My mother turns 78 this week.  She has always loved to sing and perform, so I decided to focus on her talent for music, and the thought of a songbird came to mind.  Though I enjoy cartooning, I wanted this time to approach the task in a more painterly, slightly more realistic direction with the bird and surrounding decor.  My desire was to make the lettering represent the look of notes on clef bars.  The bottom painting is a flower added to the inside of the card as a little bonus and having fun with watercolor.  I'm betting the note added inside combined with the artwork will bring a little tear to moms eye.  It doesn't take much now days to get the waterworks flowing. :)

It's hard to believe my friend Kenny and his buddies have been doing this event for 28 years!  Each season they travel to different locations, and a new design is commemorated on t-shirts.  I was commissioned years 5 through 7, cartoony versions of their drunken antics combined with golf.  They went a different direction for the ensuing years until this one when Kenny asked me again.  Though I love to do cartoons, I decided to try a more serious design like approach and practice my pathetic Photoshop/Illustrator skills.  It took me an eternity to accomplish, but after all my plodding, cursing, trial and error, I did learn some new techniques and like how the finish turned out.

All of my girls are now out of their teens, as my youngest Lauren turned 20 on the 23rd of May.  In July, she and her sister Kristi are traveling together to Thailand for about 5 weeks, so I used that as inspiration for her birthday card.  A film called The Life of Pi was popular this year, so I did a word play to commemorate the big trip, and along with working on a farm interspersed with sightseeing, the girls want to ride on elephants and cuddle with tigers as part of their experience....so into the card they go!

These were some frustrating drawings for me!  I don't charge enough for my work, nor am I good at setting boundaries or saying no!!  The bane of being a people pleaser.  No matter how strongly I stress the importance of being sent clear, current, unobstructed, un-dark, large as possible photos from the client, I rarely get what I need to help me get a good likeness.  Beyond the plethora of logos this mother wanted included as an ode to every college and sports teams associated with her boys, and the complexity of drawing an instrument such as the French Horn, she repeatedly nixed the bodies/scenes I  put them in, had a hard time seeing their likeness, and I wasn't capturing their personalities!  Because I know them so well, and I'm inexplicably supposed to pick that up through osmosis from crappy 2D pictures!  After numerous roughs and revisions, she still was not satisfied.  I emailed her and told her she should find another artist to make her happy, because I was done with all the nitpicking and unrealistic expectations.  Suddenly my drawings became awesome, and she was more than pleased with them.  Despite my little snit, and feeling far from anxious to continue, I decided to complete what I had started.  I even made more revisions, hoping to make her happier still.  So thrilled to be done!!

Commission from a father for his son's birthday, including family and their dog.  When I sent a rough drawing for his approval, he thought I made his son look too much like John Kerry, and the dog looked "generic"whatever that meant.  Am I the only one who thinks animals of the same breed all look alike?Somehow I'm supposed to capture personalities from 2D pictures and osmosis.  I think my original drawing of the son captured his likeness much better than the finish, and he actually does resemble a young J Kerry IMHO, but what do I know?  This was done in ink and prisma color.

As part of a birthday present for his girlfriend, my buddy Kenny brought over a 9"X 42" board he had painted a glossy black, with a request for me to paint a design upon the surface thereof.  Apparently there is a drinking game where shot glasses are attached to a board, filled with liquor, and participants must drink in unison as the plank is tipped toward open maws.  As you can see, for this particular device the drink of choice is Fireball, and four imbibers immortalized with nicknames in all their glory, lest confusion ensues upon inebriation.  

The Fireball and devil dude logo was scanned from an empty bottle Kenny supplied, then manipulated in Photoshop, printed and transferred to the board along with lettering for the phrases and names.  Both sides are completely hand painted with Sign Painters lettering enamel.  The challenges were myriad; eye strain, neck and back pain from hunching as I attempted to intrepidly lay down paint within the lines, yet facing the sad reality of shaking like a Richter 8 California trembler while simultaneously  getting high from oil based paint and brush cleaner fumes.  Despite the aches, pains, fussing and fretting  I was pleased with the results.  If you stand far enough away, the lines look straight and clean as a ruler, I think the font I chose complements the logo, and the colors really pop on that glossy black background.  Kenny seemed ecstatic and wasn't expecting such a "work of art".  Kind of a shame to mess it up with raucous alcoholic activities, but then again, everything looks better after a few shots of Fireball!!!  :)

Turning 21 is quite a milestone, as the age of adulthood has arrived at long last!  To commemorate this rite of passage, my daughter Kristi has expressed her desire to experience a more, umm, adult form of entertainment, so this year's card is a light hearted way for me to acknowledge a signifiant event in her young life.  Though Chippendales is not her venue of choice, they are most famous in the genre, and the cartoon chipmunks and their names fit right in with the fun I wanted to portray.  The medium is ink and watercolor.