U is for Ulysses Butterfly

When I was hunting down U animals for Ben Towle's Animal Alphabet, I saw the Ulysses butterfly & immediately thought of the novel by James Joyce, one of my all-time favorite books.

It was such a pleasure transcribing Joyce's words. If I were completely mad, I would do a huge series of these including the entire text. Wouldn't that make quite an installment? But as I'm only slightly mad, I'll stick to one, featuring the first & last bits. (Click for a better view.)

I highly recommend that you go get the book & fill in the gap!

p.s. This one is all Photoshop

T is for Tahr

This week's entry for Ben Towle's Animal Alphabet.

Ball-point, marker & white gel-pen on brown paper, fooled with in Photoshop.


(Pssst! By the way, if you're looking for the missing "S" you'll find it on my Oddments blog.)

O is for Octopus

... & obvious. I admit I cheated a bit on this weeks entry for Ben Towle's Animal Alphabet, by using an old drawing, white gouache on black paper, retweaked a bit in Photoshop.

N is for Numbat

This week's entry for Ben Towle's Animal Alphabet is the numbat. Thanks to Isaac Cates for suggesting this odd & elegant marsupial!

Sketched in ball-point pen, marker & white gouache on brown paper, then a bit of Photoshop fiddling.

M is for Mandrill

This week's entry for Ben Towle's Animal Alphabet is the Mandrill. This one demanded color & I only had time for a quickie, so it's completely digital (Photoshop.) I'd really love to work this up to a full-fledged painting someday.

I took considerable liberties with the chest hair pattern for alphabetical purposes. ;-)

Sleep Tight!

Beginning next month I will be taking a class in Flash animation. In preparation I've been working on ways to simplify my art style drastically, so as not to go entirely crazy when I have to do a whole bunch of drawings of the same subject. %} Here's one of my efforts, which is actually part of a quasi-animation test I did in Photoshop. Unfortunately, every time I try to export/render to video, it crashes my computer! So, for now, the still will have to do. (You're not missing much, I promise.)

I did the initial sketch in ink & white gouache on toned paper, then changed the color & added the background (scanned from an acrylic painting) in Photoshop.

Part of me really really wants to refine this, but I'm trying as hard as I can to let go of my obsessive tweaking since I know I won't have time for that in my class.

I do hope this creepy crawly fellow doesn't disturb your dreams.

Institute of Genotechnics

I've been mining my collection of texts for goodies to include in the collage elements of the new piece, & I found this great ad which I'd scanned from an old Mechanics Illustrated:


















These zoobotanical creatures are the result of extensive genetic engineering, so I did a bit of pixel engineering in Photoshop.




















You will see this again in later posts, showing the collage state, but most of it will be obliterated by paint in the end... I'm glad I'm keeping progress shots from this one!

Please click the image for details. To see all the posts in this process, please click the "Goodly Creature" label below.