Envelopes and Letters

Even though I had not posted anything until late March, I was still doing stuff, just not blog stuff.  Mostly, I was working on my calligraphy by writing letters to friends, trying to stay in touch using a more tactile medium.  And then decorating the envelopes with an illustration or cartoon. The cartoons would be Calvin & Hobbes, Winnie the Pooh, or the Peanuts gang.  Depending on the illustration, I would use either be pen and ink, or some type of watwercolor-esque medium like below. 

Below is a Calvin and Hobbes before I write the name and address on the envelope (I scanned the envelope before I added a few more branches for detail).  These guys are a big, big favorite of mine.

                      Pen & ink and watercolor on 70lbs Sundance envelope

Just the pen and ink.

Blue Devil vs Amazo

Recently, I found some old artwork that I did in junior high and high school.  Among this treasure trove was some comic book pages that I did when I was about 14.  I think this penciled page was part of a submission package that I was going to send into DC comics and never did.  The page is a fight between Blue Devil and Amazo (an android who has the combined powers of the Justice League). Neither are particularly famous characters, but back in the day I thought they were cool.

Now that I own a nice portable light box, I decided to trace the original pencils and ink the pages.  Below is the my inks over my pencils.  Pretty cool.

Here is a scan of the original pencils.  Back in the day, I would fill notebooks full of super hero drawings and sketches.  Not bad for a 14 year old!

And here is the tracing from the light box.  I kept the tracing very loose.  It is a bit hard to see.

Old Man Logan

Dystopian Wolverine (Old Man Logan) vs dystopian Hulk (Maestro), but neither is from the same dystopian future as the other.  Such is life in the Marvel Universe.

Originally I was going to lay watercolor over these inks, but have decided not to, at least for now.  This is based on a panel by awesome Brazilian artist, Mike Deodato, from Old Man Logan #30.

                              Pen & ink on 90 lbs paper 11x15

Started with a rough pencil sketch.

Decided to do all the details in ink. Cross-hatching is fun!

More details. . .but no trees yet. . .

A Self portrait of sorts. . .and other odds and ends

I do not think the reference picture looks like me (plus I was +12 lbs at the time), but it is a funky cool photo.  Just bing watched Season 2 of Jessica Jones and her landlord is a painter and had all kinds of portraits lying around his apartment kinda inspired me to do this one.  May not look like me, but I like it.

                 Pen & Ink + watercolor on 180 lbs Stilman & Birn Beta



A very small copse of evergreen trees just outside my window, just playing around with color and water.  More a doodle than a painting.

                                   Watercolor on paper 5.5 x 3.5 inches


I have seen Leigh Reyes do this to great effect.  This is my first pass at trying it.  Not bad, but I will do better next time.

             Vert de Rio ink (Robert Oster) on 140 lbs watercolor paper (4x6 inches)