halloween

Here are a few Halloween inspired images. Halloween is my favorite holiday, because you get to dress up and eat candy for the whole week. It is also cool that everyone buys lots of candy for kids they don't even know. So it's kind of like a giant happy treat charity. So everyone is spending money on other people, which is nice. It's not like Christmas where you freak out about not getting the right things or worry about forgetting people. Anyway, last night we had a Halloween Portrait Night. We all dress up and take turns posing for ten or twenty minutes. It was a lot of fun, that is what the sketches on the bottom are from.

fish.lamps.babble.

So the first piece here is self-promo for a postcard. I enjoy fish and their pretty fan-like tails. The other piece is inspired by an antique store in Michigan that had lots of beautiful lamps hanging from the ceiling. I went there with Scott. We had a blast. That was also the first time I went to Canada, where we also did some antiquing. Scott and I were there for the ride, but it was a lot of fun. I am very inspired by old things. I grew up with my parents always bringing home what most would call junk. They would clean it up, and then we would have a house full of bizarre knick-knacks. A lot of it as really cool, stained glass, old bottles with remnants of dirt in the bottom and lamps that could set the house on fire if they were plugged in. My dad also came across one of the original copies of Alice and Wonderland, along with some other children's books from the time period.

words

What the caterpillar calls the end of the world,
the master calls a butterfly.

I thought this was a cool quote. I found it on a sort of enlightenment website. I think it's so true. That we may dred big changes in our lives, but they could be the ones that change our lives for the best.

England commission

I have been working on a project for Harlaxton College in England. My old boss Matt got me the job because he works at that school now. They want a series of paintings of different parts of the campus, all of which are going to be prints and postcards sold at the campus store. I used watercolor and white ink. This was a really fun experience because the campus is old and creepy, which gave a lot of room for textures. They filmed the movie The Haunting at this school, so its pretty wicked looking. Anyway, I will be sending these off in a week once everything is finalized. Anytime someone asks you to do a quick sketch for a thank you card, do it. You never know what may come out of it.

new sketches

This has been a really fun sketchbook so far. I have finally gotten that urge to be friends with my sketchbook again. Yesterday I went to the beach and it was beautiful, so I tried to draw it. The others are just fun stuff. I love shoes, it's kind of like a guy liking an aerodynamic car. I think they are just designed well(most of them).