Gameshow Fun

I had been given a job by the Oregon Children's Theater and the Kaiser Permanente Educational Theater Program to design and illustrate a backdrop that will be used around Portland to entertain and engage kids and adults about health. The project director had a color palette in mind and a reference point of match game for me to go off of.

I produced this:


When they asked for a second round of characters I sent them this sketch:


You can see which ones they ended up enjoying the most. they narrowed it down to the comedienne, The 'Muppet' and the athlete:


I like Cakey Monster the best. Look for these backdrops at events around Portland this summer and check out the Oregon Children's Theatre WEBSITE.

Jazz Is Like Jello Pudding

My close friend Joshua Smith is a fantastic sax player who has made many exciting and unusual recordings in the 12 years that we've been friends. This album by the Cleveland Trio, his most recent, features art made by yours truly.






He called me last year (after he'd made the recording) to brainstorm ideas for a cover and, within a few minutes of the start of the call, I sketched out what he described. Doing the final art only took an hour or so and the final printed result is beautiful. I enjoy Josh as a musical collaborator but we seemed to make a good visual team too! He just came through town on a tour and gave me a few copies of the printed album. If you like Jazz vocabulary but you like music that veers away from familiar tropes then check out my amazing friend Josh's Website and his other astounding sonic explorations.

Comission Mission

A month or so ago I was asked to do this commission:


I tried a couple roughs for my client with more extreme/dynamic angles but she wanted a straightforward portrait. There were a lot of requests for small details and I feel like I did a decent job accommodating those. I learned a couple things from doing this piece:

1. Charge per person depicted when you do a portrait commission. Likenesses are hard and time consuming. One should be paid appropriately. Thankfully I really liked the client and It didn't care that I had quoted her a low rate because she was so easy to work with.

2. I have to work on proportion and doing this pointed that fact out to me. There are a few little issues apparent in the image but I still like it.


I would do commissions like this in the future on a case by case basis. For now I like doing stories or pinups of characters that are well established. It requires less busy work to render a firmly established character or aesthetic.

You're Gonna Find Yourself Floating Home

I have a more elaborate Han Solo drawing on the back burner. This image was done as a tryout for a possible comics job where the request was to draw the characters more simply. There is a difference between getting a likeness of a fictional character played by an actor and just doing a drawing of the actor. With this image I tried for Han Solo rather than Harrison Ford.

If you're a super 'original trilogy only' dork like me you'll note where the two bounty hunters, that are tracking Han, are from.

When I finish thepinup I will post that too. Both will be available on the Periscope Studio Etsy Store.

Too Old To Begin The Training

So, as some of you may know, I have an obsession with Star Wars that spans my whole life and I decided to celebrate that by doing some pinups. This is the first one and you can see in the thumbnails the other images I had planned.


I'll also be posting my Han Solo/Yoda image upon completion.


I used prismacolor markers and some pitt pens. I find that I like the looseness of the sketches and that I have a little trouble transferring that energy to the final. Overall I feel that what is lost in energy gets balance out with solidity.




In other news The great Paul Gilbert has a new record coming out so you know what I'll be doing on August 3rd. If you like amazing guitar then fill your ears with THIS!

Be on the lookout for some PG fan art by yours truly.

Yes, Sometimes I Draw Dogs.

I met a dog, we played Frisbee and I did a drawing of him.


I like drawing people in motion and animals because it requires a type of observation that relies partially on memory coupled with a sort of preemptive composition. I watch for a little while to see if there is a type of pose that gets repeated. I try to remember which aspect of the subject falls into consistency with that context and render it. Life drawing is something that comic book artists should be doing whenever they can.

Love in Comics Form.

For my sweet LindseyAnne's birthday I made her a comic of our love. It chronicles the first year or so of our courtship/friendship and where we are now. I love her very much and I wanted to do something sweet for her. The style is different than my usual approach but I have been enjoying the work of my studiomates Erika Moen and Colleen Coover so I thought I might go for a look like that. It was nice to relax and make decisions more from an instinctual place than an academic one.




The characters are versions of Lindsey and I that come form inside jokes between us. All of the drawings have a little of that in them. My favorite might be of the skunk though that one is also sort of unfair to the person it represents. I am with a girl who is perfect for me and I wanted to demonstrate that to her with an artistic present.