The Tiger and The Zebra, finished! (Maybe)

So here's the final linework for the poem spread...




and the final colored illustrations.



Someday I may add some patterning to the wallpaper. We'll see...

As simple as these are, a lot of process went into them! I really surprised myself by the amount of work I put into them. Let me know what you think!

The Tiger and The Zebra.

Currently working on a spread for a poem written by Kenn Nesbitt called "The Tiger and the Zebra." It's sorta long, so I'm only using the first two stanzas.

Anyway, so far, I just have a couple roughs of what I'm thinking about doing. They still need a lot of work. And I'm thinking about finishing them the way I finished my last piece (mouse and shoe).

Here are my first 'roughs' which were actually only slightly larger thumbnails that I threw some marker on for a test, scanned, blew up, and pieced together just to see if the spread worked.
Then I redrew'em for some legitimate roughs... I plan on a wallpaper pattern in pastel colors behind the zebra, and I'll probably move him to the right to make more room for the text. And I need to work on their phones. PLUS, the room in the tiger's page interferes with where the text will be, so I need to fix that.Your feedback on what could be improved (before the week is out) would be greatly appreciated!

Well, he's not a very smart mouse.

Ah, Children's book illustration... not exactly the direction I see myself going. But Nancy Carlson, one of my childhood heroes, is actually teaching the Children's book class at MCAD this semester, and I thought it sounded like a great opportunity.

Anyway, the current project was all about imagination. I suppose my image isn't imaginative in a very STRONG way... I'm not into fantasy or anything like that. But I thought a mouse jumping into a shoe would suffice.



Here's the image colored in Photoshop. This is not a way I typically work... but I maybe kinda liked it.

And by the way, you can totally tell I've been watching way too much of The Simpsons lately.

Ew, Gross!

This is a very recent piece that is probably pretty self explanatory.

If not, I did my own illustration for a weird article about women and their shoes...

The background is acrylic, and the shoes and feet are gouache.

The Dez (more notebook).

If you're from Minneapolis or the surrounding area, you may have heard about my friend, local comedian and actor, Greg "The Dez" Hernandez.

I went to one of his shows, and although I like him very much, I decided that I didn't think he was very funny...

Notebook.

Here are quick portraits of some of my friends I did in my "illustrated notebook," which was actually a children's encyclopedia from 1987...

Crazy Carl likes the finer things in life.



Dan sometimes reminds me of some sort of cute chipmunk/squirrel hybrid.


Little Erin (as I call her), my best friend Victor's wife, moved to Minneapolis from Florida to be with her man.


Martina spent one semester with us at the Minneapolis College of Art and Design.


And Tristan always hurts himself while bmxing.

And what now?

Now, I think I'm just searching for things I've done in the recent past that might be worth putting on here before I start putting up my newer work.



This is a spot illustration for the Russian novel The Master and Margarita. In it, Satan comes to Earth with a bunch of his goons who disguise themselves (one as a giant cat-man named Behemoth). This is my rendition of Behemoth turning into is true form towards the end of the novel. However, I'll admit it does not accurately depict what happens whatsoever. I think I was too influenced by the animal cruelty videos I had seen -- one in particular of a raccoon being skinned alive...







And this is an illustration I did under the idea of "DO own a Winston," with Winston being one of my own dogs who is a more mild mannered Cavalier King Charles than my other two ("DO NOT own a Charles" not included, even though I love him very much).

Now it's time for catch-up...

Here are a couple illustrations I did of two of my favorite people from the 80's (done in gouache)...

There are six in all. Want to see more? Let me know!

So this is new...

And I'm kind of dumb with things like this. Hopefully my dear friend Francesca can help me figure this thing out...

But to get things started, I thought I'd share an illustration I did under the idea of "Utopia." Done in vine charcoal (and some watercolor underneath for temperature).