The Worm Reckoning

Been working on some more t-shirt designs. The others from my previous post are still in progress, and I think they're going to be pretty cool in the end. The image below is new t-shirt graphic that I've been working on, coming from a story in John. 5 loaves of bread, 2 fish and a ton of people to feed. Andrew, speaking of the food, asks "What are these among so many?"

Watchman Nee, a Christian author, noted on this verse that "the hopes of too many are still centered, not on the Lord's blessing but on the state of their treasury, the few paltry loaves in their own hands. What we have in hand is so pitifully little, and yet we keep reckoning with it; and the more we reckon the darker the prospect."

This t-shirt is aiming to speak about and to that question that Andrew asked. This is only part of the illustration - can't give it all away just yet! - but I wanted to go ahead and share a snippet anyway! (The medium used is pen, ink and digital.)

Works in Progress

So here we are. Saturday. Welcome to the weekend. I've got a couple different projects that I'm currently working on - something just for fun and a couple of t-shirt designs. I'm gonna hold the t-shirt designs pretty close to the chest for now, as they should be out in the next couple of months or so. I'll let you know where you can buy one or seven. But first...

Michael Jackson's Thriller pose. Something compelled me and I think it was the dance moves.

T-shirt design #1 - Lady Liberty

T-shirt design #2 - Brackish

This past week, I was inspired to buy a pentel pocket brush pen by the likes of Sam Spina and Skottie Young. These three drawings are a combo of that pen (which I would recommend..fun to work with) and the smallest micron available...

Finito

Hurley! (I think I did about as well as I could do with that hair...)

Again, pastel, ink, graphite and stained paper (9x12)

An Ode to LOST

It wasn't intended to be a tribute, but since the end of Lost is coming so quickly and I happened to be working on this currently,...hey. Why not.

It's a work in progress, but it's fun working not-digitally. It's a change from recent works and projects.

Hurley

Pastel, ink and pencil on stained paper.

When I finish it up, I'll post the final too.

Happy LOST watching!

Thomas Merton

I've been working for most of the past week on The Bell children's book and my hand started to hurt from using my wacom. So I did a quick sketch of Thomas Merton, scanned it in, and then used the wacom some more.

This image is born out of a couple of places: going to our church, Renovatus, and reading some of Thomas Merton's book called "Seeds". This past week our pastor was speaking on the Holy Spirit and the Spirit's relevance to our lives today. That He (the Spirit) didn't come just to aid the initial building of the church at Pentecost, but is persisting and continuing to help aid the church today, in more ways than just "feeling good". Question is: do we believe its true?

I believe it is.

The idea behind this image..I suppose it's something of a poster.. but the idea behind it is that we have a lot of great men and women of the faith that we look up to and look to for inspiration and leadership. But in our looking to them, we mustn't think that they have some kind of special enabling that was simply not given to us. The common denominator between us and our leaders in Christ is the Holy Ghost - and its the Holy Ghost that enables them to be great. They're walking closely with the Father, and you and I can do the exact same thing, to whatever extent we're willing to go to.

I've been toying around with some new techniques amidst all the other drawrings. My first attempt:

If he looks familiar, there's a bit of Robert E. Lee around in there somewhere.

And my second attempt:

And if this one looks familiar, there's a bit of my brother in there. Actually, there's a lot of my brother in there everywhere.

Pencil, pen, gesso, digital.

Good tidings abound!

Man, its been a little hectic as of late. I've had a few different projects that I've been working on and things have been progressing nicely. Big news is that I'll be a published illustrator before the year is out, which is AWESOME, even if it is going to be a self-published book (not by me, by the guy who hired me). But it is closely involved/related to the Salvation Army, so it will have a pretty big stage. I don't know how much I'll be able to post as far as the work goes, but if I can post some snippets here and there, I'll be glad to share.

Other news, I've been working on a couple of designs for my friend Teddy Hart's t-shirt biz. Here's one of them for a winter retreat kind of camp:

It's a joyful combination of robots, sleds, and Germany.

In addition to all the projects I have going on currently, I thought it'd be fun to show you guys sort of a work-in-progress, and post pieces of an illustration that I'm working on as I go through the process and then when it's done, I'll post the final. Sound good? Bien. Here's your first clue!