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.

It's already been a busy year so far:

1. I've left Pony Club Gallery to focus more on making comics and art. The gallery is still going strong though and has some exciting things in store for '09. I'll still be contributing to shows and selling work in their awesome loft store space! If you're in Portland, check out their First Thursday opening events! http://www.ponyclubgallery.com/

2. I just finished a 6 page art piece for an upcoming installment of Unicorn Mountain. It's and anthology of comics, art, writing, and music. This next volume is in full color and has a number of artists I really admire. I'm not completely sure when it's coming out yet, but the above image is a sneak peek at my contribution. http://www.unicornmountain.com/

3. I've been doing a monthly 1 page comic for a free comics newspaper in Washington DC called Bash Magazine. I'll probably eventually collect them all into a comic, but in the meantime, you can check out my contributions on their website: http://www.bashmagazine.com/

4. I'm very nearly done with 3 new pieces for the February show at Grass Hut Gallery here in Portland. The show is called Sasquachtenial and features some of my favorite local artists. The show opens Friday evening, Feb 6th. http://www.grasshutcorp.com/

Welcome! This is my very first attempt at being a blogger. I will use this space to show you pictures and tell you things on a regular/semi regular basis. The above photo is an installation piece I made for an art show called the Impossible picnic at The Pony Club Gallery back in Nov '08. It now lives above my kitchen cabinets and in my bedroom.