Frosty Reception

Adorable, isn't it? For the Page-Wood family Christmas my little cousins  arrived with little foam kits to make snowmen and I thought it would look super cute to do it this way. I showed it to my cousin Keira, who is in kindergarten, and she informed me that I'd done it wrong and it was upside down.

Burned by a kindergartner. 

I still think it's cuter this way.

You WILL have a Merry Christmas

This is a Christmas Card I made a couple years ago.

The Yellow Kid

I was at a training seminar for MME Testing and doodled this face of test anxiety. 

Tom Thumb

Happy Thanksgiving!

Yeah, but what if I want them to be bigger?

A new kid in class asked me for some advice getting proportions right in drawing portraits because he wanted to do a drawing of this girl, who apparently was "the one that got away" that he was still pining for which I thought was kind of sweet so I drew it for him to demonstrate.
Of course I also had another exchange with him where he wanted to know about getting body proportions right, and so I drew the classic Vitruvian Man example. He then asked me how it would be different if it were a woman, and so I demonstrated and basically it devolved into him wanting me to teach him how to draw boobs. So I'm not sure how sweetly romantic his final drawing wound up being.

Happy Beardaversary!

About a year ago my Dad's beard turned 40 years old and we threw it a party. This was for the card everybody signed.
All the men invited to the party were encouraged to grow their beards out as well and I've been too lazy to shave since. The other day my sister, who sees me on a fairly regular basis, said to me "Wait a second, you have a beard?" Either it looks so natural on my face as to be unnoticeable or my head has a reality distortion field that obscures my actual facial features. I'm going with the latter, since it also explains why my staff photo at work wound up looking so terrible.

Beach

This is a watercolor painting I made as an example for class, I think during my internship, based on a series of photos I took while vacationing. It's bathers at sundown along the Gulf shore on Marco Island.
I gave the painting as a gift to my mother and it hung in her office at Western Michigan University until her retirement. Now that she lives most of the year in Florida she can pretty much see this kind of scene whenever she wants to, but for a while at least it was a nice reminder of what laid ahead of her as she read essays, entered grades, and met with complaining students.

200

This is another version of that shoe drawing from the other day, this one using stippling instead of cross hatching. I probably should have picked something more special for my 200th blog post, but whatever. I guess it's a pretty cool pair of shoes, right?

Hey now, you're an All Star

This is an old drawing I dug out recently as an example for class because we were doing hatching and cross hatching, and because most of the students are obsessed with shoes. Granted, they're obsessed with the latest limited edition Jordans rather than my beat up Chuck Taylors, but they're both technically basketball shoes, right?

XX

I did an activity in class to show the basic rules for facial proportions, but since the dimensions are basically the same for male or female faces my initial stab at it wound up being an androgynous freakazoid. This was an attempt to redeem things with someone whose chromosomes are paired up into a discernible gender.

Aces and Eights

This is a three part "how to" for going from construction lines to sketch lines to contour lines in the ongoing series of hand drawings that students seem to dislike doing.
They may not like doing hands, but I can be assured they will never forget to bring them to class and most likely will not destroy or abuse them in the process. The same, sadly, cannot be said for such other observational drawing subjects as eggs or apples.

Barrette Exam

I had a student who found out I was the art teacher (he has me for computer applications instead) and he asked me if I could draw his niece or cousin or whoever this is, so I whipped it off during third period. It looks pretty okay I think.

Never Forget

A bigger version of that elephant drawing.

How to Draw an Elephant in Four Easy Steps

This is a series of example drawings I made for class illustrating the idea of visually breaking an image down into its most basic parts and then using those parts to build it back up into something complex. It's kind of cheesy "How to Draw" book style, but it really is one of the fundamental ideas of not only drawing but doing just about any complicated task I think.

Human Resources Puffinstuff

I kind of think this little dude looks a little like a thin, demented H.R. Puffinstuff.

(I don't know what the "M" stands for, I just drew an M)

Keep your ion the ball

Another meeting, another pointless doodle.

It's pronounced "Big-Boo-Tay"

More nondescript, stream of conscientiousness, presentation fueled goodies.

I'm a Buff Baby Who Can Dance Like a Man

This ugly baby is yet another doodle inspired by viewing a Powerpoint presentation.

Little Old Lady Two

Yet another entry in the doodles inspired by PowerPoint presentations collection.

37.85 Liter Hat (for a Canadian Cowboy)

Another random PowerPoint fueled doodle.

Kitty Monkey

Whenever I sit through a presentation I doodle (while still paying complete attention I assure you) and sometimes what comes out of that isn't anything I really set out to create (probably because I'm too busy paying attention to the presentation). For example, a Kitty Monkey.

Bambi Eyes

The stinky lady from the other day didn't have a face, and since it almost looked like I'd posed her to avoid drawing her face I thought I'd do another drawing of what she would look like. I think she seems kind of vacant through the eyes, like she's probably pretty dumb.

Yup, stinky and dumb.

It stinks so good

The dichotomy of foxy lady and gross bodily function is somewhat funny to me.

Bottoms and Tops

I saw a guy in real life with a weird skinny legs in baggy jeans bottom and a super round fat upper body top last week and so I wanted to caricature that, but sadly this drawing comes nowhere close to doing him justice.

Menage a Try

This dude looks like the product of some lost weekend between Mel Gibson, Topher Grace, and Craig Ferguson, presuming those guys could actually reproduce in a unisex threesome.

Mystery Girl

It's been a while since I drew this and I can't remember if she was a real person or not. I think maybe she was, but I doodle a lot of faces...

Down like a Clown

This appropriate medium for this doodle probably should have been as a velvet painting instead of something I scribbled in pen in the margins of a stray piece of paper, but you work with the tools at hand.

Run for the Cure

What I like about this doodle is that even though this guy clearly has a lot of issues appearance wise that no amount of dieting or exercise could fix, he still puts on his jogging clothes to go for a run because he's more concerned about the health benefits than impressing anybody. Good for you weirdo ugly fat head doodle!

Dragon Goat

What do you get when you combine a goat, a lizard, and one of the bad guys from The Fast and The Furious: Tokyo Drift? This goofy drawing.

Be Handsome. Be Attractive. Don't Be Unattractive.

One thing I revert to absently drawing consistently, say in the margins of notes during meetings or whatever, is some variation on craggy, goony, or odd looking portraits of made up faces. Or, in this case, one rakishly handsome looking devil. Look out ladies, he's looking for love.

Philip Glass

This is another drawing I made as an example for class. It's an empty glass.

An optimist might say it's a full glass I suppose, but brother, they're wrong.

Mystery Science Theater Five Thousand

This is a map I made a few years back for K College's annual 5K race. I understand that K stands for one thousand, but one thousand what? Miles? If so this thing isn't remotely to scale.

Starblazing

A kid in class who likes to draw anime and manga style stuff was asking me about doing female faces and hair. I asked him why Naruto wears safety cone orange capri sweat pants and has kitty whiskers on his face.

Then I drew this for him as he watched to illustrate a few things about facial proportions. You'll note the lack of any floating teardrops or asterisks at her forehead.

Where did that stupid stuff come from anyway? I know that the style traces its roots back to Osamu Tezuka, who basically just ripped off Carl Barks and added robots, but how do you go from a Carl Barks rip off with robots to the floaty tear drop nonsense?

About now that student would start correcting me and say that anime and manga are different, there are multiple styles, and nobody in Japan ripped off Carl Barks and who is Carl Barks anyway. Whatever.

Anyway, I kind of liked the drawing so later on I added some stuff to it in Photoshop.

Johnny Appleface

Why did I draw a fruit headed gangster named Johnny Appleface? Do I have to spell it out for you?

(Okay, so I actually don't know)

You're The Man Now, Dog

This is a vector illustration I made of a dog as an example for my digital arts class.

It's a wild dog.

"Wild Dog" by the way also happens to be the name my fanfic that crosses over the John Travolta of "Wild Hogs" with the John Travolta of "Old Dogs." I was going to go with "Old Hog," but that just seemed to demean the fine work of Mr. Travolta.

Live every week like it's Shark Week

Jabberjaw here doesn't understand what all the fuss is about.

Baldy McBalderson

This is another little doodle I made in the margins of the newspaper. It's not based on anyone, which is probably a good thing since I think if this drawing were based on me I would be upset at how unflattering it is.

Inch High Private Eye

Another doodle in the margins of the newspaper. I thought it looked pretty good for only being about an inch wide drawing (or about 25 millimeters for the metrically inclined).

Brought to you by the letter C

Do they call him Biscuit Monster in the U.K.?

Mom is asking for trouble

I doodled this in the margins of the newspaper while working on the NYT Sunday Crossword Puzzle. Does anyone know what a six letter word for a Mayan symbol of strength might be?

Other than that, Mrs. Lincoln, how was the show?

This is a tempera painting of Abraham Lincoln I made a while ago based off of a marble bust I saw at Ford's Theater in D.C.

I really liked how it was the younger, vibrant rail splitter Abe.

Be cool

In response to the heat wave we've been experiencing, here's a picture of a polar bear.

Eggscuses

This is an egg based tempera painting I made at a workshop on the Wyeth family where we all tried out one of Andrew Wyeth's mediums of choice. The process kind of reminded me of dying Easter eggs mixed with making french toast, but you know, painting.

It might look like this painting kind of sucks, but it was made on a tiny 3" x 4" piece of paper and painted with a medium that dries out within seconds and I only had the three primary colors to work with plus it was my first time using it, which is all really just a bunch of excuses for why it isn't very good.

On the plus side though, it does kind of look like the German mechanic guy who gets splattered by the flying wing in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

Boys vs Girls

For many people in today's society, gender is a very malleable concept. There remains I think, however, some cases in which the differences are immutably and unarguably distinguishable.

Meow Meow Meow Meow Meow Meow

Another drawing of Catlady, err, woman. It's kind of like how other people share pictures and videos of their cats, except I drew her and she's not obnoxiously adorable.

This was going to be part of the other drawing, but the old cat lady in this version didn't turn out how I wanted it to, so I cropped it into nerdy a fanboy drawing. With a kind of awkward pose.

But I'm Allergic to Synonyms!

People who are unfamiliar with language may wonder why we have synonyms. After all, if the words essentially mean the same thing, then isn't it redundant to have more than one? Like say, lady and woman?

Brushes with Death

This is a painting I made on my iPod using a program called Brushes. I was just fooling around to try it out and wound up painting a skull.

How morbid!

Christmouse in July

Here's an older picture from a couple years and seven months ago. I already posted the pencil drawing, and here's the finished product.
Happy Christmouse in July!

How do you like them apples (again)

Here's another example from class, though this time from the more traditional intro to art class. It's a value drawing of apples (again) on gray paper.
Man, do high school students hate drawing apples...

They agreed to draw them though when I let them eat them when they were done, which surprised me because I don't think I would do work in exchange for fruit.

Marxist Propaganda

Here's another example I made for the digital arts class. The idea was to use the Andy Warhol model of the celebrity portrait print along with vector drawing to explore value, hue and saturation of color.
It's Groucho Marx.

He and I share the same birthday!