BOB

Beth and I just got a 24 inch imac the other day and it is glorious. for the first week we it sat on our coffee table as a movie screen but now I've managed to place it in its own work area. to celebrate owning it I did my first digital speed painting. The speed is not quite there yet but it is definitely a digital painting. The Dog is the newly acquired St. Bernard of "Wizard of Oz" artist Skottie Young. Her name is Emma but her Middle name is Bob. Are Skottie and I friends you ask? No, as a matter of fact I don't even know him but I listen to his podcast The Devil and Me a lot, and I like St. Bernard's. I'm happy with the result and look forward to using my computer and tablet to do much more artwork.

Werebunny

Just a Werebunny.

Girlhead

Just a sketch I doodles the other day I messed up the eye so I folder the paper over traced it out again then grabbed some sharpies I had on hand and coloured it in a bit.

Fingal 2

Here is another image of Fingal but awake on a moonlit romp.

Sketched in my moleskin coloured with watercolour.

Mail Me Art: Going Postal

I have had a submission printed in this Book "Mail Me Art Going Postal with the Worlds Best Illustrators and Designers" You can see my submission by choosing the flicker folder going to the second page and looking far right on the second row. Now that's just to prove I'm telling the truth. Fact is I've posted it here anyway so you don't have to go searching for it at all... Unless you want to.

I did this project for fun about a year ago and kicked off my blog with it as a matter of fact. So it is really neat to think the first art outside of my college portfolio I ever posted has been published in a book. Now although I did not get paid for this. It's OK it is personal art and was about a social experiment so no worries I'm not devaluing illustration by any means. The artwork will be displayed in a Gallery in London and auctioned off. I'm pretty keen to Pre-Order the book from Amazon.com. You should buy it to and not just because I'm in it. Hundreds of very talented artists from around the globe participated in this and the work is fabulous and show the wide veriety of ideas and styles that people have.

I have to get my butt in gear I have tons of scanning and posting to do. I'll try and be more consistent I was a bit busy for the last while but I should have some more stuff up soon.

I will be posting some more about SoapScum and why more people who read this should get off their butts and come to The Park Theatre on Mondays.

So Prepare Thyselves Naives.

Babies

Babies, babies, babies...

As of late it seems like all the women in my life are having babies.

Just last month Both my sisters had children. One with twins the other just the one. At my wedding this summer five women three of whom were not my sisters were pregnant.

Just a couple of weeks ago one of my good friends just had his first kid and another one of my friends is going to have his anytime now.

Now I want to be clear there is nothing wrong with this. New lives coming into the world is a beautiful thing. But it is certainly overwhelming. Just the other day my wife got whipped up into a baby fury. So much so, that she posted on her face book that she wanted to have a baby, no she didn't, yes she did.

Well I'm not on facebook, I really don't like the idea of it. I think blogs are way better and far more personal. Thankyou Blogger I will be expecting my payment to be wired to my personal account in Switzerland... Anyway One of the people I train with in Karate gets wind of this and sends me this random email saying my wife wants Babies. Now I know my wife wants babies, Heck someday I want babies or maybe just baby to start. But the allusion was that my lady wanted them yesterday.

What can I say, I was at a loss for words so I drew a picture reflecting my initial response. I did this image with good humor in mind. I'm not intimidated by having children, now having said that I could wait just a bit longer.

More pics to come.

Stay tuned and tell all your friends about Kalamafraz.

Sleeping Bus Guy

I was sitting beside a sleeping guy on the bus the other day. I took advantage of the situation.

Fingal the sleeping Giant

I did this at the Art Club the other night. It started out as a wrm up sketch but I really liked what I was doing so I just kept a going.

The First Rule of Sketch Club

Home Made Sketchbook

This is a home made sketchbook I made out of a pack of paper I got at a Coast paper show. It was just sitting around so I thought I might put it to some use. I took some heavy cardboard stock from a tracing paper pad and made a cover folded the 8.5 x 11 paper in half and voila a sketchbook. Really more of a sketch notebook. It last a while because I usually have 2-3 sketchbooks on the go. This one lasted me almost on year.

I finished it two days ago and have started using a moleskin. Moleskin is a great product but I feel bad for them because I'm so into making my own. I bought three to see how they put there product together. I'm convinced I can do just as well for myself. But it's good to know that in a pinch I can go to McNally Robinson's and pick a couple up. I am enjoying the notebook version I'm using at the moment. It has a cardboard cover and looks very durable. The real benefit of these books is they have rounded corners which help reduce wear and tear and they have a solid sewn saddle binding which makes it extremely hard for pages to fall out.

So for those of you not willing to construct your own books. Please go and try a moleskin they are a quality product.

Black Superman

I absolutely love this drawing.

It just popped into my head and I wanted to draw it.

I don't know why but I can't help myself every time I look at this drawing it genuinely makes me smile.

It is one of the last drawings in my first handmade sketchbook. Thanks to Blair Helgason for getting me interested in hand binding books.

Actually most of the drawing you will see posted are from my hand made sketchbook. Try doing it sometime you can save some serious cash and end up with a product you are seriously proud of.

I'll be posting more real soon.

Nude Smoker - "Is it cold in here?"

I'd like to say first of all I find smoking to be repulsive.

I've grown up around smokers my whole life and for a very long time I was quite desensitized to it. But since the smoking ban here at bars and my mother quitting due to the expense I find that when I am around people who do smoke I'm ultra sensitive to how gross it smells. However people still look really cool when they smoke. I do not know what it is. It is like a cigarette X factor.

My main reason for making my nude a smoker is that I love drawing smoke. I'm not fantastic at it but I get better every time I do it.

So kids out there, say no to cigarettes or you could be that old person out in front of the hospital smoking through a hole in your throat.

On that happy note, have a wonderful weekend.

Bear

I did this at the sketch night with the Winnipeg Artist Group. It was Oodles of fun. My friend Ezra did a great drawing of a bear and so my other friend Justin and I were inspired and did our own take on the furry beast.

Enjoi.

Skeksis

This is a Skeksis I have drawn and painted. I love the Dark Crystal it is one of those kids movies that when I was young would terrify me, but I would always come back for more. I think the conceptual designer Brian Fround and the Henson Creature Shop found a great balance between the grotesque and fantastical elements of the Dark Crystal Universe.

CreatureBox

If I have never told you about CreatureBox I'm telling you about it now.
It is a great blog/webpage from two conceptual designers from Insomniac Games.
Dave Guertin and Greg Baldwin they alternate posting sketches and conceptual work and their stuff is brilliant I love how the use line and their colour-work is second to none.

Check'em out at http://creaturebox.com/

Nazgul

Here is a sketch I am planning to do more with soon. I drew it after watching the fellowship of the ring (Extended Edition).

I love the bent and twisted nature of the wring wraiths.

I would like to make the legs a bit longer, I think that would add some size and menace to the Character.

Comic Con went quite well...thanks for asking.

I met a ton of talented artists. My fellow Comic Con artist Justen Currie and I were invited to an artist group called The Winnipeg Artist Group by a very nice Gent names James. We went and checked it out last night and it was a lot of fun my suggestion is that anyone who is interested should contact me and I'll give you the where and when.

Books are in

(Update)
I completely forgot to write about this sketch. this is the very first sketch I did of the Super Moon Lummox's. I had a dream one night and the last thing in my head before I woke up was "Super Moon Lummox's" I wrote the name down when I woke up and that night before I went to sleep I did this drawing.

My books are in! They turned out quite well.

I will be selling them for 3 dollars each. 5 dollars if you would like a sketch on the pack page which I have generously left room for.

Hope to see you there.

Please check out my Cohorts Blog. Justin Currie at The Art of Currie to see what he is up to.

Manitoba Comicon - Super Moon Lummox's

For those who are interested. I will be sketching at a table in Artists Alley at the Manitoba Comicon on Saturday. The event runs all day Saturday and Half the Day Sunday. I have produced a mini-comic for the event. It is called Super Moon Lummox's. Here is the cover I did for the comic. So for those who would like to come and support some local artist who have a passion for graphic storytelling.

Hope to see you there.

Scum City Thumbnail

Here are some conceptual thumbnail Sketches I did for the preceding poster. I only did a little bit of process for this project but I feel it is important to put pencil to paper before you start anything digital. Even if the image is as simple as these are. I think the great thing is even though these are just scribbles, you can clearly see which path I went down. The thumbprint with oozing blood seemed to speak volumes more than the smoking gun barrel. Although I would still like to do an image with type written in smoke.

scum city

This is a poster I did for my sisters improve group Soap Scum. It was a lot of fun. I like what I've done I feel I kept it simple and the graphics gives a good hint at the kind of atmosphere the group is going for... It's Film Noir.

I think we are looking to do a large format poster when the budget dictates, so I'm excited about having one of those made.

Keep it riel everybody.

How long I lasted chained to a bed with a Velociraptor

I could survive for 1 minute, 22 seconds chained to a bunk bed with a velociraptor
I don't think I would have lasted near as long if I hadn't punch him in his Raptor Balls.

Salty McPoopswabb

September 19th is International Talk Like a Pirate Day!

Yaarrr!

sketched digitally in Sketchbook Pro and colored in Photoshop.

Animal Blend 2

Here is another animal blend.

Doug and Adrian just for hazarding a guess at the nature of my blended dogs I will give you prizes.

Justin I have tested spore out and it is cool. But my real inspiration comes from artist and animator Michel Gagné. He did this great book called Insanely Twisted Rabbits and the first time I ever saw it I creamed my jeans. I have to wear rubber pants anytime I read it now.

I love drawing like this, it allows me to take interesting animals and make them Uber interesting, or take boring animals and make them freaking cool.

You can see more of his work in the Flight Anthologies another worthy read.

Peace.

Animal Blends

Just fooling around with mixing different species of animals with dogs.

If you guess Either character correctly you win a "Prize"

Milk and Yogurt

My niece has recently taken to playing with these two hideous 2ft rats she has named Milk and Yogurt. It really is something to see they are menacing and evil looking. To see a 3 year old playing with them like she would a pound puppy is totally awesome and creepy at the same time. My sister asked me to do a drawing of Kacey (My niece) and Milk and Yogurt having a tea party. Here it is. there may be a story in there somewhere.

Bug Ink

I did this with brush and ink the other day, no under-drawing. A few mistakes here and there but I'm feeling more confident with my line and composition, it is getting easier to just put stuff down.
More stuff to come. Doug Fedrau nailed it in his comment to me. What the hell was with the Yoda talk in the last post. Man I must have been half asleep.

Crazy Pencil

Here is a funky pencil I sketched up the other day. I lies it problems with thin paper and ink on the other page I think I will do vector version of this so no worries about the current state of it OK.

Roman

Been re-watching Rome lately, did these sketches of a soldier in and out of uniform. I love Rome so much drama, violence and debauchery I think they did a great job capturing the look and feel of the time. Many people I know feel that the series should have continued. I am of the belief that you should quit when your on top. The series was good it had two great seasons and two great endings to those seasons. Let it go do something else. There are tons of great stories out there. I think we need to look to the British model which is three seasons max. Instead of the American let's drag this story out for 9 seasons until nobody cares whether is ends or not model.

ladies sketches

Just some figure studies I was sketching the other day. Making the effort to do some colour studies as well. using thin paper with crow quill makes for some bleeding issues from page to page. I may just use the crow quill on some thicker stock and stick to brushwork in the sketchbooks for the sake of image transfer and clean-up.

I'm trying to draw women more they are difficult for me to draw but I have to keep at it else I will never succeed.

Spawn: Wings of Redemption in Colour

Here is the colour version of the Spawn Wings of redemption figure I promised. I have a long way to go but I am making some progress with digital colouring. More stuff to come in no particular order.

Cheers,

Colour Work

Yes I understand, I should do more colour. I'm at a bit of an impass though. I am usually just trying to get all the ideas and images out of my head and that leaves little time for colouring in what I'm drawing. I will do my very best as I actually enjoy colouring my work it ads a sense of depth and texture to what I draw. Here is a sketch of a hand with a screwed up pinky and a characature of Beth I did at Cafe 22 last night. Oh and another reason I don't do a lot of colour, you guys won't know this about the folfest images I posted. But there was some serious clean up going on. If you get those $3.00 Steadtler brush pens from Artist's Emporium, they are water soluble. So they may be convenient but if the ink gets wet good-by image. My sketchbook got damp with the heavy rains at folkfest and there was some serious bleeding going on between pages. So my newest method is to do pencil sketching go home do some colouring then go over my work in permanent ink. In this case I used a antelope brown acrylic ink. I like it on people bcause it is not as stark as black, it gives the image some warmth.

Beware water soluble ink.

Spawn: Wings of Redemption

For completing my illustration project. My good friend Adrian Shum bought me a Spawn collectible figure. I'm not actually a huge Spawn fan but I saw this figure about 7 years ago in New Zealand and I thought it was awesome. I always said I would buy it for myself but never really did. So in celebration of some published artwork Adrian bought the figure for me. Good man. He did ask that I do a sketch of Spawn so here is a sketch of him inked with a brush. I am in the process of colouring the sketch at the request of my wife. Who feels I never do enough colour work. I think I will do another sketch though as this one feels a bit static and literal. I feel like I got too caught up in how the figure actually looked instead of how "I" saw the figure. So I'm going to have another go.

Thanks Adrian you rule man!

Winnipeg Stadium Illustration

I am extremely excite.

I just did an illustration for the Canadian Taxpayers Federation of the Winnipeg Canad Inns Stadium. It was to show an option of what might be done with the current stadium for 20 million dollars. This is in response to the private sectore trying to get taxpayer money from the city to help fund the new stadium which is estimated at 400 million. I have no opinion other than I think debate is a great thing and if my illustration will help get people talking and god forbid participating in the democratic process, I'll be a happy man.

Useless Dogs

I made about 17 5.5"x8.5" sketchbook notepads the other day using recycled paper from work. I think it is a great way to make some use out of paper that has been printed on one side. I had quite a stack as I had been collecting for some time. I managed to score a thicker stock of paper for the covers. It is an uggly ass gray but it does the job. The best part about notebooks are the doodles. Especially the cover ones. Here is my newest doodle, I started out drawing this Chihuahua then I began adding more useless dog breeds floating in zero gravity. I'm going to colour this sketch but I wanted to post something as I have not done so in some time. Keep an eye out for the coloured piece.

Rage

Just random sketch. Expression was cool and I like the pose, it is kind of awkward and weird. But man what a Rage.

I hope everybody is having a nice summer.

Got a bunch of stuff I am working on so I hope to post a little more consistently.

Oh I also have a Kalamafraz email located on the right under contact.
Feel free to contact me about all sorts of things. Commissions, the weather, elves.
Anything.

Faun and Flora - Merlot

These are the Merlot labels, I really liked how the red turned out. The faun was not as much fun to draw as the nymph, mainly because my wife refused to let me put a penis on him. I personally feel that takes away from the illustration. Not that I wanted to over exaggerate it or anything, I just though "He's a male he got one, it's probably waggling around." But once again the double standard wins out. Female nudity alright, male nudity not alright. I did a series of sketches to get him right and it took me three tries. It was nice to complete these labels but in the end they ended up detracting from some other personal projects of mine, so I'm glad these are done and I can put them behind me.

Here is the write-up for the back label:

Our signature Merlot was created and aged by the infamous international Jewel thief Roberto Gillespinni. Where are my favourite jewels you ask? “Did I misplace them?.. Are the kids playing with them?”

No! Chances are at some point Roberto has let himself into your home and made off with your precious trinkets an stones.

Fret not dear wine drinker, your valuables have been put to good use. Once melted down to make golden beaver key chains, your precious jewellery is sold and used to import the rare Sauvignon Blanc grapes from the Ancient Forest, the location which only Roberto knows. It is in the Ancient Forest where the Nymphs and Fauns nurture these unique grapes to fruition with music and dance.

The flavour of Flora & Faun Merlot can be described as:

“Having a medium body with hints of berry, plum and currant with fleshy overtones.”

Flora and Faune - Sauvingnon Blanc

This is the label I designed for my wedding. It is based on a sketch I did last year of a naked woman prancing. Beth (my wife) suggested I make it into a wine label. I knew that if we made wine labels for the wedding we were going to need a red. So I came up with the concept that she was a wood nymph in an ancient forest, so perhaps she would be chased around by a randy wine drinking faun. Thus the name Flora and Faun. I used design elements Beth had created to make the wedding invitations and incorporated them into my design for consistencies sake. Anyhow here is the Flora and Faun, Sauvignon Blanc label I'll post the Merlot label tomorrow.

Here is the write-up for the back label:

Our signature Sauvignon Blanc was created and aged by the infamous international Jewel thief Roberto Gillespinni. Where are my favourite jewels you ask? “Did I misplace them?.. Are the kids playing with them?”

No! Chances are at some point Roberto has let himself into your home and made off with your precious trinkets an stones.

Fret not dear wine drinker, your valuables have been put to good use. Once melted down to make golden beaver key chains, your precious jewellery is sold and used to import the rare Sauvignon Blanc grapes from the Ancient Forest, the location which only Roberto knows. It is in the Ancient Forest where the Nymphs and Fauns nurture these unique grapes to fruition with music and dance.

The flavour of Flora & Faun Sauvignon Blanc can be described as:

“Crisp, elegant and fresh with a hint of naughtiness.”

Bullets and Beer

This is a sketch I did today based on a song to be written by Casey McCauley singer/songwriter and personality on the Devil and Me podcast. It's kind of morbid but them's the breaks. I think I might take the image of the woman with the gun and just use that. I think that would make it more funny and less murder.

I would also like to do a colour version.

Folkfest Sketches

Well folks it's been a while hasn't it?

I have not posted for the last while for good reason. I got married. in fact I have been married for about a week and a half now. Good times. I had a wonderful wedding ceremony out in Steinbach Manitoba on friends property. It was beautiful. I'll get some photos up as soon as I organize some things in my life. In the meantime here are some quick sketches I did at the Winnipeg Folkfest this year. This was where Beth (my wife) and I Honeymooned. It was a lot of fun but there was a bit of rain and my sketchbook got a bit soggy. Word to the wise those cheap pen brushed we got in college are a lot of fun to use but they bleed when they get wet. So if you like doing brushwork use india ink because it is waterproof.

I think some of the sketches need some explanation.

The first is of this grumpy old bastard who got real bent out of shape that I was talking while a band was playing. Instead of asking me to be quite. He waited in silence until his rage peaked. Then he got up and stormed off claiming that "Some people come here to listen to the music." No doubt, but some people go to enjoy the day and the people who are keeping them company. If you have a problem speak up don't make a scene where you end up looking like a douche bag.

Second one is of a kid in a VW shirt he was cool looking so I sketched him. The next is of the Tilly Twins an old man and I'm assuming his son sitting in identical clothes and tilly hats enjoying the festival. I would like to mention I was also wearing a tilly hat when I sketched this. Go Tilly!

Thirdly I did this sketch with Beth and a Friend Jason Botkin. Both are great artists so it was a lot of fun to draw a section and pass the picture along and see how the next person would add a little bit more until we had this random beautiful collage of drawings. So much fun.

That's it for now I look forward to getting back to posting and I hope everybody is having as much fun as me this summer.

Stag

My Stag is coming up this weekend so I did this graphic to go out with the invite. I did it in about a half an hour. I'm not overly happy with it but I think it has some potential for further exploration.