off to ArtFest

I've been so busy lately that most of my friends are beginning to think that I'm actually imaginary. Tomorrow I'll be heading north by train, then by car, then ferry, then car again up to Port Townsend, Washington to teach 2 full days of drawing workshops. It's been a crazy time getting prepared. I got inspired to create a whole zine of Imaginary Homework for my students to take home (I tried to stop myself, but it happened anyways). I screen printed the covers, like a madman, in my basement this morning. When I get home, I'll probably make more copies, so more people can read it. Now I just need to pack my bags so that I'm actually ready to leave tomorrow!!

A drawing in progress

I've been busy preparing (both physically and mentally) for the ArtFest workshops I'm teaching at the beginning of April. It always feels like a big deal to me that people actually want to pay to take a class from me, so I try to put extra care into the details to make if worth it (for them AND me). Anyways, the above picture, if I can finish it in time, will be the illustration for the funny diploma that I'll be giving the students for finishing my workshop. When I get home from ArtFest, my number one project will be my next book, "The Thought Cloud Family (book 1)", though I'll also be preparing for the Stumptown Comics Fest, vending weekends at the Portland Saturday Market, coloring a 10 page comic for an upcoming anthology being published by Darkhorse, and all the other strange activities I always seem to find myself involved in. Wish me luck!

my dream last night

I had to take a quick break from my other work today and draw this dream at the bottom of y To Do list, because I kept thinking about it. I obviously have no idea how to draw Darth Vader, but it looked just like him in the dream.

a brief account of my current projects

It's been a really busy week of work. I love to work! I'm basically not making any money right now, so my funds are dwindling, but the stuff that I'm working on makes me happy. The money will come. Right now, I'm thankful for the job that I've invented and hired myself to do.

I started my next book this week. I stayed up late one night and wrote the first hundred pages or so, fast and messy. Now I'm going back and working out the pages more carefully. The book is called "The Thought Cloud Family" (book one) and it's going to be an ongoing series of graphic novels. This first instalment will be 200 pages or so. I've decided that making these books is my real job, and I'm hoping that the world will take me seriously and stop making me do things that aren't my real job in order to pay rent. Hear me world.

I'm also preparing for ArtFest. If you don't already know, ArtFest is an amazing festival that goes on in Port Townsend, Washington every year. It's organized by my dear friends Teesha and Tracy Moore, and has become a huge highlight in my year. I'm teaching 2 full day drawing workshops. I never thought I'd want to teach, but Teesha and Tracy encouraged me, and now I'm back for my 3rd year. The first two years I felt like I was fooling everyone. I was sure that at any moment, everyone would realize that I was only pretending to be a teacher and kick me out. It was thrilling and fun. Rethinking my class each year has been one of my hugest learning experiences. This year, I think I've managed to trim off the fat, and hone it into a pretty tight workshop. We'll see. The students are always great. It's probably the most supportive crowd of people I've ever met.

Each year I've taught at ArtFest, I've created a class zine to give to everyone. This year it kind of took on a life of it's own. It's called "The Mark Maker's Manifesto and The Thought Thinker's Theorem" (or TMMMTTTT for short). It's basically an extra credit report to accompany my book "Capacity" ( if you've read the second to the last page, you already know that "Capacity" was my final thesis for the imaginary school I'd been secretly attending). The zine also doubles as a job application, because once you graduate from school (even an imaginary one) there is still the problem of making a living (refer the first two paragraphs of this blog post).

The other thing I've done this week is write a short story. I usually don't write in prose. All my writing usually filters into my comics. But I was eating dinner last night, and suddenly a story happened inside of my head, and I found myself reaching for a pen and paper. It's called " The Guy Who Invented Elbows (A Ghost Story)" It's going to actually be part of "The Thought Cloud Family" (book one) but will remain as prose with accompanying illustrations.

And that concludes "a brief account of my current projects". Thank you for listening.

more collaborative art

I'm just about to ride my bike downtown to help hang the Vortex! Collaborative art show the opens at Floating World tomorrow night. A couple of days ago, Sean Christensen and I got together and decided to make a couple more pieces for the show. The above picture was worked on by both of us ,then inked by me.

This one was worked on by both of us, then inked by Sean. We were joking that these two drawings depict what it would have been like if we had known each other when we were kids. I'm the one on the right in both drawings.

This is yet another one that we both worked on, then Sean colored. It always blows me away to see how Sean colors these collaborative pieces. He always uses color combinations that I'd never even think of using. It's beautiful. I'm starting a collection of collabortaive art I've taken part in over on my flickr site. There's only a few pieces there so far, but it's growing!

Vortex: Collaborative Art Show!

I have work in a collaborative art show at Floating World Comics on 20 NW 5th ave #101 here in Portland, OR. The opening reception is on March 5th from 6-10 pm. It's also a release party for a publication of collaborative comics! The show features work by: Sean Christensen, Julia Gfrorer, Amy Kuttab, Brodie Kelly, Stephan Saito, and myself. Vortex! www.floatingworldcomics.com Some friends an I have been hanging out once a week or so and making collaborative comics and art. It's been great! This picture was started by Sean Christensen, then passed to Amy Kuttab to work on, then passed to me. I ended up inking this one, and it was a lot of fun to ink other people's pencil lines. It's not something I've done too often and I feel like it taught me a lot. Usually even more people will add things to a given picture, but there were just 3 of us that day.

This is another one from the same day. A collaboration between Sean, Amy, and I. Inked by me.

This one got me really excited! Amy started this one, then passed it to me, then Sean, then our friend Julia Gfrorer added things, Then Sean brought it all together with his amazing, crazy coloring job! Collaborating has really opened me up to all kinds of new things, and it always leads to unexpected places. The collaborative comics are even crazier: One persone draws a panel, then passes it to the next person. It's pretty amazing to try to match other people's styles, and try to continue a story thread, one panel at a time. I've learned a lot about making comics this way.

Bird Hurdler

I just finished a new 6 page comic just in time for its deadline. It's going to be out mid-April in a publication called Bird Hurdler, and will include a number of great cartoonists that I'm really excited about. The publication is free and will be a collaborative publishing project between 3 Portland small presses: Sparkplug Comics, Tugboat press, and Teenage Dinosaur. I'll have more info when it comes out, but for now, the above panel is a sneak peek.

Illustration for Nickelodeon Magazine

The March issue of Nick Mag has an illustration by me! Every issue has a comics section called "The Comic Book" and I was asked to do the cover (which is technically on page 25 of the magazine). If you pick up an issue, you can also take the SpongeBob puzzle challenge, learn about some unusual friendships in the animal world, and find out who won the Dumb Frozen Treats contest.

drawing table doodle

Here's another section of the ever expanding doodle that's on the big piece of paper covering my drawing table. It's almost time for a new piece of paper.

Thought Cloud Shrines

I just spent a couple of my mornings silk screening a new batch of covers for my art zine, Thought Cloud Shrines. It's always a pretty labor intensive process, which is, I suppose what makes it satisfying. I think this will be the final printing of this one though. I'm gearing up to make some new self published works, and there's only so many I can keep in print at a time.

Here's an inside spread from Thought Cloud Shrines. It's a 28 page book of detailed pen and ink drawings and can be found online at www.secretacres.com and www.hobocomics.com

found art

I was walking down the street the other day and this awesome drawing came blowing down the sidewalk towards me. At the exact same moment I found this drawing, two dogs came running at me, barking, while I simultaneously attempted to leave a message on a friend's answering machine. It was an epic moment. I used to draw trees almost just like this, except I always made the trunks impossibly fat compared to the tree tops.

more sketchbook pages

Here's four more pages from my little spontaneous drawing journal I've been carrying around with me and drawing in during spare moments. Most of these drawings were worked on for no more than a couple of minutes at a time over a number of days. It feels nice to have those moments build up and suddenly have a picture to show for it. You can see the cover and the first four pages of the journal in an earlier post.

Hannah's drawing

I received a really great email yesterday from an 11 year old girl in the UK named Hannah. She told me that she got inspired to start drawing after she read my book. I was completely blown away by her drawing. I wish I could have drawn this well when I was 11. If I had, I can't even imagine what kind of art I'd be making now. She just told me that she's working on a comic now too, which makes me extra excited. I hope I'll get to read them!

the cyclops in me greets the cyclops in you

My friend Tracy V. Moore took this picture of me at an art show I curated awhile back called "Imaginary Civilizations". I originally made the "cyclops box" to hide a laptop that was showing an amazing animation by artist Peter Hamlin. You had to look into the Cyclops's eye to see the film, which played on a loop during the show opening. You can check out Peter's animation and art at http://www.hambot.com/ and more of Tracy's photography, art, and beautiful handmade art journals at http://sustainedconfusion.blogspot.com/

This is a collaborative drawing that Tracy and I did together a couple of weeks back. We gave it to a 14 year old kid named Sam because we liked his art.

20 questions for cartoonists

My fellow cartoonist, Austin English started a great blog where he came up with 20 questions he'd like to ask other cartoonists and invites folks to answer. A lot of great cartoonists have been answering them and it's been great to read. He also asks each artist to provide a photo of the place where they draw, and an example of a work in progress. The above panel can be seen in pencil form at the beginning of my questions. If you haven't seen Austin English's work, look him up! I can never get enough of his work.
http://20cartoonquestions.blogspot.com/2009/02/theo-ellsworth.html

Grass Hut Art Opening

The art Opening at Grass Hut this last Friday was a lot of fun! The top two images are of the big 18x 25 piece I made for the show. Balloon race! The other image is a small 5x7 piece. Yeti on a flying machine! I don't know what's been going on with me lately, but I guess I'm really into sky travel scenes. You can check out all the pieces from the show at Grass Hut's online Gallery:

http://grasshutcorp.com/blog/?page_id=3&category=27

I have new work in the Sesquatennial Show at Grass Hut gallery, at 8111 East Burnside in Portland. The show opens Friday, February 6th, 6-9pm. The show is in Celebration of Portland's 150th birthday, and includes some great local artists including: David Wein, Carson Ellis, Emily Counts, Scrappers, Ryan Berkeley, Yellena James, Ryan Jacob Smith, and Betsy Walton. I did 3 new pieces for the show (two small pieces, including the Scaled Yeti pictured above, and a big 18x25 piece). I post the other ones soon! The show goes up for sale online after the opening: http://www.grasshutcorp.com/

February 5th is the first Thursday of the month and that means that Downtown Portland's open gallery night is happening. I did this little pen drawing for this month's show at the Pony Club Gallery. The drawing is titled "Metal Fox Man On The Speedway". I'm not a member of the gallery any more, so it's been a little while since I've been in there, but I hear they've been painting some great murals up in the loft store and getting a lot of new stuff on the shelves, so I'm excited to get to stop by and say hi to those guys. http://www.ponyclubgallery.com/

While I was at the PLAY retreat at Fort Worden in Port Townsend, WA, I was inspired to start keeping a small sketchbook diary. I'm always drawing on random scraps of paper during spare moments, so I thought it'd be good to be more organized about it. For reasons beyond my understanding, I decided to name this first one "The Tour Guide Is Wearing Animal Slippers". I'll be slowly filling this little book and posting my progress (even the wonky pages) as an ongoing Blog Publication. The rules: straight spontaneous pen, no preliminary pencils ( the cover itself is an exception to that rule, but that's because I hadn't thought up the rule yet).

I was trying to make this character be underwater, with just the top of his head above the surface, but things went astray. I turned the rippled surface into his hat and gave him a little car. It felt like a close call.I love staying in the beautiful/creepy old houses when I'm at Fort Worden. There's rumored to be certain rooms that are haunted. The first night I was there, I dreamed that a WWII ghost-solder was showing me around the fort. I woke up to my bed being violently shaken. I lay awake for a long time after that. It didn't occur to me until morning that it had been an earthquake.
I've been suddenly drawing these "scaled yeti" people a lot. They're a mutation from the earlier ones made of leaves.At the PLAY retreat, I was asked to participate in a talk/demo on doodling and drawing. I ended up mentioning how much I enjoy drawing on trains and moving cars, because you end up with an unexpected line quality caused by the bumpy ride. I drew this page on the train home, and it got pretty out of control. I had to add a lot of lines to this guy to get him to look okay. His head was originally going to be some kind of architectural structure.

I just got back from a wonderful, long weekend in Port Townsend, Washington. My dear friends Teesha and Tracy Moore were putting on an art retreat called PLAY, and at the very last minute there was an opening, so I bought a train ticket the day before and headed up there. Here's a couple of photos from my foggy train ride up:

The PLAY retreat was a lot of fun! 40 or so awesome individuals, all hanging out and making art together all weekend! It took place at Fort Worden, which was a military base during WWII but has since been turned into an events center. Teesha and Tracy are huge into art journaling and I got to learn book binding, which is something I've been wanting to do for quite awhile now. Here's some photos of the two hardcover art journals I made:

Happy Chinese New Year! It's the year of the ox! It seems like a good year for an animal that's steady and can pull heavy things. I'm hoping to make it to some of the New Years events at the Portland Chinese Gardens over the next few days. I love watching Chinese Lion Dancing. I took the photo at a performance at my girlfriend's school last year. The lions danced and jumped all over the stage, then devoured a cabbage and spit it all over the audience. I was hit by flying cabbage from the mouth of a mystical creature! It was amazing! At some point I would love to make some costumes inspired by this.

My friend Jesse Reklaw just started curating the art shows at Guapo Comics and coffee on 6350 Foster road here in Portland. This first show is a presidents themed show and has contributions from over 25 local artists. There's an opening reception on Saturday the 31st of January from 7-10 pm. There will be things to eat and drink, art, and people to talk to. If you haven't been to Guapo, it's a great shop in a beautiful space, and run by a couple of the nicest folks in town.
http://www.guapocomicsandbooks.com/

Barry and Leon at Secret Acres asked me to make a cut-out paper mask to go with review copies of my book, so this is what I made. I've been meaning to make a bunch of copies for myself so I can give them to friends to wear. The text in the left hand corner says: cut along dotted lines and wear for good luck!

It made me really happy to come across this write-up by Mike Baehr on the Fantagraphics blog, not just because Fantagraphics puts out some of the best comics around, but because it's exciting to know that I officially pull off not coming across like a crazy person!

" Capacity by Theo Ellsworth (Secret Acres) - A warm, cleverly constructed, visually stunning tour through the artist's amazingly fertile creative imagination. Ellsworth synthesizes his mind-bogglingly detailed fantastical world-building with autobiography in a really natural and satisfying way without seeming like a crazy person, which is quite a feat."

Here are 3 places that you can get Capacity online:
-Secret acres
http://www.secretacres.com/store/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=52
-Amazon
http://www.amazon.com/Capacity-Theo-Ellsworth/dp/0979960924/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1225079163&sr=1-1
Lasp Gasp
http://www.lastgasp.com/d/34102/

Capacity, my first published book , has been out in the world for 3 1/2 months now. Here are a few reviews that have come out recently:

The Village Voice:
http://blogs.villagevoice.com/music/archives/2008/12/pulp_fictions_t.php
PopMatters:
http://www.popmatters.com/pm/review/69071-capacity/
Sean T. Collins:
http://www.alltooflat.com/about/personal/sean/2008/12/comics_time_capacity.html
Rob Clough:
http://highlowcomics.blogspot.com/2008/12/nesting-egg-capacity.html

The big 18x24" limited edition, signed and numbered poster I made to celebrate my first book being published is still available through my publisher, Secret Acres. It was a lot of fun to make.
http://www.secretacres.com/store/index.php?act=viewProd&productId=53

My good friend Sam Kulla and I got to hang out a lot over the holiday break and we ended up making 5 small interconnecting collaborative books. At some point I'd like to put them all together in a zine, but for now you can check them out on the site that Sam made for them: http://picasaweb.google.com/sam.kulla/OneThing#slideshow
We'll hopefully be doing some even more involved collaborations in the coming year.

I started putting huge pieces of paper on top of my drawing table to reduce the glare from my desk lamp. It turned out to be a great vehicle for getting the ink flowing in my pens, testing out colors, jotting down numbers and ideas, or doodling while I'm on the phone. Over time it begins to slowly fill with images. This is a small section of the one that's on my table right now.