HAPPY HALLOWEEN!!!

I hope everyone dresses up today and eats lots and lots of CANDY! Here's a little witch to celebrate in the fun :)

A little experimenting ...

Happy happy New Year everyone! This year I have made a commitment to have a lot more fun

playing around with different mediums and painting A TON. Stay tuned for a lot more studies

on the way :)

Cheers!

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!

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 :)

Train Sketching...

Just a few little sketches from the train this summer...

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.

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 :)