Illustration Friday: Infinite

Our resources can be infinite, if we'll just learn to use things wisely. (I have no idea where this blueish color is from. I colored it a nice yellow. Please use your imagination. I'm assuming you have a healthy one, as evidenced by the fact that you're at this website.)

Illustration Friday: Welcome

Used this before, but could anything else be more appropriate???? Love Illustration Friday!

Illustration Friday: Strong

Some folks say Jesus was strong. Some say he was meek. Whatever. Whenever I say I am strong, people say, "Smell isn't everything!"

Illustration Friday: Magnify

Not sure if anyone's out there. I think we need to magnify our brains to comprehend it all.

Illustration Friday: Worn

"If you don't warn him, his coat won't be worn, and he won't be warm." (Too bad the word isn't "corny".)

Illustration Friday: Drifting

The heat of the summer has me drifting off to nap time, when I should be working. If you can call drawing funny pictures "working". Thankful for the work.

Illustration Friday: Unfold

Sure, it's easy to unfold the thing. But how do you fold it back up????

Illustration Friday: Craving

I often have cravings for pork products. Let me count the ways... bacon, chops, sausage, ribs..... mmmm... STOP me!!!!

Illustration Friday: Adapt

When "undesirables" move into the neighborhood, the neighborly thing to do is to adapt.

Illustration Friday: Contagious

Sometimes a friendly gesture is contagious!

Illustration Friday: Parade

I think that, by definition, it's not a parade without old men in fezzes driving driving miniature cars. 

Illustration Friday: Hierarchy

"He with boogers on fingers RULES!"

Illustration Friday: Theater

Sometimes at the theater, there are things more interesting than the performance on the screen.

Illustration Friday: Talisman

The words for "IllustrationFriday.com" are getting increasingly difficult. Want them to use "salt" or "dog" or "toilet".

Harvard Briefs Blog Masthead

Click image to enlarge

A friend whose son recently got accepted to Harvard Law school commissioned me to design a masthead for his son's blog of his adventures in law school. 

Summer at Camp Widjiwagan

Click image to enlarge.

Every year the folks at the YMCA Camp Widjiwagan have me  draw the t-shirt design for the summer campers. Usually I draw a little scene with kids doin' stuff, but this year I asked them if I could go a different direction. It's an incredible camp with lots of fun land and water activities, so I incorporated some of the activities in the letterforms. This is the sketch that they approved.

Illustration Friday: Poise

From my book "Hey, That's Not What the Bible Says!"

Super-Duper-Mega-Jesus is poised to save the world!!!

Illustration Friday: Legendary

Here in Nashville, there have been a lot of legendary folks. This stream of consciousness page from a sketchbook portrays one of the biggest.

Illustration Friday: Intricate

Intricate: Having many complexly interrelating parts or elements. Does a drawing of a whole bunch of cows over a painting of what we get from cows qualify? It's pretty intricate to me, considering I have the attention span of a five year old main lining Mountain Dew. What do we get from cows? Dairy, meat, and shoes.

Illustration Friday: Breezy

Life would be easy-breezy if we all just had clones to help us get it all done!

McAmerica Diptych.

24" x 30" ea. / Acrylic on canvas.

It's evident how long ago I painted these paintings. You can't get your Big Mac in a Styrofoam container these days. But I'll bet there are some still intact in a landfill near you. The deep, symbolic meaning of these just isn't there. Maybe combining the two iconic symbols of America, but it's more like I love McDonald's, especially them fries! 

Illustration Friday: Instinct

My natural instinct, (what other kind is there?) is to blast out of bed in the morning and attack the day!

Da Green Snail.

This would look good hangin' over anybody's couch!

Illustration Friday: Celebrate

A lot of people had a little celebration back in November. I did as well. This is a recycled image from then, but in a spirit of doing my part, and not using another sheet of paper, and therefore making the world a better place, I'm using it again. And I'll use it when the word is "wings", I'll use it again when the word is "thumbs", and I'll use it again when the word is "angel", and I'll use it again when the word is "music", and I'll use it again when the word is "recycle". And I suspect that many of those words have already been used. Oh well.

Illustration Friday: Time

Time just comes around once. Too much time in front of the television is not good. I just read this in an issue of Time. Time to shut the television off. I say this to my kids all of the time. 

What the...?

Not real sure what this is about, but I think it's kinda cool. If I could just figure out how to make money from all this crap in my head. Have a nice day.

Cold Blue.

I really like this image, I think it would look good over somebody's couch in Phoenix. Or maybe over the toilet, depending on the scale of the painting, or maybe the scale of the bathroom. In the hot summer, it might give a vibe of coolness into an otherwise oppressively hot day. But I picture people's homes in Phoenix being all earthy, beigy, ochery, and this blue thing not quite fitting in. So maybe Chicago. It is so freaking cold in Nashville today, that this sketch seems appropriate, even though there's no snow. Just coldness. Ack!!!

C A Z E Y

Photoshop sketch.

Acrylic study. 

Another painting experiment. I love Franz Kline and his confidence to do big black, almost asian characters in his paintings. And the main man, for me, is Stuart Davis and his sense of color, and Jim Flora, just for his insane greatness. I'm not saying that these images of mine are trying to be like them. I'm just sharing who I love, and who might be somewhere in the back of my mind when I'm thinking of creating art.

(Insert pretentious title here)

I think every artist's dream is to become a pretentious, enigmatic painter. Not me. I just want to be popular and make a few bucks. While I think that I can draw okay, picking color has never come easy for me. So I've done a few of these quick abstract-ish color studies in Photoshop, that I think could be pretentious, (given a cool title), and enigmatic (like "what the heck is that?") paintings. So I'll post one each day this week. I'm open for pretentious titles, so let me know your thoughts.

Illustration Friday: Flawed

"It's all their fault! It's all their fault! It's all their fault!"

Illustration Friday: Climbing

After climbing the Tree to Nowhere, he came face to face with the questions "Where have I come from?" and "Where am I going?".

Poster for AC/DC concert.

The final poster. 31"x48"!

The sketch.

The finished illustration.

I got an assignment last week to produce an illustration for a poster of one of my favorite bands, AC/DC, to commemorate their upcoming sold-out concert here in Nashville. When I think of AC/DC visually, I think of the incredible, diminutive guitar god, Angus Young in his school boy shorts, and the gruff blue-collar toughness of singer Brian Johnson in his ever present hat. The assignment was to make it uniquely Nashville, so I put in a few of the architectural icons of downtown Nashville. 

Seems like a good day for a re-run.

This image was my first post on Illustration Friday, for the word "Poof!" Seems like a good day to dust it off, and show it again. Hope you enjoy it as much as I do! A labor of love.

Illustration Friday: Pale

The illustrator began to feel pale as the representative from Illustration Friday approached, knowing that he was about to be confronted over the posting of irrelevant images.

Question: What's funnier than a fez?

Answer: Nothing.

It's been awhile since I've posted images from my sketchbook of obituary drawings. So I present to you here Wilson and Deacon Elijah.

Note to self: Schedule appointment with photographer to get picture taken wearing a fez for the amazement of the readers of my obituary, hopefully many years from now.

Illustration Friday: Contained

When he reached the mountaintop, Moses found a jar that contained ten pretty good ideas. Even though the jar had been cleaned, Moses could still detect a faint smell of pickles. Nonetheless, Moses wrote down the ideas thinking they might be good to refer to at a later date. Ideas such as: Never sneak into the movies.

Illustration Friday: Resolve

I was hoping this came in a pill. But a bottle will have to do. Good luck with all that!