I made this painting after Meg Hunt kindly extended the invitaion for me to contribute a piece to Picture Book Report. I've been a big fan of the blog since discovering it on Drawn a few months back, so I was really excited about the opportunity to contribute my own piece. Definitely check out Picture Book Report if you haven't already - there's some absolutely beautiful work featured.

The illustration itself was inspired by the second chapter of Neil Gaiman's "The Graveyard Book". My only disappointment is not having the time to do an illustration for every chapter. It's a beautiful book that resonates particularly well with my tastes. One of my main goals with the illustration was to pique someone's curiosity enough that they'd be willing to give the book a try... so, I'd highly recommend you pick it up and give it a read. I can't imagine anyone not enjoying the book.

(Click to enlarge. Original is watercolor on 140lb. cold press paper with digital polish)

The last time I posted about Total Drama, I said I'd share some designs. It took over a year, but a few of my drawings have finally had the opportunity to see the light of day. The folks at FreshTV recently started up a Fresh Faces feature on their blog, where they're spotlighting the different people behind the creation of their shows. Along with an interview (which you can read here, if you're curious) they posted a few of my designs from Total Drama: World Tour, which just recently started airing on Teletoon and Cartoon Network. Over the course of the last two years I've developed a real affinity for this sort of design; I'll miss it when it's time to move on to something new.

Some exploration for the comic i'm currently working on. I'm sharing this piece because the story has evolved away from this particular scene, so it's not giving much away. To avoid spoiling anything though, I think i'd like to wait until it's pretty much finished before I share more. This project is taking up a fair bit of my free time though, so blog posts might continue to be sparse for a little while longer. 

watercolor + digital, 6x12"

I've posted about being a big fan of the Goonies before. Everyone seems to have a few movies that were definitive to their youth - this film was definitely mine. When I heard that there was an official 25th anniversary event planned and that they were looking for artwork from fans to promote it, I started putting this together. It was painted last August, and just recently the kind folks in Astoria chose my piece along with the work of Jesse Horst and Mario Boschmann as their final selections. I honestly couldn't be more excited about this. I wish I could go back and tell my 10 year old self that he'd grow up to make some official Goonies artwork. Cool. Alright, enough of my gushing. If by chance you're anywhere near Astoria Oregon, the event is happening the weekend of June the 4th. Details at http://gooniesanniversary.com/

I'd also like to take a minute to mention the loss of Gerry Zeldin. I've had some great mentors throughout my journey as an artist, but I can say without hesitation that no one person has ever had more of an impact on what I'm doing today than Gerry did. I was lucky enough to have him for two years as my life drawing instructor at Sheridan. His passion for life, art and teaching opened my eyes and showed me how to how to find fulfillment as both an artist and a human being. High praise, but I mean every word of it. If I'm able to share even half of the passion he was able to, I'll have found some true success as an artist. Thanks for everything, Gerry.

Take a minute and enjoy some of his artwork http://geraldzeldin.com/

I don't often share pages from my sketchbooks, though I spend a lot of time keeping them. I think part of what holds me back is a lack of context. My sketchbooks are evolving into a visual shorthand which is great for capturing personal moments and ideas, but not so great for communicating to other people. The drawings and writings are roadmaps for my experiences, but I often feel that they would be pretty opaque to an outsider without some kind of contextual anchor.

That said, I'm more than happy to let people browse through a sketchbook if they're curious. Between MoCCA and C2E2 I had a fair number of people flip through the book i'm keeping now, and most were pretty insistent that I share some of the pages. It seemed practical to post a few pages from the trip itself. These start with one of my first mornings in New York, and end at O'Hare waiting on a delayed flight home. Excuse the blurred text - ask me to see the pages in person and i'll let you read all the juicy gossip!