Sketching Anatomical Reference

Today I made a spontaneous trip to Fort Worth's Amon Carter Museum to collect reference and sketch some of the awesome sculptures and paintings by Remington and Russell. I recently discovered how much I love that place!  With free admission every day, it's quickly becoming my favorite destination in DFW to research illustrations.  It's proven invaluable as I'm starting to really dive into my thesis.

Empty Nest - gallery benefit piece

Just finished up this piece for a benefit show at Kettle Art ("For The Love of Kettle") on February 11th.  I'm told every year there's a line down the block of people waiting to get their hands on the work, all of which sells for $50.  This is a major steal, by the way, and there's a huge group of talented Dallas artists showing work.

This piece was a challenge for me in the sense that I was working on a primed piece of wood instead of my super smooth claybords, which required that I use different tools to contend with the rougher and more absorbent surface.  I went through a large handful of pens, sharpies, markers, brushes, and finally settled into a comfortable use of a dip nib pen.  So far all of these new gallery opportunities are forcing me to really stretch out of my comfort zone, material wise, while retaining a sense of my usual aesthetic.  All good things!

'Lobotomunny' - Custom Vinyl Munny

I recently took part in my first vinyl toy show, celebrating Atama's 1 year anniversary at Strangeways in Dallas with 'Show Me The Munny 2'.  Being my first first foray into customized vinyl toys, it was a great opportunity to meet some very talented Dallas artists and stretch beyond my usual territory of pen & ink illustration work.  

'Lobotomunny' in context... some serious talent around here!

I had fun working in an unfamiliar medium while retaining the tone of my drawings.  Our challenge was to start with a blank Munny doll and customize it in any way we saw fit, be it through paint, sculpting, deconstructing, or any other wacky method that came to mind.

Somewhere along the lines I decided to crack its head open and sculpt a removable brain using Sculpey polymer clay, followed by sharpie drawing on the head, and finally a custom fabric hospital gown.  I had fun putting together the wooden sawblade base as a final touch.

show flyer with shots of the removable brain and gown

The show was a fun and valuable experiment for me, and I'm now getting involved in Vinyl Thoughts 2: The Next Level, a video game themed toy show this March... in which I'll be sculpting my piece entirely from scratch!

Screen-Printed Scarves

While learning the screen-printing ropes and testing some shirt designs, I got the wild hair to design some scarves as well.


I managed to pull those together faster than the shirts, which are soon to follow.  I'm really excited about these and had to share...

I'm always impressed by the high quality of what other artists are selling on Etsy.com, and I've been itching for a long time to have a product worthy of my own shop.  And that's a large part of what finally nudged me into screen printing.  

Check out the Etsy Shop and dress to depress!

Screen-Printed Scarf Concepts

A great thing about my propensity for working in black and white is that my drawings translate nicely to red/blue 3D and to one-color screen-printing.  

While teaching myself to expose the screens and print on textiles, I'm (sloppily) building myself a new one-color press that should really speed things up and cut back on misprints.  I'm doing all of this out of my one-bedroom apartment, so keeping it clean, organized, and in consistent quality are all high priorities.  This is easier said than done between the full-time design job, graduate studies, hobbies, social life, and down time.

So in the middle of all of this, I've been plotting scarf designs. I'm excited to get everything under control and organized for the launch of my web-store, which will feature hand-printed shirts, scarfs, and posters of my original illustrations and designs.

The end goal is to turn a fun DIY project into a consistent, high-quality outlet for my illustrations and designs... something I can be confident bringing to the public through the web, art/craft fairs, and beyond.

Pet & Baby Portrait Drawing

I thought I'd share my most recent commissioned pen & ink portrait.  Thanks Beth!

This was my first time rendering an infant, and I wanted to retain my familiar hatched shading technique without her appearing wrinkly, aged, or otherwise distorted (as the hatching sometimes can do).  All in all, I think she looks consistent with the rest of the image and I'm happy with how everything turned out.

I really love doing pen & ink pieces like these for clients. While I primary work less realistically and from the imagination, it's so enjoyable to work from a photo and explore basic shading techniques. I find the process meditative, and affords me the freedom to study value and play with texture. And ultimately it's just awesome hearing how happy people are to share it with their families.

Pterodactdinner... yet another dinosaur drawing

Yet another dinosaur drawing... 8x10, pen on scratchboard.

A delectable dino dinner for drawing dorks like me, with color and 3d versions to follow. In fact, I have a feeling I will soon be starting an spin-off blog featuring my 3d drawings, which can for now be seen at AlbrightIllustration.com and facebook.com/albrightillustration.

Thanks, as always, for looking!

Alice in Wonderland illustration

I just finished up my Alice in Wonderland illustration, which I am contributing to a collaborative wordless adaptation through Facebook.  

Here's a link to the album "What's The Use Of A Book Without Pictures?" by Neoflux Productions http://www.tinyurl.com/BookWithoutPictures

Any artist or photographer can join in and email to claim a paragraph, which is then posted in the facebook album, later to be collected in a PDF and perhaps printed and bound for nonprofit publication, in which case all sales will go towards printing for library submissions.  It seemed like a great opportunity to practice my compositions and ink work, and get involved in a large group effort.  And who doesn't love Alice in Wonderland?

My passage sees the loquacious Duchess blathering on while Alice politely suggests she limit her words.  The piece itself is 8x10, pen & ink on scratchboard.  For those of you interested in the typical process blogging, here are shots of some thumbnails and my rough pencils.

At first I wasn't sure which direction to follow.  I wanted to shy away from replicating the familiar character designs, but I was also a bit intimidated by the prospect of a complete redesign.  I ended up getting excited about representing the Duchess and something of a grotesque, saggy old loudmouth with an oblivious enthusiasm and unintentional domination over Alice.  I turned Alice herself away from the camera in order to place the viewer in her shoes, facing up at the overbearing Duchess.

 

And lastly, here's an example of why I love claybord so much.  After consulting with some of my illustrator friends and graduate classmates, I realized that Alice's hand at the center of the composition just called too much attention to itself and appeared to be grabbing at the Duchess's chest.  Not critical to the overall image, I decided to scratch it out and re-ink the area.  A quick and painless adjustment when using claybord.  Kind of remind you of those 'find the difference' bar games, doesn't it?

original with 'boob grab'

adjusted drawing, sans hand