Ill. Friday, under the sea

The sea captain in the his submarine I did a week ago, how perfect that this weeks Illo. Friday is "under the sea"! I did the fish to try out some new watercolor colors and illustration board. Turned out okay, but don't think I'll be using the new board, stick to the tried and true Bainbridge 2200! You can also buy stuff with the sea captain on it at my cafe press store here.

Illustration Friday, robot!

So here is "chef-bot", modeled after a certain late-night-knife-selling-chef. This one was lots of fun, I also did a "mixer-bot" sketch which I may post. What a good word, robot...!

new lino

I've been having so much fun doing linocuts, and I think I'm starting to get into the groove as far as one block printing goes. It takes a different way of thinking about the image and how it will have greater impact using only one color or block. So this one is two colors, printed from one block.

Illustration Friday, spotted

I know, obvious, but I've been doing a lot of linocut lately and had a good idea for this cow. So here he is, spotted cow. Also is a portrait of Thelonious Monk I did. I should have new stuff up on my website soon (some portraits and linocuts), so check back in the next few days.

A portrait of Death Cab For Cutie, and a crusty sailor in a frame I refinished.

my first "trophy" frame!

So I'm almost complete with my first completely hand made, carved and water gilded frame (2 of them actually). I thought I'd share pictures for those interested. Unfortunately I didn't take any pictures of the frame being carved or gessoed, but this first one is of the frame after it was clayed, ready to be water gilded.

This next picture is of the frame in the process of water gilding. The left half is before the gold leaf is applied, just wetted with water. The right side has a piece of gold just applied.

The third picture is the corner of the gilded frame.

Another picture of the corner design.

A picture of one frame gilded (in the back) and one clayed, ungilded.

And finally, the 2 gilded and burnished frames hanging on the wall. BLING!
And just for kicks, here is a water gilded frame that I did "sgrafitto" on in the black panel.
...Finally, another one (gold metal leaf, fake gold) with a painted design in the corner.

Spring cleaning my mind

I'm liking the birds I hear every morning and the fruit blossom trees, so I thought I'd continue on that. Another spring picture. Also I'm very excited because today I gilded my first hand carved frame and so far it's looking really good! I'll hopefully have pictures of that to post soon...

Illustration Friday, spring

So here is spring. This is what spring is to me, waking up after the winter frost, and the fruit blossoms floating like snow.


Another spring picture, birds arriving home from winter vacation. Although I think this could be autumn as well.