getting ready for work

Sometimes holding a picture of laughing bird people in my hand is all it takes.

This is what happens when I close the blinds in my studio

Giant Robot, Game Over Show

I made this little drawing for the upcoming video game themed show at the Giant Robot gallery in San Fransisco. I thought I was too busy to pull off being a part of this, but everyone who works at GR-SF is awesome, so I couldn't bring myself to say no. Hopefully I can pull of making a second piece for them before I have to get this to the post office. If you're in the Bay Area, their shows are always worth catching: www.gr-sf.com

collaborative drawing

When Daria Tessler was in Portland last summer we met up for coffee and made this collaborative drawing together. I hadn't seen the drawing since we made it, so it was fun to get an email from her with it attached! She's also moving out here later in the spring, so hopefully there will be more collaborations in the future. Check out her website filled with amazing work: www.animalsleepstories.com

Stumptown Comics Fest Poster

I got asked to do the poster for this year's Stumptown Comics Fest, and I had a lot of fun making it. The Fest isn't happening until the last week of April, but I figured it's never too early to start talking about it. All the floating comics in the poster have titles. Sorry you can't read them in this tiny scan. I'll have to do some detail shots at some point.
I'm extra excited for this year's festival because my publisher, Secret Acres will be coming all the way out from New York to attend. We'll be having a meeting about my new book while they're in town, so I'm trying to have as many pages ready as possible . Wish me luck!

Three things I saw yesterday

an alien wearing a necklace.

A hunting Blue Heron. A smiling stone cat face.

some peeks at things

I'd forgotten I'd made this little drawing until I found it in a stack of papers the other day.
This is a small section of a drawing that's going to be in StudyGroup12 #4, which is an awesome anthology of comics and art that cartoonist Zack Soto edits. There's an incredible list of artists for this, so I'll be excited to see it when it comes out in late April.

This is a tiny section of a huge drawing I've been working on for a project that's still suppose to be top secret I think. I'm running incredibly late on finishing it. I always get excited about contributing to all these great projects I get invited be a part of, but my own book is taking up so much of my heart and head right now, I'm gong to need to start saying no to everyone very soon !

a piece of paper i've been placing my pen on

I've been drawing and drawing and writing and drawing. A lot. It's hard to keep up on things like blogs sometimes, though I'm trying my best not to vanish for too long at a time. The picture above is a sneak peak at a new comic, but it could also be seen as an explanation of sorts for my periods of absence from reality. Yes, I still have a lot of wall paper to ink. I know it sounds crazy, but I find it relaxing.

Rubber Bubble

I spent a few moments of my day looking through a rubber bubble. It was what I needed right then

Thanks Steve!!

Steve Salik made a sculpture based on one of the woodcut creatures I made around Christmas time. It recently arrived in a box at my door and I'm still totally blown away by his generosity and craftsmanship. The sculpture now lives with me in my studio and has been overseeing things from a prominent vantage point. I've known about Steve's beautiful hand made books since I've had the pleasure of hanging out with him at the PLAY retreats for the last couple of years, but sculpture is a totally new thing for him. Hopefully he already has more sculptures in the works. Check out more of Steve's work on his blog: http://strangejournals.com

Prism Index

Last night I went to the release party for the first issue of Prism Index, a beautiful handmade magazine that I contributed four pages to. I would love to see more publications like this in the world. The man behind it all, Jeffrey Bowers went all out: From the silk screened cover with hand-made paper, to the hand-stamped 88 minute dvd of short films and animation, a hand-stamped 72 minute cd of strange and interesting music, plus 80 pages of art, comics, poetry, short fiction and non-fiction. It's also a limited edition of 500.

Here's one of the spreads from the magazine featuring my art. I hope this will be the first of many issues to come! Check out the prism index website at www.prismindex.com . I think actual copies won't be shipped until March since he's on the road right now, but copies can be reserved.

In the studio

While working on my new book, it's been hard to know what to keep top secret and what to share. It's been a chaotic process in so many ways but a shape to it all is slowly being found. I'll be posting some actual pages from the book soon I think!

Every time I turn around, my cat is suddenly asleep on my work. I put this new drawing of a break dancing mummy on top of him to see if it would wake him up, but apparently he can sleep through anything.This is the look he gave me when I tried to get him to move.
These are more dangerous than they look.

Juxtapoz and Giant Robot

There's a little one page artist spotlight on me in the February issue of Juxtapoz (page 20). The art copied I little weird I thought, but it's still exciting to be in such a great magazine.

Also, issue 63 of Giant Robot has a short Q&A thing with me on page 36 regarding the big Giant Robot Biennale show that's Just ending at the Japanese American National Art Museum in LA.

It was pretty crazy to walk into a bookstore and see both of these magazines sitting next to each other on the racks.

park time

Yesterday I took a break from drawing and jogged to the park near my house. I re-found this tiny bit of graffiti I had drawn a few months back, and I wondered if anyone had pressed the button. I did.

I also found a new climbing tree.

Ramona Falls Shirt

I had breakfast with Brent Knopf, of the band Ramona Falls the other day (who's debut album I did the art for) and he gave me this awesome 5 color silk screened shirt he had made for his European tour. Here's where you can find them: http://www.bingo-bazaar.com/index.php?main_page=index&cPath=97

PIC MSG

It's always fun to get a spontaneous picture message on my phone from a friend showing me what they're working on at that very moment. This one was from Tracy Moore, sent from a coffee shop in Seattle. I immediately took a picture of what was in front of me on my drawing table and sent it as a reply. Modern technology now allows for such things. Tracy is one of my favorite people to draw with, so I found myself wishing for teleportation.

Today's Drawing table

Today is a very rare palindrome date! 01/02/2010. I woke up early and made French toast for Heather and I, then got right to work. Above is the ever mutating title page to my comic, The Quiet Family. Wrote and thumb nailed four new pages then worked on various unfinished pages.

Lentil soup with Parmesan cheese and Jasmin green tea, with a cutting board for a place mat. Writing pad with pencil and eraser are essential while eating. Lunch was a success!Mortimer has been hiding behind me under the rug. I'm letting him think I don't know.
Currently propped on my drawing table for inspiration: a framed picture of a Balinese Mask, and a rock I found at Heather's favorite camping spot.

Currently pinned in front of my drawing table for inspiration: Home made Ghost Goggles and a page from a Jack Kirby comic featuring an alien landscape.
A tiny section of an unfinished page. This one is going to take awhile, so I'm working on it in stages. Now I must write bills, then probably a walk (so I can be counted among the people who actually went outside today)....Over and out.

Happy New Year!

This is officially my last completed drawing of 2009 (finished moments ago). It's a page from the book I'll be working on as much as possible in 2010.

making wood cut-outs for Christmas

I used my scroll saw and went crazy with some wood cut-out character Christmas present action. The Moore's (one of my favorite families ever) were kind enough to invite me to their place for Christmas since I couldn't make it to Montana this year. This one was for Trista. It's Wolf Boy Wearing his second favorite sweater.

This one was for Tiphoni. My Cat Mortimer really wanted to keep this one. It has 14 legs and 42 toes.This one is a tiny time traveler (actual size) that I made for Tracy. He put my cat to sleep using his special powers.This is The Temple Carrying Turtle I made for Teesha. I used one of my giant doodles as a back drop for this one.Special angled view shot.

This is the Big Head With Pants. He's a character I made up a long time ago and has become an ongoing joke between my Brother and I. He even used him in one of his animation assignments in school. I was not strong enough to resist making him this.This is a magic good luck dog I made for my Sister. All the colors in his fur don't really come across in this photo.This one was for my Mom. I snapped this shot and the other two for my siblings right as I was packing them into a box to ship home to Montana.

This one was for my Dad. It hung on my wall for about 5 minutes after being finished, then was packed away and sent to the Bay Area.

Now back to making comics! Happy last day of the year everyone!!

print making is fun!

Judy Wise was curious to see the screen I used to make the Enchilada Sauce labels, so here it is. The screen material is stretched over a wood frame, then coated with photo emulsion, then dried. A transparency of the image is placed on the screen and put under a photo lamp. The photo emulsion hardens wherever it's exposed to light. Under the black areas of the transparency, the emulsion remains soft and can be washed away with a hose. The yellow in the photo is where the image washed away and ink can be pressed through. The green is the non-porous, hardened emulsion. The red is actually an ink stain from a previous print I had made using the same screen. I used an old car window washing squeegee to print the image onto sticker paper. The screen is attached to hinges for accuracy.

Do you like Enchilada Sauce?

The Story of the Enchilada Sauce: Heather's mom taught us how to can food a little while ago, so I made a big batch of my top secret Enchilada Sauce. I screen printed a label that represents how I feel about Enchilada Sauce. then I gave away jars of it to family for Christmas. I hope they will all eat it and love it. The End.

Merry Christmas Everyone

I'll be back after the holiday. I finally got a good camera so I'm planning on turning my blog into more of an ongoing studio diary, where I'll be documenting the daily happenings on and around my drawing table. I might even make some short films. I'm planning on making 2010 the most kick ass, productive year yet! Have fun everyone, and look out for elves.

Creative Creatures Bazaar

I'll be over at Cosmic Monkey for the Creative Creatures Bazaar later today. I'll be selling a few small originals, some of last copies of my out of print zines, my new Christmas card, as well as a few other things. It's going to be a small Bazaar that's made up of friends of mine, and they all make wonderful stuff! If you're in the area today, come by and say Hi. Cosmic Monkey is an incredible store and always worth a visit. I might be back for the second day of the Bazaar as well, but I might end up having to hide out at home getting my Christmas packages ready to ship instead.

New Website!

Here I am wearing my mystical house helmet and standing in front of my new website. I decided that I wanted to have a website that actually existed in physical reality, so I built it on my wall. My good friend Sam Kulla came to town and helped me put it all together , and now it exists on the web too! It's up and ready to see: www.thoughtcloudfactory.com Sam Kulla does great work and is super fun to work with if anyone out there needs unique web work done www.samkulla.com The shop is still in the works, but someday soon I'll have a webstore too!

Heather's Acupuncture clinic!

My Fiancee, Heather, graduated and got her Acupuncture license a couple of months ago! She worked non-stop for the last few years to get there, and I couldn't be more proud! This is the card I made for her in celebration of the occasion.

She just started her own private practice here in Portland, as well as opening a group acupuncture clinic with a couple of school friends. You can check out what she's up to at http://www.heatherhulbert.wordpress.com/ . Heather's Acupuncture skills, along with Shiatsu (a Japanese form of massage), and her knowledge of Chinese and western herbal medicine has helped me a lot. If you're in the Portland area, come and get a treatment!