Month: August 2011

Days 52 through 55

WSJ

Day Fifty Two


Not much on the workbench this morning, and since I have tickets to the Steve Earle show tonight, I thought I’d attempt a portrait. I don’t think I captured the likeness all that well, but I had some fun with the beard.

Day Fifty Three


Worked on a cartoon illustration for the ‘freaks of nurture’ blog today. And revisited yesterday’s illustration which I wasn’t too keen on.

Steve Earle put on a pretty decent show last night (some sound issues, especially in the second half, where the sound actually seemed to get worse), plus as usual at recent concerts I’ve attended, audiences seem to be getting more and more annoying (and cell phones and gadgets have only made them more so). Anyhow, this morning I looked at yesterday’s portrait, and I really didn’t care to leave it like that, so I went back into it and did a bit more work. This one’s a little closer.

Day Fifty Four


Will be starting on some sketches for a few clients tomorrow, but today I’m taking it pretty easy, doing some house cleaning for a party we’ll be hosting on Friday evening, and driving down to Kalamazoo to pick my boy up at the train station. In the meantime, I’ve been having a difficult time with my riding lawnmower over the past few weeks, which is in need of a few simple repairs, that, thanks to the design of the mower, require the entire assembly to be taken apart to even access the area where the repairs need to be made. My previous mower, which I had for about ten years, gave me very little problems, but this one, which is about five years old now, has plagued me with repairs since almost the first summer I bought it. Currently it is in several pieces downstairs in the garage awaiting a few parts.

Day Fifty Five


Today’s illustration was a quick turnaround assignment from the Journal. I may post the “also rans” sketches later this afternoon if I get around to it.

Days 49 through 51

comics, Freaks of Nurture Comics, Jukejoint Handmedowns, music, self portrait, WSJ

Day Forty Nine


Here’s the finished illustration for that WSJ job. Personally I preferred the ‘magic trick’ sketch, but this one probably fits the story better, which the editors decided to go with.

Day Fifty


During the eighties, I had an extended period where I had pushed illustration to the side, and spent my time working in the field of graphic design and typesetting. This was in the days before computer graphics, and much of the type of work I was doing (paste ups, photostats, halftones, type specs) has since gone the way of the horse drawn carriage and manual typewriter. I haven’t done much in the way of graphic design in the past twenty plus years, but since I’ve been involved with this music group, I’ve started dabbling with poster design as a way of promoting our gigs. It’s been quite fun and personally rewarding, especially since the only client I have to please is myself (and my bandmates, who so far haven’t been all that opinionated on the subject).
So today, rather than posting an illustration, I’m going to post a series of poster/flyers that I’ve been creating in photoshop over the past several months for the ‘Jukejoint Handmedowns’, and more of my graphic work for this band can be seen on our ‘facebook page’ in one of the ‘photo galleries’. Photos used in these posters are courtesy of my wife Terri Foley.



Day Fifty One


Took the day off drawing on Sunday, as we had to drive down to South Haven for some babysitting duties. Didn’t really have much planned to do on Monday when I got back to work, but the morning emails contained a quick commission to draw a dog for the advertising for a musician’s stickers and tee shirts down in Georgia. I also had enough free time that I was able to finish up my ‘freaks of nurture’ comic adaptation (pictured below, click on the image to see a larger version).