Sunday, December 28, 2014

Sketches!

It's time to update my poor forgotten blog!!! I've recently transitioned to using Instagram to update my
weekly art...if you have an account please feel free to follow me with the link at the top of my blog. I've
been quite busy working on my current book project and since I don't want to spoil too much of the
work, I'll only be posting some sketch teasers :) Enjoy!





Thursday, September 25, 2014

Play Time!

Here's a little illustration I've been working on during late nights and just wrapped up. The moment I read the description of each member of this family I knew I'd have a fun time painting this! I'm also including some of my initial ideations for poses along with the final product to show a little bit behind my process. Back to more writing and drawing :)







Tuesday, August 12, 2014

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Lonnie's Bulldog Diner "Dining for those off the leash!"







This piece was inspired by my grandfather Lonnie James Bates. He and my grandma ran a series of small diners and restaurants in the Detroit area. From the 50's through the 80's they struggled to maintain them through collapsing industries, cycling economies, and eight children. My grandpa suffered from the maladies of many WWII veterans and picked up a few habits. After weeks of labor, it was said "he snapped the leash" and "off the chain"...Lonnie was gone. From the stories I'm told he was quite a character. And so I tried to imagine one of his diners part-conjecture, part-character, and all "Lonzo".

The summer sky was based on astronomy charts detailed from the summer of 1958. It began as a simple road side diner and after days of listening to "Oldies but Goodies" on my portable record player, it snapped the leash and took on a life of it's own.

Wednesday, May 21, 2014

A few illustrations from work






Sometimes I ask myself who comes up with these hypothetical story lines for some of the illustrations I create...here's a captivating shoplifting narrative and some characters I came
up with :)

Wednesday, April 2, 2014

Cottage sketch

Just a daydreaming sketch of an imaginary little cottage I'd like to live in...



Thursday, March 13, 2014

Some sketch bookings...

Just a few pages out of my gesture sketchbook, have you ever heard of rhythmic gymnastics? Yep either had I and now i'm addicted! Check it out, great reference for gesture sketching...http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9OBp3sRf8bs  (skip to 14 mins it's amazing!)





Tuesday, January 14, 2014

New Year...

Alright, a new years resolution...revive my blog's life. Here are a few sketches from this past week. It's been a long time since I've taken a figure class and oh how I've missed it. Additionally I'll be posting some new projects I've been working hard on over the past few months, just finishing polishing details now. Until then,