About a year or two ago, my roommate at the time found a stack of these children’s educational discussion cards on the street. They’re from 1974, and are about 19″ by 14″ each. When he moved out a few months ago, he gave them to me! There are 36, double-sided cards in total, each depicting a child (or children) in some life situation. I believe these would’ve initially have gone along with a book or tape to be discussed along with each card. Enough backstory, here’s what I’m doing with them:

Using gouache (most likely the media of the original art), I am painting in the imaginary friend of one of the kids, somehow involved in the action, on each of the cards. Some will be cute, some will make you laugh, and some will be downright disturbing. As of typing this, I have seven completed. Eventually I plan to mount these on wooden panels and find a place to show them all.

I’m making it my pre-New Year’s resolution to try to post here as much as possible before the end of 2007. It starts here:

Last week, I was fortunate enough to take a three-day bookbinding workshop at my school, instructed by my friend (and amazing artist) Seamus Heffernan. Over the course of the workshop (only like 1-2 hours a day), I was able to make this awesome, hardbound, 6″ by 9″, 76 page sketchbook, all by hand. I used actual, unused book cover material, from “2005 Oregon Revised Statutes” as my cover fabric. I feel like I’ll never need to buy another sketchbook again, and now I can actually fill one with paper I like, instead of relying on the default paper in most books. I think it will also give me a more personal connection to my future sketchbooks that I choose to construct myself, which I think can only help when it comes to filling its insides.

I recommend checking out Seamus’s site; besides knowing how to make a fine book, the dude can draw, comic, and paint his ass off, seriously. Maybe he can even make a book for you, I’m sure they’d make a lovely gift, what with the holidays fast approaching.

I don’t really like sketchbooks this small for project planning and the like, I’m more comfortable with something in the 8.5″ by 11″ size, but due to its portability, I plan on using this book only for drawings done from reference, either from life (something I need to get back into) or from photo reference (something I almost NEVER do, except to figure out a pose for something else).

Sorry for the bad pic, it’s not actually so shiny.

For the last assignment in my Intermediate Illustration class, we were set with the task of creating an illustration that may, in the end, be published with an essay entitled The Green Zone by Barry Sanders. The essay deals with the environmental havoc wreaked by the current war in Iraq. Professor Sanders came into our class to speak and answer questions, and then all of us were given preliminary copies of his essay. My illustration is in reference to a section of his essay dealing with the issue of increased land erosion in areas of heavy tank traffic.

This is a little something different than what I usually do obviously, and was certainly a challenge, but I am proud of the end result. It’s actually put together in three layers: The bottom is corrugated cardboard, slathered with black ink, charcoal, and Root Beer Concentrate (really!), and then set afire in various stages. The middle layer is watercolor paper (ripped and burned), with ink, watercolor, gouache, charcoal, and the ash from burning the cardboard, and finally the tank is the top layer of ink, watercolor and charcoal on heavy chipboard, which I ripped to shape and then burned around the edges.

Also, big thanks go to Art Sherwyn for inspiring me to use a little (ok, a lot) of fire on this piece.