Squaremania - Skunk in a tea cup

I've been meaning to do a series of Squaremania animals in tea cups - And this christmas break is just the right time to start!

If time allows, I'd like to do these as watercolors...but we'll see if I can fit it in before it's time to go back to work...

Ever since my wife and I came back from Europe (three years ago) we've been obsessed with tea.  In Paris there were these two nice restaurants that started it off...and once we got back we looked up all the tea houses in southern california.  We've even been known to look up tea houses when we go on a trip (we visited a tea house in Chicago when we were there for a wedding last summer)...

Squaremania: Batman

Way back when I originally started drawing animals in the squaremania style - I had wanted to do some human characters as well.  I was preparing a gallery show and ran out of time...so the only things that existed, at that time, were the animals.  At the time I was working on a napoleon drawing - but it never went anywhere...

Anyway - I was looking at a toy magazine today at the bookstore and saw a bunch of DC comic heroes and decided they'd be a good fit for Squaremania - so I'm starting with Batman...and I'll see about getting to the other characters...

Squaremania - Kitties for Adoption, cleaner rough

I liked this rough drawing enough that I'm going to finish it up and make a proper illustration out of it.  So far I enlarged the drawing in photoshop, lightened the opacity and printed it out so I could use that as a guideline for a tighter drawing:

I changed the adoption sign to make it more like something that someone would have on or near a box of kittens.  The original drawing actually said, "kitties for sale" but it was pointed out that my wife and I are going to be adopting.  More important - there are way too many stray kittens in need of homes that a person doesn't need to purchase them, but rather, rescue them.

Squaremania - Kitties on the Run...

My wife and I are going to be adopting a couple of kittens from a rescue later this month - but because of it, I seem to be drawing a lot of cats recently.

This was based on one of the kittens we saw.  He would pretend to be grooming himself and then suddenly pounce at nothing and then run around.  It was ridiculously cute how much energy he had.

We ended up choosing a brother and sister who were twin himalayans.  I don't know why I drew them being chased...but if people don't adopt kittens and puppies, then they get put down...so that's something to think about if you have room and time to care for an animal.

Squaremania - Kitties for Adoption!

This winter my wife and I are adopting a couple of little kittens from a rescue.   I've been drawing a lot of cats recently...and we can't wait to bring them into our home.

Squaremania - Lil' Panda in a Strange Land

I got a book for Christmas on the art of Greg "Craola" Simkins.  He's a fantastic gallery artist that comes up with some pretty twisted and intertwining works of art.  Anyway - it inspired me to sketch this:

I tend to draw very calculated things and this piece kept making me pause because I wanted to think about what I was doing...I think a good exercise would be to draw whatever is in my head and not get bogged down in making sense or in perspective.  At least I should sketch more...and it's nice to draw a character, every once in a while, that isn't square...but only every once in a while...

Lil' Square Kitty

My wife and I are adopting a couple of really cute little kittens this coming year.  We spent a couple of hours getting to know them at the vet.  They're from a rescue that takes in strays (they spay/neuter them and test them for diseases).

IF: Mailer - for publishing companies and christmas postcards

We did two versions of this as mailers.  Instead of regular christmas cards, we thought it'd be fun to do postcards.

"If you hear the pitter patter of square hooves on the roof, it's just Lil' Santa Panda and his square reindeer!"

"Just watch out for lil' square poops falling from the sky on Christmas Eve!"

IF: Mail - squaremania stamps

I thought it would be cute if my characters dressed up as stamps for this week's Illustration Friday topic of "Mail"

Spy Pope!

 This is the phenomenon known as Spy Pope!  Okay, so maybe there's no such thing, but why not?  Why can't the dude who doles out crackers and blesses babies do more?  Why does he have to be so old and  hobbly?  That doesn't have to be the case.  He could use his high position to do some good.  He could use his big silly hat to house a camera and other spy stuff.  Anything less is just a waste of a pope.

I was listening to the 'Doug Loves Movies' podcast.  It's Doug Benson's podcast and he had John Lithgow, Paul F. Tompkins and Jimmy Pardo on the October 1st taping.

He's been getting some really good guests lately - so I've been listening quite a lot more.  Anyway - on this particular podcast they were talking and somehow they got off topic and were talking about making a movie staring the Pope as a spy and how he'd have a camera coming out of his big hat.

It sounded like a funny idea, so I did a quick sketch of it - and liked that, so I did a little more, and filled out the scene.  It's still pretty rough, but I liked it.

Who needs James Bond when you've got Spy Pope on the case?

November Microstock Report

This is the microstock report for November:

Shutterstock was (again) the leader this month.  It's been a very busy month and we haven't added a single image to any of our sites.  They haven't noticed and are still performing...but slightly below last month's numbers.

Fotolia jumped up to an over $20 month with an $11 EL sale.

Hopefully I'll have time to upload some new images for Christmas, but we'll see...