Pirate

AAAARRRGH!
a pirate.

j.

Batman...

a goofy batman I did for Sugar Frosted Goodness

Girl with the red hat

out of my sketchbook... random character sketch

Illustration Friday - Ghost

Here's my IF for today. Experimenting with photoshop brushes and textures.

Guitar guy

Another image from my sketchbook.

Blue beans

Here's a page from my sketchbook. Colored pencil and a dying Chartpak marker.
...had kind of a crappy day yesterday.

Laughing Critters

Here are some laughing critters for an upcoming Scholastic book series about animals.

From my sketchbook

design inspiration interview

check out my interview on the Design Inspiration blog.
click here
j.

painting with kids

This is a painting done by my 3 year old daughter, Annabeth. She loves to make a mess, and it's tons of fun to paint with her. The brushes stink, the paper's super cheap, and the paint is nasty. Tons of fun.



and these are some drawings done by my 5 year old son Mark. Mark has autism, so I'm always really interested in what kind of thing comes out of his head. I taught him how to draw himself, so now he draws pictures of himself all the time.
This outfit with the button down shirt, the red boots and the belt is his favorite "uniform"- he'd wear it every day if we let him. It's sort of a comfort thing I think. I'm just thrilled to see my kids drawing and painting. For a long time, they had no interest in coloring or drawing, much to my chagrin, but recently they have become totally interested. yay. My 7 year old son isn't interested though. He digs the Nintendo DS and Legos. That's ok, as long as I have at least one mini me I'm happy.

Here's a fish I did while painting with Annabeth

On a personal note...

Sunday, September 17 2006, our new baby girl was born. The labor and delivery went really well. Mommy is recovering nicely.
We named her Olivia Joy Elston. For those keeping track, this is baby #4 for us. Now it's 2 boys and 2 girls. She's a cute little bugaboo.




Here's a picture of our second born son holding Olivia.

Illustration Friday - Farm

A farmer... 50s style.

j.

Day job

here's a piece from the project that has been taking up all my time. I am illustrating a 10 book series for Scholastic. This one is an interior illustration from book 4.

j.

Illustration Friday - Safe

Oh robot maids are the best...
j.

Illustration Friday - Run

A runner...
j.

skate shop logo

Here are 2 graffiti-inspired logos for the local skateboard shop here in Johnstown PA. I don't know yet whether he'll use them, but I had fun doing them nonetheless. I still skateboard, at age 35 (mostly at the local skate park), although I have salt and pepper colored hair, a wife, 3 kids and a minivan, and I know all the words to most of the Wiggles' music. Kids less than half my age are ripping it up, while I throw down the slow motion old school... well, my skateboarding heyday was in the early 90s, so I guess I skate more "middle school".
One thing is for sure, I'm not 18 any more.

I don't bounce back as quickly as these little guys do.

Illustration Friday - Match

I thought I'd try something a little different.

Bubbley

I've been busy busy busy. Deadlines and revisions and crap... Here's a new illustration that I cranked out for the heck of it.

redhead

doodle of a redhead.
Just looking for an excuse to use my markers.
j.

trumpet guy

a drawing from my sketchbook colored in photoshop

Illustration Friday - Sticky

heh.

Illustration Friday - Rain

Here's my Illustration friday entry for the topic, "Rain".

I had fun with Bubble last time, that I thought I'd follow the same thread.
I've been super mega busy with my freelance career lately, that I haven't been able to post very much.

j.

Bubble Girl

Here's my homage to bubble tea. I did another illustration a few years ago, after I went to the Chinese section of Philadelphia and had some very tasty Bubble tea. At the time, I was barely acquainted with Illustrator, so it took me forever to do it. I liked the character, and I thought it would be fun to go back and do another illo with the Bubble girl.

here's the original:

Illustration Friday - Cake

Spaceman cake!

Illustration Friday - Sorry

Here's this week's Illustration Friday.
experimenting with textures and Illustrator.
j.

Orangeboy sk8

Here's an orange skater kid.

Illustration Friday - Fat

waiting for the dinner bell to do the bell thing...
dinner bell dinner bell DING DING DING!!


here's the sketch.

illustration Friday - Under the Sea

Mermaid...

Illustration Friday - Robot

Robots on the move!

I've been so so so so busy lately, took me a while to get to this.

j.

illustration Friday - Spotted

I wasn't exactly gushing forth with ideas this week...
here it is anyway, the spotted frogs.

Illustration Friday - Speed

Speeeeeeed...

Illustration Friday - Spring

Spring!

Birdhouse show

This is a birdhouse I painted for a birdhouse art show in Greensburg, PA.

illustration Friday - Monster

Here is the monstaaah. Illustration Friday...

Illustration Friday - Feet

This week's Illustration Friday is feet.
here's the sketch.

Devout

another sketch I did during church. I went on to color it in Photoshop.

Tattoo 2

So I finished the girl.
I thought it would be good to go for a totally different color scheme than the guy.
Let me know what you think.

Sunday sketches

These are some sketches I did during church. My church is a noisy place that has praise and worship (music) that lasts for hours. I think it's a great environment to draw.

Illustration Friday - Tattoo

Here's today's illo friday dealeo... tattoo.
I sketched out a more full illustration concept, but I had waaaay too much work to do today so I only did half of it. I had to do like 80 bazillion illustrations for a client in the UK.

Here's the sketch-- I am hoping to add the girl eventually.
This is also a departure from my usual heavy black line technique. I thought I'd try to construct the whole thing in illustrator with the pen tool, etc, whereas I usually do a black line drawing on paper, and scan it and vectorize it (with Adobe Streamline) and edit and go from there.

blah blah ba blahblah blaaaaaah.
Good day sir.
I SAID, GOOD DAY!
j.