tentacles and dripping eyeballs

On this Halloween eve as I wait for my significant other to get home from her place of employment, I feel the need to share more sketchbook pages. I'm almost to the end of this Moleskine that I started in August of 2007, it usually doesn't take me this long to finish one but this annoying thing called "life" keeps getting in the way. The smaller tree on the left page above was Disney inspired, back when Disney actually inspired artists.

And this page was inspired by a can of Mountain Dew and some old horror & sci-fi movies. Happy Halloween everyone!

?!

Sometimes I look back through my sketchbook and just start to wonder what's wrong with me. I know my drawings are pretty tame compared to a lot of cartoonists, but the thing is that I don't intentionally sit down to draw weird stuff. It just seems to come out, so I guess what's the use of fighting it. It's more fun to draw weird mutated sweaty people than boring still lifes anyway (did plenty of that in school).
This looks like one of those pages done on an energy drink buzz. I really need to lay off of those, I'm afraid my heart is just going to turn into maple syrup soon.
Lacking inspiration I flipped through a book of nothing but images of devils and started doing my takes on some of them (left side). I really like the one with the trunk and feathery eye thingies at the top of the left page.

Thanks to everyone that came to the art show at Kettle, and especially to those awesome folks that bought my art! I sold about half of my work, so that rocks. I wish I could say that the money will go to good use, but in reality it will be used to feed my insatiable toy and book habit. It's worse than drugs.

Art Show!!

I'm more than late in posting this, but anyone reading this blog that lives in the Dallas area should come by the Kettle Art Gallery in Deep Ellum and check out this show I'm in: http://www.kettleart.com/page2.htm. Here are a few pieces that I'm showing, some still available for purchase (hint hint).

The other artists in the show are top notch, I feel really priviledged to be in the same gallery with them, check them out:

Ryan Thies http://www.rthies.com/

Miguel Aguilar http://www.aguilarart.com/

Tyson Summers http://www.tysonsummers.com/

The show will be up until the 27th of this month, so make haste!

Gallery hours are Thursday through Saturday, 7:00-10:00 pm and by appointment-214 573-7622. Frank Campagna, the Artistic Director, is a really awesome guy and I would love for as many people that can to go by the gallery. They have a ton of great shows that people should really go check out.
More sketchbook pages coming soon, thanks!

Well, after an incredibly busy summer I finally managed to get some more crap doodled and posted. The only drawing I like on this first page is the bearded guy in the hat on the far right. I copied him from some Disney book I had laying around.
I'm thinking about actually trademarking sweaty heads so that I'm the only one allowed to draw them. Maybe just trademarking ugly would work as well.
Charlie Brown is covering up probably the stupidest and most embarrasing thing I've ever drawn. Seriously, it was one of those drawings that made me question if I should keep drawing anymore at all. But as long as it's not visible it doesn't exist.
More random ugliness and weirdness, I promise not to take 2 months until my next post. Thanks guys!

faces

This was an exercise to see how many different faces I could come up with, it turned out to be really difficult. Most of them are either way too happy or horribly miserable, at least I covered the emotional spectrum. See if anyone can spot the Basil Wolverton lookin' dude.

new stuff

Been super busy lately but got around to doing a few doodles finally. More of the same really, been in kinda a creative rut lately. Can't go wrong with more vomit!
Your eyes aren't playing tricks on you, I did indeed use a blue pen on this page. I think this was done after working a 10 hour day and just needed to unwind.
More blue! I must have just gone crazy with the colors here. Comments welcome, thanks folks!!

more doodles and some actual finished art!!

A couple of fresh pages for you awesome people that check out my stupid scribbles. Started working with a brush in these pages, lots of fun and I hope to get better at inking.
Don't even ask about the man in the bra, I have no answer.

These two finished pieces are for an art show based on Saturday morning cartoons. I was a complete Ghostbuster nut as a kid so I did this watercolor of the boys chasing an oblivious Casper who thinks he's found some friends. Poor ol' Casper!
I also loved Inspector Gadget so I did this one of him using some rather violent gadgets on a burgler. If these pieces don't sell at the show them look for the on my website at http://www.degrandland.com/, I'll make them available to purchase then. Thanks everyone!

fresh doodles, hoo boy!!

Finally got around to getting more pages scanned in, been finding it harder and harder to get doodling done these days. Still working on getting better tones with the ballpoint pen, I find it really relaxing for some reason.

Got ahold of some fancy colored drawing pens but like the ballpoint better. Oh well, at least they added some color to the page. The little worm dude coming out of the guys head on the bottom right of the page found his way into a watercolor I'm working on, look for it soon at www.degrandland.com. Hope to get more pages done soon, I have a ton of projects in the works right now. More on those later, bye for now!

heads

Wow, I haven't realized how much my current job situation has affected my doodling output, but this page is the only thing I've filled up the ole' Moleskine with since the holidays. I drew the page on the left with all the sweaty and miserable heads first and then thought it would be cool to do some happier heads on the right to contrast. These pages were crucial in me keeping my sanity through some really stressful times these past few weeks, funny how art can do that.

And the weiner is....

This guy! This is my entry into the New Yorker's Eustace Tilley contest, which was chosen as one of the winners. The image will be published on newyorker.com to help celebrate their 80-something year anniversary. Just thought I'd brag a little bit since cartoonists rarely get that luxury!

new year, new doodles

Hope every had a great Christmas and New Year's! The wife and I rang in 2008 by going to see the awesome Sweeney Todd (Tim Burton's best movie since Ed Wood), and then went to sleep watching the ball drop. Yeah, we live it up. Anyway, I got some more pages scanned in, my job lately has been beyond crazy but I got to get a little drawing in at last.
Man, sometimes my artwork is too bizarre even for me. I frankly have no idea what to say about these pages. I've been so mentally fried lately that I think I'll just let the drawings speak for themselves this time.
I had fun with the page on the left, I just tried to draw as many weird facial expressions as I could come up with. I'll probably do some more of these sometime. The heads on the right page are designs for some T-shirts and buttons I'd like to have done someday.
I was watching a really weird Betty Boop cartoon that had these hillbilly characters with these strange saggy cheeks, so naturally I had to see if I could draw one. He's the one on the left page saying "Hoo Doggies!"
More random characters from the deepest regions of my subconscience. Scary ain't it?

oodles o' doodles!!

I got a whole slew of new stuff for you fine folks, think of it as an early Christmas present (man that's lame!) As you can see on this page I started to break away from the ball point pen and started practicing with some drawing pens to get better with inking my final pieces. I still can't seem to help drawing sweaty people though.

Here's a not so successful attempt to add tones with the ballpoint to an inked drawing, at least I tried! Santa is sure fun to draw though.

Another take on Santa and some more practicing, I think I'm getting better at it, I dunno.

I meet Angus Oblong, creator of the cartoon show "The Oblongs" at Wizard World Texas a few weeks back. He was a really awesome guy and I had him draw one of his characters in my sketch book, I liked that he's "reacting" to my artwork!

My attempt at drawing a Peter Bagge character as well as a t-shirt design on the right page. If I had that shirt made would any of you guys wear it? Be honest!!
More sweat, more stubble, more ghosts, more barf.

More of the same, the guy saying "bleh" is reflecting my state of mind at the time I drew this page, the holidays get me down sometimes.

I was thinking about a new comic book series about baby versions of famous comic characters and "Baby Magneto" at the top of the page was born. Like many ideas I have I drew the one character and lost interest. Oh well. In case I don't post again until after the holidays I'll just go ahead and say Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!!

November pages

Allrighty then, I finally got some more pages scanned in. I think I stole the "Splorp" sound effect from Don Martin. I tried to create the creepiest yet cutest teddy bear I could there on the left page.
I think I've decided that a ball point pen is the best doodling tool ever invented. I'm having a blast experimenting with the various tones and values you can get. Thanks for looking at my mad rambling doodles!

Paintin's

For a change of pace from all the sketchbook pages, I thought I would post a few of my finished pieces. I'm desperately trying to get better at painting with acrylics, it's a lot of fun but incredibly frustrating at times. Please feel free to let me know how I'm doing, good or bad!
Most of these paintings are inspired by sketchbook images. I rarely know what in the hell they "mean" until after the piece is done and I stare at it for a while and come up with some sort of "significance". I think this one is about a weird critter coming out of a tree with a slimy critter.

I really like to work with contrasting images so for this painting I painted a bizarre alien type creature from the future next to a vintage cartoon inspired fellow. SEE the contrast?!?
Ever been in a really bad mood and it seems that everyone tries to cheer you up, and you just want to kick them in the appendix?
I'm just really not sure what the hell this is supposed to be, I just went nuts on a canvas one day.
Another piece inspired by Fleischer cartoons. I love how EVERYTHING in those shorts can come to life at any moment, so why not barf?
This painting is me trying to "say something" about how man intrudes on nature. I'm not a huge environmentalist or anything, I just love animals and trees and hate it when they're destroyed to make room for a new Gap or some crap.

Newest pages o' Wackiness!

Wow, 2 posts in October?!? How did I find the time?! Anyway, this being Halloween month I've been doodling more monsters and stuff than usual, this page being especially gory. The guy on the bottom left may find his way into a painting some day.
Watching old Fleischer and Van Beuren cartoons never fails to get my doodlin' hands busy. I drew these pages after watching "Somewhere in Dreamland", an awesome Fleischer cartoon where two little kids are starving to death so they dream about going to a fantastic candy and sweets filled fantasy land, only to wake up to discover they're still poor. It was made around the depression and all.
I'm really proud of the Japanese lookin' monster in the middle of the right page, he came out better than I thought he would. Those crazy Japanese and their monsters.