.

Baby got Bagpipes

2009-12-29T10:32:00.001-08:00

Bagpipes are unique in the musical canon. They don't fit into any other category. They aren't woodwinds, or reeded instruments, or brass, or percussion, or strings. They fit into the "Bagpipe" category. They are also plural, like pants. You have to look hard to find someone playing a single bagpipe.

Manana: Maraca

Humor in Jugular Vein

2009-12-28T08:14:00.000-08:00

Don't knock the jug. There aren't very many instruments that a beginner can pick up and sound almost as good as a virtuoso. Any kid with a Coke bottle can do it.

Tomorrow: Baby got Bagpipe

Two's Timpani, Three's a Crowd

2009-12-27T07:13:00.000-08:00

Yes, I'm sure there are many great and elaborate classical timpani pieces, but so help me, the one I think of first is "George of the Jungle".

Tomorrow: Humor in a Jugular Vein

The Queen of Harps

2009-12-26T07:46:00.001-08:00

I'll admit this was one of the funner pieces to do.

Law of the Jingle

2009-12-25T09:00:00.000-08:00

Maybe it's a cultural thing, but jingle bells just sound like snow and Christmas. Santa wouldn't be as jolly if his coming was heralded by flugelhorns, for example.

Tomorrow: Harpies

100% Organic

2009-12-24T08:26:00.000-08:00

In all those kids' movies from the 90s that I sort of liked, the bad guy played an organ. I think in the Beauty and the Beast sequel, the bad guy WAS an organ. I, not being a very creative type, decided that the pipe organ was the piano's grumpy, scrooge-like uncle, and that organs everywhere never smile.

"Echo One to Bass!"

2009-12-23T08:29:00.000-08:00

An actual upright bass is about 6 1/2 feet tall. This guy is 6 1/2 feet wide, and accordingly, weighs about 1000 pounds. He's got a deeper voice than Barry White, and makes dents in the sidewalk when he goes for a stroll.

Tomorrow: Why can't skeletons play music in church?

Try Harder, Triangle

2009-12-22T08:48:00.000-08:00

When I took band in middle school (I played clarinet, just like Squidward) the director happened to go off on one occasion about the Juilliard School of Performng Arts. According to him, one could major in triangle, and become so proficient one could play an entire scale of notes on this bent little piece of metal. We were all duly impressed, and I quit band shortly after.

Tomorrow: Bass Camp

Look over theremin!

2009-12-21T08:44:00.001-08:00

The theremin (also known as that sci-fi wailing sound from old "Bug-Eyed Monsters" movies and "Good Vibrations" by the Beach Boys) sounds exactly like what I imagine that fellow from Edward Munch's "The Scream" sounds like.