Ballerswina (bal-uhr-swee-nuh)

Ballerswina
Originally uploaded by jpillustration

I don't do many drawings that are geared towards girls, so the colors in this (though largely leaning towards the gray end of the spectrum) were interesting to work with. I like to have some weight to my drawings, and most of the time what that means to me is dark tones. So trying to work with some pastel pinks and purples, I had to find other ways of bringing visual weight and interest. I think it handled pretty well in the end.

I feel like I've seen a ballerina pig somewhere before, probably in a children's book. So I looked it up. And realized that apparently it's not uncommon at all. It would seem dancing is a natural pastime for the swine population. I also found out that Albert Einstein once called ballerinas "athletes of God".

I think I might try my hand at a banjo pig next.

A work in progress

Portrait Work in Progress - Color
Originally uploaded by jpillustration

Hey guys - still there? I feel like I haven't been able to post too much of what I've been doing lately, largely for reasons along the lines of it's not my place to show at the moment or it involves larger things coming down the track. :) Plus, last week was filled with a ton of crazy fun birthday things. Like a trip to the NC zoo, courtesy of my wife, and a G.I. Joe birthday party complete with parachuting plastic men and cheap ping pong ball guns from the dollar store. And a lot of cake.

I don't normally do this, but I found myself at a stopping point where this kind of post fitted nicely. Usually, I work a sketch or drawing all the way to completion of color before I post it - rarely do I do a partially finished showing. Not because I don't want to - I just forget all about it. But tonight...I remembered. :)

This is a drawing that I started probably two years ago, and just picked it back up this past week to finish it. After topping off the linework, I started working it digitally, and this is where I'm at. I still have a good bit left to do, but I feel like it's looking mighty fine so far. (I feel like this guy would use that phrase "mighty fine" a lot...) (Click here to see the original linework.)

More later.

Illustration Friday - Spooky

Illustration Friday - Topic "Spooky"
Originally uploaded by jpillustration

This week's topic was "Spooky". October is already my favorite month (not just because it's my birthday month..), so drawing things having to do with the month of October is a no-brainer as far as fun goes.

My take on it is the campfire tale, told by Ol' Jack, about how it came to be that the deranged Mrs. Carver gave him a lobotomy. Those lil' pumpkins won't sleep for weeks.

I noticed that there's still a Friday left before Halloween is upon us, so here's hoping that the topic that comes out tomorrow is another Halloween-themed diddy!

And just in case you're wondering, I scrambled to get this entry to IF in on time, so it took me a lean 5 hours or so. I might revisit it for some touch-ups here and there, but it's not bad for a hurry-up.

In other news, I've been working with my brother-in-law for the University of Cincinatti, doing some stuff for their website. Random, but awesome.

Til next time, patrons. (Probably tomorrow - got some coasters droppin' on Etsy!)

UPDATE: The new topic is "Racing". Not exactly halloweenish, but that's what creativity is for.

Coasters Galore

Sea Garden
Originally uploaded by jpillustration

Not to put the word out there too soon, but it's not too far off, so I ain't skeered.

Meagan and I have been working on some coaster designs for our Etsy store, as well as getting some prints of other works of mine up there for sale (for your viewing-and-owning pleasure).

The first set of coasters are of the bird images that I've been working on - the bluebird and the cardinal that you can find on my website, as well as a couple of others that I haven't debuted yet. No word on whether we'll be making coasters not particularly geared towards your mother or grandmother (i.e. hummingbirds with gatling guns - see previous post). You should let me know in subtle hints if you're interested...

Which presents a nice segway for a followup of the last post. I entered said hummingbird design into a Sketchoholic t-shirt contest, and just got the results back. ...And I accept defeat. But only by 1 point! The winning design (which was well done) had 8 votes to my 7. And I can't hang my head about that. Instead, I'm thinking of hanging the hummingbird design up on redbubble.com for people to get their very own t-shirts! I'll let you know when that's up.

Now its off to finish packing for a quick weekend trip to Orlando to see my new nephew! Huzzah!

This was really just too cool NOT to draw

Birds, birds, birds. That's what I've been working on this past week. So in all this bird drawing (a couple of them you can already view on my website), my wife and I were heading out somewhere and we passed a sign for an apartment complex that had a hummingbird as the logo. And an image, as some images do, sprang into my mind. One of those that's really too much fun to just let die as just a thought and nothing more. Thus...

Then I turned it into a t-shirt design

for a contest over on Sketchoholic.

Wish me luck!

Quick note on the Brackish design

I figured that I should go ahead give the background on the Brackish design because it's just a cool concept that Teddy Hart and I worked on together. The idea came from James 3:11 where James asks the question "How can both salt water and fresh water flow from the same spring?" The truth that each one of us does both righteous and evil things, and that we are always working at something - whether to build up and nurture or break down and destroy. But it's impossible for both to happen together.

Same thing goes for speech and what we say. We can't be speaking insults while encouraging that same person.

Thus comes the tshirt, with an image of destruction and an image of nurture. The crown on the destruction image speaks to the mindset we have when we insult others, put others down and put ourselves before others - we crown ourselves king, and assert our dominion over them. The nurture image carries the halo, symbolizing sainthood and with that, servanthood and all that is under that umbrella.

Destruction image

Nurture image

Brackish revision - WIP

Brackish revision - WIP
Originally uploaded by jpillustration

For a short project, I decided to rework the color on the Brackish t-shirt design. It's such a cool character, how could I not?? The other guy in the background is thus far left out, but I'll probably add him back in later, and I don't know if I'll recolor the other half of this shirt design (with the tentacle guy in the background. If you have no idea what I'm talking about, you can view both images on my flickr account here.). Makes me kind of want to though, then maybe offer them as a diptych print? Yes? No?

Got some other things I'm working on - going to be starting up an ETSY page to sell some prints and things, so that's coming down the pipe, and I may preview a couple of illustrations that are being done specifically for that, too.

For now, it's back to the drawing board..