How awesome is this??

Treelobsters has taken it upon themselves to chronical the adventures of Bunny and Demon and the stories are cutest things EVER.

Reposted with permission.

Bunny and Demon Go on a Picnic 

Bunny and Demon are friends.
One fine Saturday, they decided to have a picnic.

Demon packed the tortured souls of the damned.
Bunny packed carrots.

They took the bus to the park.

Lots of people got off the bus at their stop, so there were plenty of empty seats.

When they got to the park, they looked for a spot to set up.

Bunny wanted a sunny spot.
"Oh no!" said Demon, "The sun will burn my skin!"

Demon wanted a cave.
"It's much too dark," said Bunny, "And there are bears."

They settled on a shady spot under a tree.

Some people nearby were also having a picnic. They ran away.

"Why are they afraid of me?" asked Demon.
"They think you will eat them," replied Bunny.
"How silly," said Demon, "I brought my own lunch."

After lunch, Bunny and Demon played in the park.

They played hide and seek.
Bunny was very good at that.

They climbed trees.
Demon was very good at that.

Demon fell and hurt her knee.
Bunny mended it with a bandage and some ointment.

On the bus ride home, Demon said, "You are a good friend, Bunny."
"You are a good friend too, Demon," said Bunny.

Bunny and Demon Ride a Bike 

One day, Bunny and Demon were wondering what they could do for fun.
"I know!" said Bunny. "We could ride a bicycle!"

But neither of them had a bicycle.
They took the bus to the bicycle shop to buy one.

"There is no one here," said Demon.
The shopkeeper was hiding.
Bunny saw him but she was too polite to mention it.

They found a shiny, red bicycle with a carrier basket.
"This will do nicely," said Bunny.

The shopkeeper was still hiding, so they left money on the counter.
"I hope this is enough," said Demon.
"I'm sure it is fine," said Bunny.

Bunny tried to ride the bicycle...
...but her legs were too short.

Demon tried to ride the bicycle…
...but her talons got tangled in the wheels.

"I have an idea..." said Bunny.
They took the handlebars and basket off the bicycle.

Bunny climbed into the basket.
Demon held onto the handlebars with her claws…
...and up they flew.

They flew over the treetops.

They flew over the lake.

They flew over the crowds of screaming people.

"This is the best bicycle ride ever!" cried Bunny.

And it was.

Bunny rides a bike

I am impressionable and @treelobsters on twitter encouraged me. Also, Prismacolor markers are fun.

Winter sunset

With this painting I feel like I'm finally getting to where I want to be style-wise with watercolors. The trick for me seems to be to just go for it, and resist the urge to fuss too much--this guy took about 30 minutes and I didn't draw it out at all before-hand. 

Bunny!

Marker and brush pen. They're making friends!

13th and Vine

Watercolor, for a commission. I'm very pleased with how this turned out, and I'm officially calling Operation Re-learn Watercolors a success. Before this summer it'd been a solid ten years since I'd touched them, but I was starting to feel like I needed a bit of a break from working digitally. 

I still feel the urge to hit save or ctrl+z, because that is necessary/will totally work when using real art supplies.

Oh and incidentally, the commission was specifically for "a watercolor showing the architecture of Over the Rhine". I mention this because of all of the art criticism I've read over the years that goes on and on about the deep symbolic reasons that the artist was thinking of for X compositional choice. Let me tell you, I took about 100 photos for this project, and I picked this shot because it had the fewest fire escapes or trees, while still involving more than one building. I suspect that the ancient artists of yore were just as lazy as I am. 

Waiting

I've spent a fair amount of time in airports lately. It's mostly given me a chance to study people playing with their phones. 

Watercolor Fun Day part2

I kind of hate painting trees, especially when it's summer and you end up having to figure out how to differentiate all the blobs of green.

Watercolor Fun Day part1

Another attempt at painting with watercolors, this time in Spring Grove Cemetery. This statue was part of a larger monument to various virtues, I think. This figure was labeled love, there were two others labeled truth and friendship.

The thing about painting/drawing statues is that if you look at them very closely, their proportions are strange. I had a hard time with the far hand (you can see where I kept moving the edge) because I kept wanting to make it the size of a normal person's hand, not the weird metal giant scale. But despite that I'm pleased with how this turned out, especially given that the sun was right in my eyes when I was looking at the statue's head, so I had to wait for the sun to go behind a cloud in order to see, or just make up the detail. 

Also, whenever the art history books go on about impressionists painting outdoors with nature and how wonderful that is, they never mention the bit where bugs try to drown themselves in your paint.

Buddies

More fun and games with ink.

stop lights and street lights

Sketched from a couple of photos I took around my city. I like photography as an art form, but personally I have a hard time seeing my photos as anything other than potential drawing reference.

Also, I've got a thing for power lines. No idea why. Well, ok, that's not entirely true, but I feel like mumble mumble representational of the complexity of urban life mutter human web superimposed across the landscape etc is a bit much to inflict on unsuspecting people of the internet. So we'll stick with that I think they look nifty.

Dragon street

So, uh, I got a little bored painting/drawing the houses.

This started out as a watercolor experiment--it's been a solid ten years since I've used them and let's just say that I'm a touch out of practice. Prismacolor markers and a brush pen were added on top because I wasn't feeling that patient, and in any case I rather like the effect. 

Cobh

Cobh, Ireland, from a photo I took. More Prismacolor markers, plus some faint pencil if you squint. 

decorative monster thing

First page of my new sketchbook. Prismacolor markers and a brush pen.

sketchbook page

Something I doodled while watching TV. This sort of thing is why I'm easily surprised by plot twists/often have no idea what characters' names are when I'm watching something.

Painting

So, over the past year, I've been working on this painting. I have this large roll of watercolor paper that I've been lugging around for about ten years now, and I thought hey, why don't I prime it and paint something really big? It'll have a nicer texture than canvas, I won't have to stretch anything, and when was the last time I made anything larger than ~16"x20" anyways?

Oil on Paper, tentatively called Urban Dreamscape 2

Yeah. This is 3.5'x4'. Yes, that's feet. I finished it last week and was so pleased, very happy with how it turned out and that I actually FINISHED the thing (to be honest I could work on it forever, but I had a friend whose judgment I trust look at it, give me a list of stuff to fix, and once that was complete I took it off the wall to force myself to stop). 

However.

Now I have to get it framed. There's a full framing studio at my day job, so they can help me, except that I think the painting is awfully close to full size of the glass sheets we have in stock, and it won't fit in my little car without being folded, it's taking up the entire floor of my office, and I'm not entirely certain why I thought this size was a good idea. 

At least it's much lighter than masonite?

Here are some detail shots: apologies for the quality, as they were taken with my phone while my real camera charges, and the paper doesn't exactly lie flat.

 

 

This is a sort of prequel to the above painting, where I'd started working on the idea of showing layered landscapes with a history of human development/influence. I'm still very much working on how I want to use paint, what kind of texture, how much detail, etc. All the things that painting on the computer just doesn't quite manage.

 

Oil on canvas, tentatively Urban Dreamscape 1

Starstuff

This image was inspired by this post by Emily Finke, who is a friend of mine. She puts it far more eloquently than I can, but the idea that we are all starstuff is one that resonates me and I wanted to try to figure out a way to convey it visually. I have no idea if it works for anyone besides me. I felt that anything literal would end up looking cheesy and worse, not convey the grandeur. Just picture it, a figure filed with stars courtesy of the power of Photoshop! Yeah, no.

The drawing was just in my sketchbook so the original is approximately 14"x11", but I think the appropriate size for this concept would be wall, or possibly billboard, with the flower very small in comparison to the entire composition. Drawn with Prismacolor marker and brush pen.