This is one of my favorite fairies from this group. I'll eventually rotate it in to the PRINTS section. A friend in Ithaca has the original.

I haven't been in a writing mood this past month. Fortunately that isn't what I do for a living!  Please check out the "PRINTS" page and pick up two or more prints for yourself or someone you think would like some fairies on their wall. I've been cutting loose with color and exploring compositions with this imagery. In other words: having a blast with color! I was keeping my colors muted for a long time and this latest illustration job, a kid's book for National Geographic seemed to call for bright colors everywhere.  Fifty illustrations plus a cover the fairies seemed to be an appropriate subject to bust out the color bombs!

Here are two more I'll be adding to the Prints page. Don't forget to include the title to be clear about which image you want.

I know I just posted this last post but there are a few tweaks I added.

Out of my color zone. Forcing myself to deal with more yellows than I normally use. Not finished yet, but I'm not sure which way to go next.

Bob's Burgers show is up at Gallery 1988 in LA if anyone reading this is out there!

Sign up for my news letter on my other website here!

Computer art is interesting. I usually don't like it due to how slick everything can get. In a way that is probably what people are reacting to when they say they don't like it. It usually lacks appropriate texture. It's tricky because you can't use a technique just to use it. An artist needs to recognize when it's the right time to push it or reel it in.

I'm using the computer to work out the colors, but if I was to do computer art as a final I would try to find what techniques the computer tools are stronger for. It's a different medium that mimics traditional medium as a starting point. It allows people who haven't developed traditional drawing and painting techniques to put out something in their head in an efficient manner. I think a lot of accomplished artists with traditional techniques resent people who have figured out how to get the computer to do what they want because it seems like a "cheat".

In a lot of cases it is do to it's inherent ability to look like polished art in half to a tenth of the time of traditional (physical) art takes. There are people who try and take that medium past merely copying what traditional art and those are the true pioneers pushing boundaries. I like seeing something pushed farther.

My approach to using the computer is as a sketch. I learn a little more each time I do these and maybe in the future I'll begin to push the computer techniques. But for now...

Molly, my GF, had a great 2015 and topped it off with a successful book launch and tour of her book "Drawing Blood" from Harper Collins... no relation. In her mind she thought she was very difficult to live with this last year as she wrote her book and planned all the details around it to be a success. Truth, she wasn't any harder to live with than any other time! Well I wasn't going to argue as she wanted to treat me to a three day get-away to New Orleans... Come to think of it I guess she was a bitch!... and you made a mess in the studio! Is that worth at least a trip to Pittsburgh? HA!

We spent all three days going from food, to coffee shop, to more food, to a hookah lounge, to roaming all over the Bywater, French Quarter, and the Garden District. This was one of the doodles in my sketchpad at a coffee shop. We had the best time and I would even go so far as saying it was perfect. I love that girl!

I played around with it in Photo Shop a bit. I think it'll make a nice painting eventually.

You would have to be in a coma to not be aware it's Christmas time. I grew up with Christmas. The tree, family gets together, gifts, food, football and no school for what used to be a good two weeks. Oh! and the music. The television specials ran nonstop, and by the age of ten I knew every song from every special and almost the dialogue from every scene! My family wasn't super religious but the usual war between commerce and Christmas was already going strong even in the 70's. I was pretty "turned off" to religion and the holidays by the time I was 13 or 14. It didn't happen all at once, it was gradual.

In the early 90's I gave religion another go but my heart, as they say, wasn't in it.

In the present, I'm about where I was by the end of college. The holidays are a period of the year you just tolerate. No anger. I support all the folks that are into it. I'm usually careful to not be too indifferent to the holidays because sometimes being indifferent is even more offensive to people than being straight out against it!

I do like the idea of gift giving. I love to treat my friends  and family to dinners, or drinks, or whatever. It's nice to be able to recognize once a year at least that everyone should try and give a gift to people you care about but might not always show it. No harm in that. But I don't expect gifts from people and am genuinely shocked and happy when someone buys me a drink or dinner. It's happened a few times to me this past year and it was really special.

So this is my recognition of the holidays and I look forward to making art in 2016, and communicating with people who write to me and spending my few moments I have alone with my girl being happy.

Not my greatest illustration, but it's one of the few Santa paintings I have made. This was for Muscle and Fitness magazine a few years ago.