Animal doodles! (part 2)

On to part 2 of my exciting new series of zoo animals!

(part 1 was right here…)

Moving on to some weirder animals:

I like the lion in the middle there… just cute and weird enough yet still accurate somehow. His big paws did it for me, personally.

That weird gazelle thing there made it most of the way to working, but stopped short with the weird face. Gotta work on that. The bear next to it  (yes, that’s supposed to be a bear) looks a bit to weaselly or maybe like some sort of badger or a big mouse.  More drawings of him on the next sheet.

The croc is good, but just a liiiiittle too menacing looking. As for that weird Victorian collar-wearing monkey thing there… hoo mama that one went over like a lead balloon.

I was thinking of those little monkeys that have the big furry necks and long hair on their arms and all that. Somewhere between my idea and the pen, that thing went ka-plooie!

More critters:

Sometimes, when I’m stuck on a drawing, I’ll try to make a more ‘realistic’ image of what I’m trying to capture. I just couldn’t get the bear right earlier, so I drew him a tiny bit more like how he really looks there in the center, so I could make a better cartoony drawing of him on the left.

I realized that what he needed was a bigger body overall and big round ears to look more bear-like.

I still gotta work on that tiger- he’s close to the lion in the last post, but still a bit off.  I like where he’s going, though.

That’s all for now- let’s see where I can take this!

Animal doodles (part 1)

So, I’m back in action on the drawing front…

Been doing a lot of that stuff, what do they call it? Oh yeah “paying work.”

Takes care of the bills and all. Now back to some fun stuff!

I been drawing some elephants and pigs and things over the holiday (random odd Xmas things for folks) and it got me thinking-

I need some circus and zoo animal licensing collections!

So here’s some of my beginnings-

I started with the elephant, since I’ve been doing a lot of those lately. He’s so proud of himself, ain’t he? Then I moved on to that little squiggle to the right of it (which become

the monkey on the unicycle drawing below it.) I realized halfway through that the monkey would be tipping his top hat the wrong way, so I started again.

Monkeys are very specific about their fashion, you know.

Then, on to guys flying out of cannons! I was thinking something like the Flying Stromboli family of something here. Handlebar moustaches and one-piece leopard print

man-tights and all.

Then it’s on to some zoo animals:

I started with the giraffe- I like his big weird ears and long skinny legs. I like the rhino, too but I’m noticing some of these look like they were drawn by a 5 year old with some

art training- a bit too loose and simple. These are just doodles to start- I’ll likely refine these some still.

The silverback gorilla looks a bit odd, but maybe he’ll look better to me after a few views. I like how nervous the ostrich looks- they have a certain worried look on their faces.

He looks like he’s ready to plunge his head in the dirt at any moment, don’t he?

I’ve always felt like seals look  like just dogs with no ears and some funny legs who swim underwater. And that’s about how this one looks- put some ears on him and he could be

Snoopy!

Tomorrow- some more animals (including some ‘experiments’ that didn’t work out very well…)

Holiday Art Commissions! (part 2)

As I mentioned last time…

There’s more Holiday art commissions!

This, my friends, is Marley. This painting is about 6 x 6.

Odd little story- Marley actually lives in the same building as I do. And he’s a great doggie!

But, uh, for some reason he and MY dog just absolutely hate each other. My dog will start barking a half block away at Marley. They somehow

just met and decided, nope I don’t like you!

I think it’s the fact that they’re both about the same size- dogs just want to fight with anyone about the same size. Weird, I know.

Here’s a taste of the photo reference I got for this painting:

I kind of grabbed the general stance from this one. Dogs are always so funny to me- the way they never really walk straight forward, like

they’re always looking back over their shoulders for something funner to do. That and this picture has that look like, hey… let’s go over here!

I had a few other photos of him on the beach, etc which were a great help with some of his look, placement of spots, and so on…

but I took a lot of the attitude from this one right here:

C’mon, how do you not love a face like that, huh? And that tongue- man, it’s like a huge slab of ham or something!! Just this monster pink

thing hanging out of his face. Love it!

Kind of reminds me of my own dog, all tired from playing when we went camping (which I doodled right here)

Here’ some of my sketches of Marley:

I picked the bottom one, obviously.

The top one was from a line of sketches that worked off of the tongue hanging out.

I think in most of them he looks too big- like he’s a brown lab or something. He’s only about 50 lbs and

in those he looked more like 90 lbs. That and he looked a bit too dumb there.

His owner Jason like the bottom one better (especially the slightly mischievous look on his face) but had me

slim him down a bit and bring his tail up like he’s  happy.)

So there ya are- any one have a pet they’d like painted? Gimme a holler…

Holiday art commissions! (part 1)

So, I told ya last time…

…that we’d see some holiday art commissions after my lengthy absence due to insane work obligations.

And here they are!

This one was for my friend Cheri to give to her partner Amber for Xmas. Amber is apparently rather fond of chocolate chip cookies,

I’m told.

I’ve painted a number of pieces for the two of them, including the following painting of  cherry pie I made for them last year sometime

(since her name is Cheri):

These are both about 4 x 4 on gallery profile canvas, so they’ve got designs painted on the sides, as well.

The cookies have chocolate chips on the sides and the pie has stemmed cherries lining the sides.

I painted the cookie painting so it feels like a set with the pie painting. Same color plate, about the same framing and that same shiny

feel to the highlights, etc. That and the designs along the side made them feel pretty good together, I think.

I added the milk more to balance the composition than anything else. Unless the cookies were piled high, they’d be pretty wide or long

for a square canvas, so the milk added some nice height to go along with a wider row of cookies.

That and, dernit, I’m really proud of the color of those cookies! I worked pretty hard on getting them just the right shade for chocolate

chip cookies. I remember saying the same thing about the crust on that pie…

I’ve seen so many of those really bad food paintings on, say, the side of a hot dog/ hamburger place where the meat or bun is just such a

weird inedible color that it makes me not want to eat there. Blecch.

So I think paintings of food should look, well, tasty. Dontcha think?

They’ve also bought a number of my ‘veggie’ paintings that weren’t commissions, too. I don’t think I have pictures of all of them, but check

out some of the veg’ paintings here:

http://eye-of-the-hurricane.com/art.htm

Just click on the thumbnail of the carrot.

Next time, a pet portrait commission!

Opera doodles (LIVE!)

Look! I’m back after 2 months of working like a dog (and often animating dogs, too).

I’m actually posting this live as I’m drawing thanks to my cool new phone.

Here’s a few funny doodles I made gallery-sitting over at Gallery 203

I’m listening to La Traviata on the radio at the gallery. First doodle is when I heard one of those 3 Guy chorus endings.

I’ve been to 10 or 12 operas and the costumes and just plain “beardyness” of the tenors inspired that one.

Next one is based on that odd little opera laugh the men do, usually when denying something to the buxom babe who spurned his advances earlier.

I like the poofy ‘do on him.

And lastly, it’s the Opera Hunk.

‘Nuff said.

Enjoy- I’ll be back soon with holiday doodles and some art commissions and cool work stuff.