Artist Network Article

On Februrary 6th, my first article went live on the Artists Network! The article is about how I find inspiration from the materials that I use to make art, and how I think some artists might overlook what their supplies can do for them. I'll also post some of the art I created for the article to prove my points.

https://www.artistsnetwork.com/art-mediums/5-essential-artist-supplies/

Supplies: Daniel Smith & Sennelier Watercolors, Holbein gouache, Mitsubishi and Faber Castell Pencils, Stillman and Birn Alpha, Epsilon, Gray and Beige Nova paper.

SketchKon 2018 Fun and Sketchbook update!

On November 2-4 in Pasadena California, the first ever Sketch Kon was held and I had the pleasure/privilege to represent Stillman & Birn at the event. Stillman & Birn, for those who don't know, make my favorite line of papers and are, quite literally, the only paper that I am willing to draw on anymore. I spent that weekend manning the Stillman & Birn booth, talking with attendees about making art and art supplies, and showing them some of my work and talking about my process. It was probably, one of the best weekends of my life. I was surrounded by so many creative people, I was representing a product I believe in, and I got the chance to draw some cool things!

Below are some of the highlights of the sketches I did at the event. These were done in 2 of S&B's newest lines of paper, the Nova series which come in Beige, Gray, and Black toned papers. These were mainly done in my beige and gray books, I'm building up my skills to be able to tackle the black paper, and I used gouache, watercolors, poster paint markers, pencils, inks, and acrylic inks on these. That's a loooot of tools to use, but this paper is amazing!

Character Design painted before my flight to Pasadena

Drawn on the flight to Pasadena

Sketches of restaurant goers on Friday night

Some demonstration sketches and a Moscow Mule from Saturday night

The Westin Bar on Saturday Night

Church across from the Westin, drawn on location and painted at the airport before my return flight

Character drawn during the event and painted after I returned to GA

Curse of the Eel Chapter 7 WIP

Here are a few pages of pencils and inks from Curse of the Eel 7, as spoiler free as I can make them.

I started drawing these as my work on Spencer and Locke was coming to an end, I'm not even really sure what I can share of that work at this point, so Eel it is. These were a fun break from buildings and such, and I feel like I got to play with my brush a lot on these. I hope that the framing is interesting and that you're left wondering who that person in the hoodie is.

Tools: Prismacolor Turquoise leadholder with Faber Castell B Lead for pencils
Inks: Raphael 8404 #3 brush, Deleter G-pen and FW Acrylic Ink
Paper: Stillman and Birn Beta paper, the best for drawing comics

Curse of the Eel chapter 6 page 1-4 pencils

Hello! So yesterday I was a madman and drew 4 pages of pencils in 3 hours for Curse of the Eel. I haven't had time to really sit down and vibe with my own projects in a long while. I've been drawing pages for an Action Lab comic that I can't announce yet, so here are the pages I did yesterday.

I like to pencil loosely, I used to spend a lot of time drawing things out exactly like how I would like for them to look inked. Looking at amazing pencilers like Stuart Immonen will do that to you, but he is working with an inker, so all of that detail is needed. In my case, once I became a confident enough inker and penciler, I tried to pencil less so my inks can feel more like drawing. That has really improved my speed, to where if I had the time I probably could do this entire chapter, pencils and inks in 2 weeks or less. Sadly, I've got other things to focus on but for now: here is what I'm working with! I'm aiming for this to be out for SPX 2016 which I have a table for! More details soon!!

Requiem Sonata chapter 3 pencils and inks

Hello! I've been drawing a lot lately and I need to share them on here more. Especially since this is the main site on my business card! Here are some non-spoilery pages of Requiem Sonata which I inked 18 pages of for Inktober!

My tools here are Zebra and Kuretake brush pens, Pentel Hybrid Technica pens in my Stillman and Birn Alpha sketchbook.

Curse of the Eel Ch4 Cover process

Here's another post for Curse of the Eel, this time for chapter 4's cover art. I'll go into a little detail about making this that I don't usually do on my other social media. Here we gooo! (I'll be at SPX on Sept. 19-20th at table J-13 so come by for books and laughs!)

These covers have been really easy to do. Relying on a simple layout set up has been the best thing, the books all feel related but have enough differences that they stand apart. I did struggle with this one though as the creature on the cover here is a mystery. It hasn't properly revealed itself in the comic itself, so even this is a clue to what it's going to be. I also wondered which character to put here, since the chapter doesn't focus on a new character, I decided to go with Connie but to raise her higher in the frame than in chapter 1, to show that she's getting better, even though things are getting worse. The hand lettering has also been really fun, although I hope I can keep it from being less confusing. This time it kinda was. You'll see in the inks.

I LOVE improvising. The greatest tool I've used since graduation has been that, and I do it a lot on these covers. My pencils used to be a lot tighter, it was me trying to really show people I knew how to draw, but what it also lead to was boring art. I was also taught to enlarge and trace over my thumbnails, but once again, it led to not fun results. I get why people do it, but to me, this isn't drawing, it's tracing. Same thing with inking over incredibly tight pencils, it's not drawing, it's tracing. I also wanna put forward that this isn't art theft tracing, what I mean is, when a step tells me exactly what to do in the next step with no room to play with the new method or tool, it just feels like work. I much prefer a loosely penciled page that I can have fun drawing with a brush and ink on. The results are a LOT better, and I'm finally understanding how to really shape forms with my brush. I've improved greatly in inking in a short time by being more loose, so I think there's merit to it. Draw how you want, that's what is most important. If it's not fun, don't do it.

There's not much to say on this stage, I'm not the best on coloring so having these preset and striking colors has been a godsend! I probably won't add more colors to them in the future, so I hope they're at least somewhat interesting to look at!

Thanks for reading!

Sketchbook Update and secret item

Why hello! I generally draw in my sketchbooks but I rarely make a post that is just sketchbook images, things I've just played with or trying out ideas. So here's a post from one of my new sketchbooks.

The other thing is, all of these are done in a new product from Stillman and Birn. I'm not really allowed to talk about what it is but I can at least show the work I've been doing in them. It's gonna make sketching in public 100x easier, and it's just plain a cool new product. I can't wait to get my hands on a few more, I'm almost done filling this one up (I've only had it since mid-June).

So yes, there's a lot of stuff here but I hope you all like it!