With images of bunnies being in all the stores these days, and half price now (Easter – what are you going to do?), I thought I’d share with you a bunny painting created in collaboration with a couple of young artists.
A couple of years ago I visited my brother and his family at their home in the midwest. It was just around Mother’s Day, which also happens to be the week of my mother’s birthday. I got my head together with my nephews Cameron and Marshall, and we set out to make a birthday/Mother’s Day card for my mom/their grandmom. The idea was to draw ourselves like rabbits since they are a good symbol of spring.
Behold the magnificence of our collaborative masterpiece…
I thought it was time that I posted another selfie. No, not a photo of myself, but rather it was time to try a new version of my toony self by way of a self-caricature. It takes a little longer than holding out a camera and snapping the image, and it is much less blurry this way, but it is fun to see how far the image can be pushed and have it still look like me. Really, it all comes down to just wanting to make a new profile picture for Facebook.
If you would like to see past samples of self indulgence, CLICK HERE!
They say “a picture is worth a thousand words,” but I imagine this would inspire the Cliff’s Notes version.
During last year’s Monster Month, I introduced you to my neighbors, the monsters who live above me. (If you missed that post, CLICK HEREfor some context!) While their noise levels have lessened slightly by a decibel over the past year, they recently unleashed a torrent of audio pollution upon their unsuspecting neighbors that tops anything they were guilty of before. Yes, I speak of the event known as “the slumber party.”
When parents open themselves up to host an overnight gathering of little female monsters from all over town in their home, they know that it means very little sleep for themselves. This is fine for them to do when they own a house (so long as they keep the windows closed), but when one shares walls and floors with other people who are not celebrating the occasion with them, the word “inconsiderate” is not strong enough.
I learned something that day – little girls are highly capable of sustained energy. For four hours, one could clearly hear banging, thumping, squealing, growling (yes, growling), yelling, singing, loud music, and probably the slurping from a fresh kill. In my home, pictures were tilting, ceiling fans falling, cracks forming, book shelves twisting, glasses shattering, and nerves were rattling.
There is nothing like your own private four hour earthquake. Good times.
Once the trembles subsided that night,I went to bed. Somehow going to bed late does not mean little monsters sleep in late. Right at the crack of dawn the walls started cracking again. There was no escaping it – no matter where you went in my home you were assaulted by the continued revelry from above – even in what is usually the quiet sanctuary of the bathroom. Truly monstrous indeed.
So, if you live in an apartment, please be kind to your neighbors and figure out an appropriate way to celebrate your little monsters away from disturbing the rest of mankind.
We are in the final week of MONSTER MONTH! Enjoy and share these precious moments with your friends!
…otherwise known as “Monster Artist”. (Yes, I invoked the language of Latin in an effort to sound smart. Did it work?)
Welcome to the first of the new images for 2014’s MONSTER MONTH! Following the tradition of past years, our first selection of the month is a self-portrait. I don’t often take this form in my day-to-day life – unless I am driving on California freeways. Then this is the form that my Jekyl & Hyde personality takes on.
The thing that makes this most disturbing is that I am not wearing any clothes.
Come back again tomorrow and each weekday in October to see more illustrated creatures from my twisted mind.
According to every third post on Facebook this week, apparently we had a Batman Day. (The other two thirds of the posts were about Comic Con and cats.) I was not aware we had a holiday to celebrate Batman, so I seem to have missed it.
I like Batman, so I want in on the celebration. I took a little time to reimagine the Dark Knight as someone who enjoyed the luxuries of his fame a little too much. By the time Bruce Wayne reached middle age, he probably was a little soft around the middle, needed glasses, and got to the point where he just didn’t care about shaving. The fact that this version slightly resembles me is in no way my fantasy of hurling myself through the night to rescue citizens in distress with cool gadgets while wearing an unwieldy cape. If I were to do that, I would go without the cowl and take all the credit as Chadman.
See, this is why I DO NOT cosplay. The costume wouldn’t look right, and I’d probably be going around trying to save London instead of Gotham.
Well, enjoy (or enjoyed) Batman Day. I have to run. Some spotlight in the sky just got my attention…
Christmas creeped up on me this year. I would love to share with you a brand new Christmas card, check but alas, life and work prevented me from being able to sit down and create a painting this year. These past few months have provided some freelance work, a vacation to Eastern Europe, long hours at the animation studio, and trying to prepare my home for a parental Christmas visit. So, for the first time in almost twenty years, a new card is not to be.
However, I would like to dust off one of my previous cards created before this blog ever existed. This is one of my favorites first seen in 2001 by maybe only 200 families. It really gets to the essence of what Christmas is all about – that God willingly came to earth in the form of a man ready to save mankind from our sins if we let Him.
For God so loved the world, even that fella in the lower right corner making a cameo in his own painting.
I know not everyone celebrates Christmas for one reason or another, but I do. Christmas is a holiday that means very much to me as one who believes the words of John 3:16-17. It is sobering to truly realize that Christ was born for us. From the bottom of my heart, I hope that wherever you may be in this world, and wherever you may be in this life, the reality of Christ will be yours. Merry Christmas.
One of my artistic heroes is the inimitable Jack Davis. Oh, many have tried to copy him artistically, but no one can come close to the master both artistically AND personally. While Jack’s art style is an island unto itself, his easy-going Southern gentleman personality sparkles as a rarity amongst cartoonists. When you first meet him you just want to be his friend instantly. That moment for me came in 1997 when I first met Jack at a Reuben Awards hosted by the National Cartoonists Society at the Grove Park Inn in Asheville, NC.
Many years have past since then, and I am privileged that our first handshake turned into an actual friendship. Back in 2006 when I was president of the Comic Art Professional Society (CAPS), we created an award called The Sergio (designed and named after Sergio Aragonès) to be given annually to a cartoonist whose body of work the cartooning community feels is invaluable and inspiring. Our very first recipient had to be no one other than Jack.
Today happens to be Jack Davis’ 89th birthday, yet somehow his work remains as youthful as the day he started. He is STILL showing us how it is done.
The art I share with you today was my tribute to Jack that appeared in the program book from that Sergio Award banquet. Many cartoonists created little pieces for Jack who not only took home a nice statue, but also a nice portfolio of all the original tribute art.
As a die hard Southerner, it has always been nice that Jack has overlooked the fact that I am a Yankee…unless he actually never realized that.
So, HAPPY BIRTHDAY to Jack Davis! And if you don’t know the work of this great man from MAD Magazine, movie poster illustration, TIME Magazine covers, TV Guide covers, books, advertising art, Wacky Packages, U.S. postage stamps, and just about anything else you can think of, please do yourself a favor and Google his name!
Welcome to the grand finale of 2013’s Monster Month! This piece was painted as a cover this past August for the National Cartoonist’s Society (NCS) magazine The Cartoon!st that featured an article about yours truly. I was honored to be invited by editor Frank Pauer to be interviewed, and had a great time creating this monster menagerie to accompany the issue. I have been a member of the NCS for eighteen years, and am proud to be a part of that fine professional organization.
The Monster Manipulator with his league of out-of-the-ordinary gentlemen.
This piece was created mostly the old fashioned way – with real watercolor paints and colored pencils! Only the bookcase eye glow and the haze on the glass dome were manipulated digitally. The hard part was in getting the fellas to all hold their poses for me while I painted them from real life.
I hope you have enjoyed this creepy time together over the past month. I truly had a blast creating the creatures. Bookmark my blog to make it easy for you to see more fun art being posted throughout the year!
