The King of Peanut Butter

Here is my piece for the upcoming "WHAT IF..." exhibit at Gallery Nucleus:

The King of Peanut Butter

Ink & Watercolor
3" x 5"

What if Peanut Butter needed a king? What if this little guy answered the call? But what if he got lost along the way? Just a few questions that led to this piece.

Hope to see you at the opening! Gonna be lots of cool people and artwork along with an awesome Muppet exhibit opening downstairs on the same night! You can click here for their website and more info.

Small Stuff 5!

The Bear and Bird show is on!

The Penguin and the Flamethrower
Ink and Watercolor

The Elephant and the Surfboard
Ink and Watercolor

Update: Everything is now online! Here's a link to see all of the artwork and here's a link to their shop. Enjoy!

A Tiny Narwhal

Here's a piece for the Small Stuff 5 show comin' up:

The Narwhal and the Water-Resistant Walkman
Ink and Watercolor

I'll post some more artwork when the show opens.

New Bear and Bird Website!

A little while back Amanda from the Bear and Bird gallery asked if I would like to do some artwork for their new website. They have such a cool gallery and I have had so much fun doing artwork for them that there was no way I could say no!

(I tried to pay respect to some of the other really cool artwork people have done for the gallery in those little picture frames.)

Amanda only wanted a piece or two and she was totally cool with whatever ideas I came up with. I guess I went a little crazy.




My goal was to show the characters in fun situations and establish their friendship but still leave them open for other people to explore too. I guess it would be like giving little snapshots of their lives but still leaving the viewer wanting to see more.

It got to a point were I couldn't decide which ones to finish in color so I sent Amanda all of the roughs and let her pick her top four.





I also did a black and white stamp for them and before I sent all of the originals out I threw a little watercolor on it.



I had so much fun with this! I'm glad there were deadlines because I could have just kept going. So check out their new website when you get a chance!

Now I guess I should start working on my own banner...

"Heroes vs. Villains" Micro Show

The Disney folks are doing a cool micro show with artwork of heroes on one wall and villains on the other wall facing them. Whatever side has the most pieces wins!

Ink wash, before adding color.

They were kind enough to invite me so here is my contribution...

Marc Moreau, Wrestler of the Deep
Ink and Watercolor

Should be a good show! Hopefully they'll post some of the images on their blog.

Mary Blair Tribute

If you haven't heard of illostribute you should totally check it out. Toby Thane Neighbors has created a very inspirational blog and right now he has a tribute to Mary Blair! It's pretty awesome. I was totally excited when he asked me to do a piece for it.

Young Mary Robinson
Ink and Watercolor

I have to admit I struggled with this piece but at the end of the day it was a great learning experience. It also gave me an excuse to play around with gouache again.

Brothers Grimm

UPDATE: Bear and Bird Gallery had a great show a little while back and I had a ton of fun doing some pieces for it. A huge thank you to everyone who bought my pieces! You are too kind. You can still see artwork from all of the amazing artists who contributed by clicking here.

Here is a closer look at some of the pieces I did.

Seven Ravens
Ink and Watercolor

The Mouse, the Bird, and the Sausage
Ink and Watercolor

I also made a thumbnail beat board for the entire story of Hansel and Gretel!

Hansel and Gretel
Ink and Watercolor

The process of making this piece was an awesome experience. After a few failed attempts I ended up getting a huge piece of plywood, soaking the paper overnight, pressing the paper against the board with a roller and getting a little out of hand with a staple gun. I was done taking chances.

The inking stage.
(note the few thousand staples)

I have been lucky enough to work on a couple beat boards for movies and shows but never an entire story. Kind of intimidating. I just stayed as close to the text as possible and only added a few subtle background elements.

Finished color.
(the plywood ended up being a great workspace!)

At around 28" wide I think this is the largest piece of art I've ever made. Yet somehow I still managed to turn it in to a ton of little pieces! Good times.