High Contrast Review!

My good friend Sam Kulla's in town for a visit. He's passing through town after some crazy travels through China, Korea, and all over Europe. Whenever we hang out, we end up doing all kinds of fun collaborative work. He's started up a really great art and literature site called the High Contrast Review that's soon to have a yearly print edition. While we were hanging out yesterday, I drew over one of Sam's photo's and turned it into an ad of sorts for The High Contrast Review. Agents from around the globe! Check it out at www.highcontrastreview.com

Sam's also kind enough to be helping me revamp my website, so keep an eye out for some exciting things over there.

necessary camping

I just got back from spending an amazing week out at Heather's Family's land in Montana. It's been way too long since I've been able to step away from the world of humans, buildings, and communication devices. We hiked around picking huckleberries, wild raspberries, black currents, and rose hips. I made a tiny boat out of bark, twigs and leaves, and sent it down the creek with a pebble for a passenger, and I drew pictures and daydreamed about the new comics I'm working on.

I also made a shrine out of some deer skulls we found out in the woods. I've got to make sure I get to do this kind of thing at least a few times a year. Living at this kind of pace makes a lot of sense to me. Now that I'm back, it feels kind of strange to be in a city, but I'm rearranging my studio now, so I can launch into working my new comics with as clear a focus as possible.

pinhole photo

I've always been fascinated by old photographs, so I thought It was pretty cool when an awesome lady named Donna Stewart walked up to my booth at the Portland Saturday Market with a home-made pinhole camera and asked to take my picture. I like the way everything in the foreground ended up stretching. You can check out more of Donna's photos at her Flickr site: http://www.flickr.com/photos/36940648@N02/

the ever changing pictures on my drawing table

This is part of an unfinished drawing that will be the first chapter heading page of my new comic book.

This is smaller, unfinished drawing I've been working on along side of the chapter heading drawing. It'll probably end up being one of the earlier illustration pages that leads into the book.

This is a scribbly diagram I made in order to get clear about a certain aspect of the plot progression in the story.

These are some more fragments of unfinished drawings; all part of my comic. My plan is to make it an ongoing series, though I haven't quite figured out how many pages I should publish at a time. I think I'm just going to keep working on it until it feels like the right amount to have in a single issue, then get right on to working on the next one.

The comic is called The Thought Cloud Family. I don't think I'll be changing the name at this point. It's going to be in color. I tried to have it be black and white, but the color is ending up being an important part of the story, so I'm just going for it.

Right now I'm just focusing on the lead-in art, and making crazy charts and notes, but I've set a date to start working on my story full time (as much as finances will allow).

Heather (my girlfriend) is just about to graduate from the Oregon College of Oriental Medicine. It's been a huge and intensive program! After she graduates, we'll immediately be escaping to Montana to camp for a week. When we get back, she'll be starting a part time job as an assistant in an acupuncture clinic, and I plan to launch into my comics series! It feels like an amazing new step for us both!

Also, Tomorrow night, I'm doing a reading at Powells City of Books, along with my awesome Cartoonist friend Aron Steinke (See the earlier post below). I'll be reading first at 7:30 pm. Unfortunately, Heather has school that night, so she won't get to see me talk in funny voices.

Maybe you can come though?

Ramona Falls

I did the art for Ramona Fall's debut album, Intuit, put out by Barsuk Records www.barsuk.com Ramona Falls is the solo work of Brent Knopf from the band Menomena in collaboration with a couple dozen great musicians. He's off on a tour pretty soon and I definitely recommend catching him if he comes through your town. The album is awesome and I'm proud have supplied the visuals. I rarely have time to do commission work like this, but he magically contacted me at just the right time, and it ended up being a really fun process turning our conversations into pictures for the album. www.ramonafalls.com

San Francisco Zine Fest!

Due to some car issues, I wasn't sure If I was going to be able to make it to the San Francisco Zine Fest this coming weekend, but I scored some last minute plane tickets and I'm heading down! It's suppose to be a great show. I'll be there all weekend signing copies of my new comic, Sleeper Car and copies of Capacity. I'll also have a bunch of my art zines, prints and other objects of interest for sale! Come say Hi! It's located in Golden Gate Park, which is one of my favorite places to explore in San Francisco! www.sfzinefest.com

It's also coming down to the final week of my Solo Show at Giant Robot! There's still some pieces available, and the whole show is still up online to check out: www.gr-sf.com . It'll be fun to be down there again so i can stop in and say hi to all the awesome folks at the gallery.

Reading at Powells City of Books!

I'm going to be doing a reading at Powells Books with fellow cartoonist, Aron Nels Steinke at the end of August, up in the Pearl room where all the awesome art books are! I'll be reading a story from my new comic, Sleeper Car, and Aron will be reading from his awesome new book, Neptune! The art from our stories will be proected on the walls. It'll be a fun night!

Sleeper Car arrives!

A big box of my new comic, Sleeper Car, showed up at my door a couple of days ago! It makes me want to buckle down and finish my current illustrations jobs so I can get back tomaking comics as much as possible. Sleeper Car will be making it's way into comic shops now . It's also already available at the Secret Acres website and on Amazon.

Sleeper Car!

Pre-copies of my new comic, Sleeper Car are now available on my publisher's website! :

http://www.secretacres.com/store/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=65

It's hot off the press, and my own copies haven't even reached me yet! I'm very excited to see it in print!

In late August, I'll be Reading from Sleeper Car at Powells City of Books here in Portland with my friend Aron Nels Steinke, who has an amazing new book out called Neptune. I'll have more info about that soon.

Art for sale!

My art show at Giant Robot-San Francisco is now available online! http://www.gr-sf.com/artshows.php

Portland Zine Symposium

I'll be at the Portland Zine Symposium all weekend: www.pdxzines.com selling my work. I'll probably be wearing my magic house-helmet during parts of it.

The above photo was taken by my brother Matt, who I just had an amazing time visiting in San Francisco. He's working on a stop-motion animated film right now! I'm trying to get him to move to Portland so we can collaborate on his next one!

Back from San Francisco

It was a successful show opening and I had an amazing time! Here's a picture of me with Luke, the awesome manager at Giant Robot, San Francisco. The whole staff at GR-SF was great to work with and I met so many wonderful people! Thanks everyone! The show should be up for sale on the gallery website within a week. In the mean time you can check out a slide show of the opening night on their website: www.gr-sf.com

Imaginary Friends!

I'm heading to San Francisco with a car-load of art! I'm leaving early Wednesday the 15th to hang my solo show, "Imaginary Friends" at Giant Robot. I can't wait! Above is one or the wood cuts I made for the show. Below are a few more sneak peeks at some of the other pieces.

Folks that come to the show opening on Saturday the 18th get first dibs on pieces, but the show will be on display and up for sale on their website soon after. www.gr-sf.com

Tea party!

I've completely finished everything for my 32 page comic, Sleeper Car, and I'm sending off the scans to Secret Acres! It will be coming out Late August! Now I'm finishing up tons of pieces for my upcoming Giant Robot show. The picture above is one of the many tiny pieces that will be hanging on their walls starting July 18th! On another note, I've officially started drawing the first page of my next big book. Though it'll probably be a little while before I can get back to it, it felt pretty amazing to finally be sitting down and laying out a scene that's been inside of my head for years! It's turning out to be a great summer!

Solo Show at Giant Robot, San Francisco!

I'm having a big solo art show at the Giant Robot Gallery in San Francisco! I'll be loading up a car full of art and heading down to hang it all, and I'll be at the gallery opening night on July 18th. If you happen to be in the Bay Area, come say Hi! Afterwards, I'll be having a long overdue visit with my Brother, Dad, and a number of old friends who live in the area. I really can't wait!

Benefit show!

I have work in a benefit show for the Independent Publishing Resource Center. www.iprc.org . They're a really amazing place that we are very lucky to have here in Portland. I also contributed some drawings to the zine they'll be putting out along with the show. Here's all the info:

Zine River: A Benefit Art Show for the Independent Publishing Resource Center@Grass Hut Gallery811 East Burnside Portland, OR 97214 June 26-July 1 Opening Reception: Friday June 26, 2009 at 7pm

Featuring artwork and zines by Chris Johanson, Thomas Campbell, Lori D, Nicole J. Georges, Gabriel Liston, Theo Ellsworth, Dan Gilsdorf, Travis Millard, Mel Kadel, Megan Whitmarsh, Leif Goldberg, Keegan Wenkman, Scrappers, Sammy Harkham, Chris Duncan, Thom Lessner, Elizabeth Haidle and E*Rock.


For more info call 503.827.0249 or visit www.grasshutcorp.com

Keeping busy

I've been at my drawing table a lot! I just finished all the art for the upcoming Ramona Falls album that's coming out sometime in August. Now I'm working to finish and frame all the pieces for my solo art show called "Imaginary Friends" that's opening on July 18th at the Giant Robot Gallery in San Francisco. The above image is from the Ramona Falls album art and the original will be hanging in the show. I'm also getting ready to scan the 32 page comic that Secret Acres will be putting out pretty soon called "Sleeper car". It's been a fun spring!

Eye Level Gallery

I'll have some of my pen and ink drawings on display at Eye Level Gallery in Brooklyn, NY. The show opens Friday, June 5th, 8:30-11pm. It includes work by a number of great cartoonists as well as some book releases that I'm REALLY excited about from Secret Acres, Bodega, and Sparkplug. This is another show that is being put on as part of the MoCCA comics festival. You can go to another art show I'm involved in the very next night at Giant Robot too! (See info about that show a couple of posts down.) I really feel like I'm missing out by not making it to all these great events! You can find out more about this show at www.eyelevelgallery.com

re-found art

I've been trying to be better about documenting my art before I send it off to galleries, but sometimes it completely slips my mind until after it's already off in the mail. This is a piece that I thought I'd never see again, but then realized that a photo of it was in the Giant Robot show archives. It's a Shaman wearing a hat with ghost grabbing capabilities.

Group Show @ Giant Robot New York

I have 3 pieces in the big group show coming up at the Giant Robot Gallery in New York, NY! It's an all cartoonists show to go along with the independent comics festival called MoCCA that's happening the first weekend in June. Some of my favorite comic artists are in the art show, so it's pretty exciting to be a part of it. The contributing artists were each asked to do a 1x1 inch portrait for the show card (mine is in the lower right corner). Folks attending the opening get first dibs on pieces, but the show will be up for sale on-line soon after at http://www.grny.net/ .

In other news, my publisher, Secret Acres will be debuting their 4th book at MoCCA (my book was their 3rd) it's a collection of comics called PS Comics, by the awesome cartoonist Minty Lewis. I've been enjoying her self-published work for awhile now, so I'm very excited to get my copy! You'll be able to find it at http://www.secretacres.com/

art show

My friend Sean Christensen is curating the new show at Guapo Comics and Coffee. It gave me an excuse to play around with my new scroll saw and make a Foo Dog out of cut wood. It was a lot of fun! If you can make it to the show opening, it should be a fun time. A bunch of my favorite local artists/friends are in the show, and Guapo is one of my favorite haunts.

work in progress

I've been working on the album art for Ramona Falls (the solo project of Brent Knopf of the band Menomena) The album will come out sometime in August and it's great! The above images are a small section of the art that will be in the pull-out booklet. I'll show you more as the release date gets closer

interviewed by The Hippogriff's Paintbox

I just did an interview with The Hippogriff's Paint Box. It's a blog that interviews artists making a living at their craft, started by one of my favorite artists, Daria Tessler. You can check out all of the interviews at: http://hippogriffspaintbox.blogspot.com/ and you can check out Daria's amazing work at http://www.animalsleepstories.com/

diary comic guest spot

For some reason I can't get the above comic to post any larger than this here, but you can view a legible version at the link below.

My friend Jesse Reklaw started keeping a diary comic. He's doing one page a day for a year as a personal experiment. Recently though, he decided he needed help keeping up with it all, so he asked 7 different friends to each fill in for a day as part of his Diary Guest Week Extravaganza! He has a guest appearance in everyone's pages so far. It was fun! I guess Jesse has been getting some slack for the thing I quoted him saying though. Sorry Jesse! The thing that Heather's uncle says is really an exact quote. Yes, I was scared.

Check out more of Jesse's diary comic at:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/jessereklaw/

more weekends!

I'm usually down at the Portland Saturday Market on the weekends selling my work, but this weekend I just couldn't get myself to go. It was amazing to have a real weekend! Heather and I went to a coffee shop and I worked on some small drawings for my upcoming show at the Giant Robot Gallery while she studied.

We met Batgirl at the coffee shop. She was really nice.Afterwards, we went walking through the graveyard around the corner. we found some beautiful, sad stuffed animals that had been left there to keep departed people company. Look at the moss covered Winnie the Poo!
It's a good time of year to look at the ground a lot while walking.
It's also a good time of year to ride bikes along the river after dark.