I GOT MARRIED!!!

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I am happy to announce that on Tuesday, July 18th, 2006, I got married to the most beautiful and wonderful woman in the world. It was a nice day of family, food, wine and a Judge driving an old pick-up truck. We had a beautiful wedding and a very small reception up in Boulder.

I will be posting more pics as I start to sort through the many photos that were taken on that very special day.

Please enjoy this one picture for now.

Jack

CUSTOM TOY SHOW PICS FROM KITCHENS' INK TATTOO

The custom toy show opening on Friday, July 7th was a night of rain, lots of cool people and even more rain.............


Here is a front door view of the right side of the gallery, my sculpted heads are on top of the black bookshelf in their glass domes. The curator of the show Desoto is just to the right of the bookshelf with the white shirt and the demonic eyes.


Here are many of Desoto's customs. I am so impressed with Desoto's work, he cranks out the high quality customs like a well oiled artistic machine.


Here is my good friend Ryan Philbrick and I checking out the "MADBALL" inspired customs I did for the show.


Ryan and I again.... pondering if it will continue raining for the rest of the evening. (look at how wet our shoulders are.)

A big thanks to Desoto for letting me enter some of my pieces into his show. It was a great showing in a great space with some great artists.

Please check out his website:

galleriedesoto

Enjoy,

Jack

"FOLLOW THE MUNNY" SHOW PICS

"BIG TOP"


"RUNNY"


"ME" (not Jesus)


"FIANCE"

These pics are from the opening night of "Follow the Munny" at Capsule Gallery. (isn't it amazing how much the flash from the camera can ruin your pictures?) It was a really great show with a lot of really great entries. I was very impressed with the level of art that was at this show. It is truly amazing that Denver actually has a vinyl scene, albeit a little one...... but at least there is actually something going on here.
Friday (July 14th) there will be a "Closing" of the show. (My little guys finally get to come home from a long vacation at the Capsule.) There will be fun and activities for all. If you happen to live in the Denver area, the "Closing" of the Follow the Munny show will be the place to be on Friday night. The "Closing" will start around and 7:00 pm and is located at:

Capsule Gallery
554 Santa Fe
Denver, CO
80204

Try and stop by and say "HI" if you are in the area.

Jack

Ride the Rockies

Well I just returned from 6 days of bicycle riding here in the Rocky Mountains. It was a beautiful and enjoyable ride through the southern part of Colorado. Here is the route that we took this year:

CORTEZ TO CANYON CITY
419 Miles‚ June 18 - 23, 2006
SATURDAY, JUNE 17
Cortez - Registration

SUNDAY, JUNE 18 CORTEZ TO DURANGO
48 MILES - 3,600 FEET ELEVATION GAIN
U.S. 160 east from Cortez to Durango

MONDAY, JUNE 19 DURANGO TO PAGOSA SPRINGS
87 MILES - 4,300 FEET ELEVATION GAIN
La Plata County Road 240 northeast from Durango to La Plata County Road 501
La Plata County Road 501 south to Bayfield
La Plata County Road 521 south to Colorado 151
Colorado 151 east to U.S. 160
U.S. 160 east to Pagosa Springs

TUESDAY, JUNE 20 PAGOSA SPRINGS TO CHAMA, N.M.
50 MILES - 3,800 FEET ELEVATION GAIN
U.S. 160 east from Pagosa Springs to U.S. 84
U.S. 84 southeast to New Mexico 17
New Mexico 17 north to Chama

WEDNESDAY, JUNE 21 CHAMA, N.M. TO ALAMOSA
83 MILES - 3,200 FEET ELEVATION GAIN
Cumbres Pass - 10,022 feet
La Manga Pass - 10,230 feet
New Mexico 17 north from Chama to Colorado 17
Colorado 17 northeast to U.S. 285
U.S. 285 north through Antonito
Conejos and Alamosa County Roads north and east to U.S. 285 (3 miles south of Alamosa)
U.S. 285 north to Alamosa

THURSDAY, JUNE 22 ALAMOSA TO SALIDA
84 MILES - 1,600 FEET ELEVATION GAIN
Poncha Pass - 9,020 feet
Colorado 17 north from Alamosa to U.S. 285
U.S. 285 north to Poncha Springs
Chaffee County Road 120 east to Salida

FRIDAY, JUNE 23 SALIDA TO CANYON CITY
67 MILES - 1,900 FEET ELEVATION GAIN
U.S. 50 east from Salida to Parkdale
Fremont County Road 3 south to Fremont County Road 3A
Fremont County Road 3A east and north over Royal Gorge Bridge to U.S. 50
U.S. 50 east to Canyon City

The hardest days for me were the first and last day. About three weeks earlier I had a crash while I was on a training ride and screwed up my knee. I decided that it would be best to rest and heal before the ride so I would be able to make the 419 mile trip. Although my knee hurt for most of this journey I had the most problems on the first and last day. I think this happened because of all of the climbing we had to do. Plus, since I did not do any training for three weeks before the ride, I wasn't in as great of shape as I could have been.


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The picture above is of Scott Quinn and I making muscles at one of the many aid stations along the Ride the Rockies route.


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The picture above is of my real good friend and favorite art director extrordinaire Nate Craner and I after we crossed the finish line. Don't we look relieved? On this day we were able to ride 24 miles in less than 50 minutes. A new record for me...... :)

I haven't posted any of my drawings on the blog in quite a while due to my laziness and lack of motivation...... Here is a PICKLED pic to satisfy my need to show this stuff.


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This was one of the centerfold images I did for my little sketchbook that I published a couple of months ago.

Enjoy.

Jack

BIG TOP the PICKLED CLOWN

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I have created my second Munny for the "Munny Show" coming up in June at Capsule Gallery. I have always had a strange attraction to the imagery of clowns and they always seem to show up in my two dimensional work. For this Munny I decided to see if I could pull off one of my drawings of "Pickled Clowns" in three dimensions. Overall I am happy with how he turned out........ of course there are some things I would like to change but I am not sure if it would make him any better, or as they say in the beer advertising industry, "would the change really sell any more beer?"

As I did with my first Munny, I again applied Super Sculpy to the vinyl, sculpted the clay and baked it in the oven. Although this time I ran into a problem....... I had sculpted the head while it was setting on an aluminum post. I then proceeded to place the head in the oven at 275 degrees while the head was still on the aluminum post. I didn't think about the vinyl getting soft and stretching....... well the head got soft and stretched over the post and broke apart some of the sculpting I did....... it was a mess and a pain to fix.

I had more fun painting this than I usually do with my other sculpts. I really liked drawing the tattoos and trying to give the flesh that pasty "alive" look. I really didn't have any problems or set backs during the painting process except for when I was painting his hat. The gloss I used to cover and protect the hat would not dry. It remained "tacky" for a couple of days. (I think I just used a really old can of gloss.) I ended up coating it with an acrylic gloss and that seemed to do the trick.

I originally planned on having him wear underwear. I thought that if I made them dirty it would give him an even more creepy factor. As the figure started to develop I found that if he was to wear underwear it would end up covering too much of his belly and belly button and his butt. I put too much time in sculpting those areas that I needed to come up with something a little more revealing. So I decided on the black jock strap..... I think that this solves the problem well and still has the creepy factor.

I don't think that I will be making another "Clown" themed sculpt for awhile. I seem to have gotten it out of my system.

Remember, if you happen to live in the Denver area, the Munny show runs from June 9th through July 14th at:

Capsule Gallery
554 Santa Fe
Denver, CO
80204

Please come by and say "HI", it should be a really fun and interesting show.

On another note, I have to apologize that it has been almost a month since I have updated this blog...... again, I have been so busy that I just have not had the time. Work has been very busy. Freelance has been even busier.... I have been working on a majority of new clients and not on the same old "Original" stuff. It has been fun but I have to get in a different creative frame of mind when working on these new projects. My training for "Ride the Rockies" has not been going as well as I would like. With being as busy as I have with work and freelance assignments, I also crashed my bike a couple of weeks ago and I went down hard on my knee and it is killing me. I went down so hard that I cracked my knee cap. That has really put a dent in my training. I am able to bend it now with a little pain so I should be able to get back to riding. This weekend I have two very long back to back rides. It will be interesting to see how well I do.

Next on my plate for my vinyl customs is "Skumbo", Tristan Eaton's latest vinyl toy creation for Kidrobot..... this is for a top secret art show that will be coming up in the next couple of months. I am going to try and take photos in stages as I create this guy and post them here. Hopefully I can remember to do this while I am invololved in the creative process. I seem to get so involved that I forget to document.

Enjoy,

Jack

MUNNY

Well, it has been over a month since I have posted.......... No excuse except for being really busy. I have been overwhelmed at work, training for "Ride the Rockies", being overwhelmed at work, getting ready for our wedding, being overwhelmed at work, doing illustrations for snowboards..... (did I say being overwhelmed at work?) You get the picture......

I have been able to squeeze in some of my non-existent time to create a sculpt for the "MUNNY" art show that is being put on by Capsule Gallery and the only vinyl store here in Denver, Plastic Chapel.

For those of you who do not know a Munny is a "do it yourself toy". You buy a blank vinyl toy and it is up to you to create anything you like. Many artists have created amazing works of art with these. I thought I would try and see what I could come up with..........

First, I started with a sketch:


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Then after a couple of weeks....... not a whole couple of weeks, just a few hours here and there over that time period. I basically used the sketch as my guide and started placing clay on the vinyl and started forming the bumps and lumps and giving him shape. I really was not sure what would happen to the vinyl when I applied the clay to it...... Would it stick? Would it eat through the vinyl? Was I going to be able to cook the clay with out melting the vinyl?.... Since I was not sure of these answers I decided to just go for it and start sculpting him and worry about the unknown once I got to those stages in the process.

I was surprised that I did not have any problems putting the clay on the vinyl. I then finished sculpting, I baked the clay, sanded it till it was smooth, primed the surface and then airbrushed the final color. I really think that he turned out nice for my first try at this type of thing.

Here are a few pics of the final piece.


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If you happen to live in the Denver area, the Munny show runs from June 9th through July 14th at:

Capsule Gallery
554 Santa Fe
Denver, CO
80204

Please come by and say "HI", it should be a really fun and interesting show.

Enjoy.

Jack

Daruma

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I have been very interested with the idea of thought that goes with the Daruma doll. The Daruma doll is a hollow and round Japanese wish doll that has no arms and legs. The most common color is red, but you can also find them in yellow, green, and white. The Daruma has a face with a moustache and beard, but its eyes are a solid white. Some dolls have written characters on the cheeks describing the kind of wish or desire the owner has in mind, such as protection of loved ones. The surname of the owner may be written on the chin.
You can find Daruma dolls at Japanese Buddhist temples where they can be purchased. You usually own one daruma at a time.

When making a wish you use black ink to fill in a single circular eye. If the wish comes true, the second eye is then filled in. Until the wish comes true, the daruma is displayed in a high place in the person's home.

If the daruma doll was purchased within a temple, the owner can take it back to the temple to burn it. Dolls purchased at a temple are often marked for identification by the temple. Most temples will not burn dolls that do not bear the temple's identifying mark. Burning usually happens at the end of the year. The burning is a purification ritual to let kami know that the wisher did not give up on the wish, but is another path to make it come true.
The daruma doll maintains balance and will remain centered. Even when it is tilted either side it will regain the balance. (Kind of like a Weeble that wobbles, but does not fall down) The implication of this is spiritual and symbolic.

I have been very interested in creating a sculpture based on the Daruma. The images from my sketchbook above reflect what has been going on in my mind as I approach making this come to life in my Pickled style of sculpting.

It has been a really long time since I have posted here (for those of wondering, I am o.k.)........ It is amazing that I am still having to catch up on work and all things that are social in my life right now since I got back from Japan over a month ago. From having to work on Coors Convention art to trying to figure out a date for our wedding. Needless to say, I have been very overwhelmed.

I have been listing a lot of my collectible stuff on eBay lately. Now that I am engaged to be married, I really need to grow up and get rid of the toys and comic books that I have collected over the past 20+ years. (I think I might have a couple future college educations sitting in storage and my closet.) It is time for me to clean up, but I have not lost the urge and the desire to collect. I have set a rule for myself that I will not buy anything larger than 5 inches in size. And yes, I have already started obsessing over and collecting something that matches that criteria. I will speak about that more in a future post here on the blog, maybe even show some pics of all that I have accumulated so far.

Jack

More Engagement Photos

Akiko's Aunt and Uncle that live in Kyoto sent us some more photos of the night I proposed. I was really glad that they sent these to us. It is really nice to have some sort of documentation of that special night. I think that these photos speak for themselves.

Jack

On a change of subject..........


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Here is the final version of the "square" that I was working on for the internal project at work. I also included a .jpeg of the original sketch so you can get an idea of how I translate a sketch into a sculpture.

I got Engaged!!!

I would like to announce that while I was in Japan, I asked my girlfriend to marry me. (She said YES!) So, I am now officially engaged. I am glad that I have found that special someone that I can love, cherish and spend the rest of my life with.

The picture above was taken a few minutes after I "popped" the question. My girlfriend was totally surprised and had no clue what was going on. In fact, I had already asked her Father for his blessing and permission, talked to my Parents and got their blessing and permission and secured the engagement ring a couple months before it was time to leave on our trip. I decided to ask my girlfriend on February 4th, since all of her family would be together for the dinner the night before her brother was to get married. Originally, I had planned to ask my girlfriend on the 11th of February, the last night I was going to be in Japan. Since we were going to be in Japan for her brother's wedding, I did not want to take away any of the attention and celebration surrounding that special event. I felt that the 11th would be far enough away and that it would not compete with that special day. I was very happy that even though I did ask her earlier than planned, there was no competition and it was nice that we were able to share and celebrate with the rest of the family a wedding and an engagement.


Here I am on the train with a box of wonderful Hiroshima cakes. They were very tasty. There is one thing you will notice about Japan when you go there and visit, there is never a shortage of cute characters and bean cakes.


Here I am in front of the CHAX COLONY store in downtown Osaka. For those of you who do not know, CHAX COLONY is a toy store where you can buy all things "GLOOMY BEAR". GLOOMY BEAR was created by the Japanese artist "Mori Chack". The design of the Gloomy Bear character is a combination of cuteness and violence. I have been very infatuated with the character since the very first time I saw him. When I found out that there was a store dedicated to Gloomy Bear in Osaka, I knew it was a place that I had to go and visit. Since we were staying in Kyoto it was only a half an hour train ride to Osaka. I was determined to try and find the store. After walking a couple of blocks we found it, it sure was a wonderful place to visit. I saw so many cool and interesting things. Mori Chack is a genius when it comes to his character design and the marketing of it. I spent way too much money in that store. Just look at the size of the bag I am holding........

Gloomy Bear

Did I mention that it was very cold in Japan? This is a picture of two very cold individuals......

Jack

Japan..... Here I come!!!

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I just finished packing and I am off to my parent's house. I will stay there tonight. From there we will leave for our early flight tomorrow morning to San Francisco. We have a one hour layover in San Fran, then we fly for 10 hours to Tokyo. I am not looking forward to the long flight. Last time I went to Japan, I could not sleep on the plane at all..... I just sat there and read and watched very boring movies..... I could not even get inspired to draw. I guess I was nervous with anticipation. This time I plan on drawing.... not sure what, but I will draw something.

I will say that I am very excited to see Japan again. There are some really cool things that will be happening on this trip. I get to go to a Japanese wedding, I will see my girlfriend's family again.... I could just go on and on.

I am going to try and update the blog while I am in Japan. I am not sure how much computer access I will have. My girlfriend will have her laptop with us but I don't know when or if I will be able to use it....... If I don't update while I am in Japan, I will do a nice long post about the trip when I get back here to Colorado.

I am also very excited that my Mother is going along on the trip. This is her first time out of the country so it will be interesting to see her reactions to the different culture. It will be good to have some Mother and Son time.

The image up above is a sculpture I did about a year ago. This was right after I did my Kabuki horse sculpture. I really like the Japanese theme combined with some sort of animal. This obviously is a rhino, and he is a sumo wrestler in his "Dress" uniform. Not sure why I did this, but I think it turned out nice.

Trip to Japan countdown: less than 24 hours

Jack

Pickled Mickey

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Today I am busy working on my "sculpture" for the Senior Management presentation. It seems to be going well..... I am baking it in the oven as I type this. I thought that I would take a break and share this fun website:

www.everybodyneeds2drawmickeyonce.com

I found this site through my buddy Eric Wiese's blog. Eric had posted a Mickey on his blog, which he had drawn for this website. I thought that I would join in on the fun. There are some pretty cool interpretations of Mickey posted there.

Trip to Japan countdown: 4 days

Jack

ADDY Award Winner!

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The images above, illustrated by yours truly, are just a few of the POS elements from the surf project I worked on at the end of 2005. This was the first project I got when I came back to Integer from my short working stint at another advertising agency. The images are a combination of photography, vector art and photoshop. These were created for a regional program for the electronic point of sale (ePOS) our company creates and provides for our client. This campaign just won a Silver ADDY Award! This winning entry will be forwarded on to the national ADDY Award competition.

The AAF: American Advertising Federation accepts entries for the ADDY awards once a year. The ADDY awards are unique among all advertising creative competitions. It is the only competition that includes three rigorous levels of judging:

Entries are first judged at a local level through competitions organized by more than 200 ad clubs affiliated with the AAF.

Local winners then advance to 14 regional competitions.

Finally, regional winners advance to the national/international finals.

It is nice to see all of our hard work pay off.

I want to say congratulations to my team.

Trip to Japan countdown: 7 days

Jack

Clown of Clay

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It has been 12 days since my last update........... I have not been able to find the time to post here with content I can be proud of. I have been thinking of just posting an image every other day and let the art speak for itself....... just an idea.

Trip to Japan countdown: 14 days

Work has been busy as usual. I have been working very hard on some illustrations for an internal project for my company. Once these things get printed I will post the images.

I have been avoiding working on another internal project for my company. Our senior management proposed that each person that works at the company will be allowed a 12 inch x 12 inch wooden square to draw on and express their own individuality. These will then be hung on an inner wall that goes throughout the inside of the building. They approached five employees to finish their "square" and do a presentation to the senior management team. I am one of the lucky five. I have not figured out why I was chosen as one of those five........

I decided that I would create a sculpture or I guess in this case I would be creating a "relief". I have been having a hard time getting motivated to work on the project because I know how much work lies ahead of me to get this piece to the level I feel it needs to be at. I have told myself that I will be devoting this next whole weekend to completing this project. If the weather stays like it is (cold and snowy), I don't think that I will have any problem getting this finished.

Since this post has been about sculpture, I thought I would share an image of a sculpture that I completed a couple of months ago. For some reason I really enjoy drawing and sculpting clowns. I am not sure why....... I have never had any weird episodes with a clown.

Enjoy,

Jack

Pickled Betty Boop

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Trip to Japan countdown: 26 days

It seems like it is taking forever for the days to go by............

Work this week has been busy, but not too overwhelming. I worked on an illustration of a basketball player for for one of my clients. I think that the illustration turned out really well. The only problem was that the client seemed to think that the BB player looked a little too ethnic......... So, I had to change some facial features and illustrate some hair on his head. This wasn't a problem for me to do.... but was it really necessary? Is that adjustment really going to sell more of my clients product? For me to be able to do these types of changes I have to always remind myself that the client is always right.

I have also been keeping myself busy at work with an internal illustration project. This has been really fun for me to do. It is letting me illustrate in my comic book style once again. It has been over 6 years since I really have drawn in this style. I haven't really had any problems with remembering how to do it, I have just had problems with my speed. I can remember I could knock out a full page illustration in about a day. (pencil, ink and color) Now it is taking me almost three days to do the same type of illustration. I should have started these in my "Pickled" style and I would be able to get them done a lot faster.

The illustration above is of the classic animated character Betty Boop. She appeared in the Talkartoon and Betty Boop series of films produced by Max Fleischer and released by Paramount Pictures. With her overt sexuality, Betty was a hit with theater-goers, and despite having been toned down in the 1930s, she remains popular today for this portrayal of sexuality. Her her first appearance was on August 9, 1930 in the animated cartoon Dizzy Dishes, that was the sixth installment in Fleischer's Talkartoon series. Betty was designed by Grim Natwick. Grim was an animator that worked at Walt Disney's and Ub Iwerks' studios. Grim is credited with being the one responsible for creating the character, which he modeled after Helen Kane, a famous singer and actress at Paramount Pictures, the studio that distributed Fleischer's cartoons.

I think that this is one of my favorite Pickled Drawings.

Enjoy,

Jack

Happy New Year!

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I have been back at work for a total of 2 days now and thankfully it has been very uneventful. The hardest thing I have had to do besides getting to work on time is changing a legal line on an illustration that I did of Winnie the Pooh for P&G. I had a lot of back and forth between legal and art director and account service to figure out if a period needed to be added to the end of the mandatory line. Disney legal sent it to us without the period, copyediting wanted to add the period......... I had no source to make the corrections. It is amazing how a simple thing like a punctuation mark can be made extremely difficult.

I have 29 days before I leave for Japan. I am getting more and more excited everyday. My friends Ryan Philbrick and Rie Speer just got back from their visit to Japan and gave me some ideas of things that I should try and do to document this trip. I hope that I can keep up with all of the things we are going to do while we are in Japan. Since this will be my Mothers first trip to Japan, I want to be able to document this well for her so she can have a really fun and lasting memory of her "adventure to Japan".

The illustration above is another one that I did for Wizard Magazine back in 1999. I felt that it would be appropriate to post since today has started out to be a rather blah day for me. If I remember correctly, this was when Wolverines claws had turned to bone and there was rumor that he was going to get back the adamantium that covered them. One of the ways Wizard proposed is that he would do this was by eating "adamantium burritos". I look back at this stuff and I am amazed that I really liked drawing this fanboy type illustration.

I hope everyone has a Happy New Year!

Jack

Pickled Chuck

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My Christmas/New Years break has been a good and very restful time for me. It has given me time to reflect on this past year and I must say it has been a very good year for me. That is not saying that it has had some bad parts........ I would say that 99% of the year for me was good. I have an amazing girlfriend, a fantastic family and fabulous friends to thank for that. I am very appreciative for all that I have. I hope that the next year will bring me all that is wonderful and more. Here is to a Happy New Year!!!!

In exactly 34 days I will be on my way to Japan. I am very excited to visit there again. I really enjoy getting to see Akiko's family. It is a real treat for me. They are always so nice to me (even when they don't understand me being a vegetarian). Also, I think that I have been able to save enough money so that while I am on my trip I will not have to worry about being too poor.

The image above came to me when I started to think about all of the early cartoon influences I have had in my life. I thought that I would try and illustrate all of those influences in my "Pickled" style. Charles M. Shulz's cartoon strip "Peanuts" was the first image that I wanted to draw. My parents introduced "Charlie Brown" and the "Peanuts Gang" to me very early in my life. I think that I was around 16 months old when I went to Malibu Beach, California with my parents to visit my Uncle George and my Aunt Kay when I first noticed Charlie Brown's dog "Snoopy". My Parents told me that my Uncle had a stuffed toy of Snoopy that I would not leave alone. I would drag him around everywhere by the neck, even through the sand on the beach of Malibu. I believe that over the years my Mother had to repair Snoopy's neck on many occassions. I also remember my Parents buying me numerous book collections of Charlie Brown and the Peanuts Gang before I even knew how to read. The Peanuts Gang was very important in my life and still is to this day. I love taking time and re-reading those comic strips from years past with my old stuffed toy Snoopy. I enjoy reading them just as much or maybe even more than when I read them as a child. It is amazing how timeless that comic strip can be.

I haven't taken the time to illustrate any more more of my early influences in my Pickled style. But when I do I think the next one up will be "B.C." by Johnny Hart.

I hope everyone has a safe and Happy New Year!!!!!

Happy Birthday Wendy!!!!

Jack

PICKLED CHRISTMAS

I decided to give drawings this year as gifts to members of my family. I went with the PICKLED theme since that seems to be where my drawing style is at the moment. Drawings are a nice unique and rather inexpensive gift. The most expensive part on these three drawings was the frame.

I am very lucky to have a family that understands my art and the thinking that goes behind it.

I really like to draw things floating. I haven't really figured out why............ I saw an image Dave Cooper drew where he made one of his characters float and I have been hooked doing it since.


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This is a drawing of "Sir Preston" my Father's Boston Terrier. I am not as happy with drawing as I thought I would be. I guess I don't like the position of his body. I think it works well in a "creepy" kind of way, but it just didn't turn out like what I had originally envisioned.



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My sister's gift was this violin. My sister is an excellent violin player and music educator up in Wyoming. I thought that a violin would be appropriate for her this year. Last year I did a painting of her cat, so I was in the mood for something different.



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This drawing is of my Mother's dog "Bark-Lee". I decided to just do a floating head on this drawing. I think that is because I was not as happy as I could be with the floating "Sir Preston" I drew for my Dad. Plus, drawing just the head was a little quicker for me to do and I was very limited on time. This one was also a challenge to draw since I was so limited on picture reference. But I compared it to him on Christmas morning and I was happy with how close I came to a likeness.(sans the warts)

Everybody seemed pleased with their PICKLED gifts.

It was a nice Christmas.

Jack

PICKLED: a collection of drawings PRESERVED in vinegar.

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Here we go......"PICKLED" is finally completed. *sigh*

I must say that this has been quite an experience for me, both good and bad. When I got the idea to put this book together I had no idea what I was in for. I did not know how much time and effort it would take to get this book finished before Christmas. Since I don't have any experience with self-publishing, it was a learn as I go process. It was interesting and challenging to figure out certain aspects of the book, like how I would add the vellum insert and have a page that would fold out like a centerfold. I would definitely say that the most challenging part of this book for me was figuring out how to bind it together. After building a few comps of the book with different types of binding, I decided that it would be best to go with staples and then applying a strip of paper to cover the staples along with the black linen book binding tape. I was happy with this simple but effective solution.

When I got the internal pages back from the printer, I was surprised to see that they had collated all of them for me, but I still had to cut out all of the pages myself. The printer had a couple of elderly women working in the paper cutting/book binding department and the printer felt that my imagery might offend some of those ladies. Thankfully, I was able to cut out all of the pages using the paper cutter over at Keech Studio. This allowed me to cut the books in groups instead of cutting them out one page at a time. Once that was finished, I added highlights with white charcoal to all of the front covers and then hand colored with prismacolor colored pencils all of the vellum inserts. I then stapled and bound all of the books. It took a good couple of days to complete all 35 editions.

I have already handed out a bunch of the books to friends and family as early Christmas presents. They seem to really like it, despite the subject matter I like to draw.

I might have a few of these left over after Christmas, so please contact me if you are interested in obtaining one and I will do my best to get one to you.

For laughs I thought that I would show the cover to the "sketchbook" I published back in 2002.



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Pretty scary, huh?

Jack

It is that time of year.......Rudolph and the Grinch

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I was digging through my archive of old illustrations and I stumbled upon this "SEASONAL" drawing I did for Wizard Magazine back in 2000 and I thought I would share. I am a little embarrassed to show this.......... I believe that this was published in one of Wizard's lesser known publications "IN Power" magazine. Back in those days, I drew most of the "Last Man Standing" illustrations while that magazine was published. ("Last Man Standing" was an illustration of comic battles you never thought you'd see). The editors would provide me a script that would out line what needed to be illustrated, I would then e-mail them 3 sketches. The editors would then pick the best one based on composition, placement of characters, etc. I would then try and knock out the pencil inks and colors in the next couple of days. This time in my life was very busy for me. I was working at an advertising design studio and doing a lot of illustration and coloring on the side for various comic companies. Needless to say, I had a lot of very late nights.

I did have fun drawing the "Last Man Standing" spots. It was interesting to illustrate characters that would never be seen interacting together. I was challenged when I had to incorporate the different drawing styles of the characters with my own drawing style when I drew the secondary elements and backgrounds. On this particular illustration, I had colored it a little different than I usually color my illustrations. I had just finished painting the backgrounds for Eric Wiese's "Spaceboy Slim" short and I really liked the style I had created and I thought that I would try it on this piece. When it comes to the drawings of the characters themselves, I did not do very well. I think I was on model with the Grinch and his dog Max, but with Rudolph and Hermey.......... I missed the mark. The characters look very rushed, they aren't very dynamic, etc........ at the time I did the illustration, I was unable to find good reference for the characters. I guess the drawing works in the sense that you can kind of tell who the characters are but that is about as far as it goes. If I remember correctly, I had a quick deadline on this illustration. So maybe that is why they are not as well realized as the rest of the drawing.........

............or maybe I got distracted thinking about Hermey wanting to be a Dentist.

Jack

Pickled Printing Problems Solved.....HURRAY!!!

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Today was a good day for me. I met with my very good and amazing friend Chelli Huffman who was able to find a printer for me that would not be scared of the horrible and evil images that I have drawn. We then went to the paper store and found a nice ivory color for the guts of the book. It should be a very nice compliment to the green paper stock I used for the cover. Chelli said that the printer could get to working on the job right away. So, if all goes well..... I hope to have the pages back from the printer in a couple of days. Then, I will have to trim out the pages, collate them and then bind the books. Since I am doing that myself, it makes the cost per book a lot cheaper (which is good for my trip to Japan). I will be very happy once these are all completed and I am able to hand them out for Christmas. I still need to figure out who I will be giving these things to..... If I would have known how much work I was going to have to put into this project, I probably would have gone in a different direction for the design of this little book.

Anyway........

This drawing above is based on the technician who did the emissions on my truck this year. The only difference between the drawing and the actual guy is the technician did not have his hair tied in a red bow. This drawing will be included in my sketchbook sans the color. I do like this one with color, it makes the image much more dynamic. I really do prefer my images in black and white when I complete an illustration. It is very important to me that the black lines give the image value and depth. I think that is because I colored comic books for so many years. I have seen too many comic art pages that have been "saved" by a good colorist. The color design for this image is based on the old Disney character cards from the 1940's.

Jack