The Birth

For the past five years, a theater production company called Starving Artist here in Charlotte has been putting on a wonderful Christmas play called "The Birth". Here's a snippet of summary from The Birth website:

"The Birth was inspired by a reading of Pulitzer-nominated author Frederick Buechner’s book ‘The Magnificent Defeat’ wherein, in a chapter titled The Birth, he composes a series of character monologues in the voice of those closest to the narrative of Christ’s arrival."

This year, my friend Nathan Rouse, who heads the production, asked me if I would be interested in collaborating with him for a couple of t-shirts to commemorate the play's fifth anniversary. This is what we came up with:

We wanted to keep the look of the shirts simple and iconic so as not to take away from the play itself, which is quite thought-provoking. We even decided to refrain from using the actual characters of the monologues, opting to go with notable lines from the play partnered with imagery that promotes the silence and quiet calm of a night out under the stars, where you can hear the wind whisper things over the hilltops, from the town of Bethlehem.

So if you're in the Charlotte area this Christmas season and are looking for something with a little more substance than Best Buy and Target (or a lot more substance for that matter), I would definitely recommend going to see this play. It injects quite a bit more weight and sacredness to this time of year. The production runs both this coming weekend and the next at the CAST theater, so get your tickets quick - there are already a couple shows sold out!

Illustration Friday - Prehistoric

Illustration Friday - Prehistoric
Originally uploaded by jpillustration

'Sup peoples! This makes two straight weeks that I've done Illustration Friday drawings...there may be hope for me yet.

This week's topic was prehistoric. First thought? Dinosaurs, obviously. And then grandmothers, to take it a step further. Which lead to this very emasculated velociraptor. I can see her now...beating off punk teenage Compsognathuses with her handbag. Outside the supermarket.

You other illustrators or doodlers out there, if you're contributing to IF, I'd love to see your takes on the topics! And if you aren't doing anything, then you should - even if it's a doodle! (I'm looking at you, Jared.)

Go check out the other entries too!

In the meantime, I just realized that none of the IF entries on my website are actually labled as to what topic they are...

Illustration Friday - Savour

Savour
Originally uploaded by jpillustration

Well, I kinda skipped the past three weeks or so for Illustration Friday...just didn't quite have the time. But having had some things settle down a bit, here's my entry for the IF topic "Savour". Peppermint mocha fo shizzle.

Meagan and I put up our Christmas tree last night with a bit of eggnog and some crazy good brownies. Trying to get into the holiday mood. Every now and again, the Christmas season tends to sneak up on you and then all of a sudden it's gone until the next year. So I'm determined to play that Christmas music, drink those Christmas drinks, watch those Christmas movies, and maybe draw some more of those Christmas illustrations. :)

And for those of you who are looking for good holiday music, Christopher Kincaid's Christmas album is a new holiday classic for me.

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!