sketchbook sundays

 
We hope your pencils and pens have been busy this week. We just about finished up the Mags 9×12 we posted about in February. Also, we took a break to do two smaller studies: one of her guns, and one random cute pose.

We briefly pushed pause on sketching to ship some art. We sold Guitar Nine on eBay and also a pastel drawing they made us list in the “everything else > adult” category instead of just art. Whatever. It’s a body part. We were just happy someone appreciated it.

FineArtAmerica, who does our prints and cards, recently unleashed a new print-on-demand product: throw pillows. Seriously. Like a 20×14 huggable fox cub pillow we mailed our sister for her birthday. How cute is that? So yeah, we got some of our drawings printed on pillows. Maybe next week after they arrive we will have some pics for you, and a quality control review.

This Sketchbook Sunday, let’s take a trip down memory lane. We made an auction listing for the last surviving remnants of our sketchbooks in the 1990s and early 2000s. We’ve scanned and reworked some of them into new art, and we’d like to re-do a few with our fine point pens. But even though some are pretty ragged by now, we’re pretty sentimental about them. Maybe they will find a new home.

 

sketchbook sundays

Wayne Static of Static X happily plays his flying V guitar at the 2009 Download Festival in this ink drawing based on a photograph by deviantart user astrocreep2236.

Pigma Micron 05 fine point pen and Sharpie marker (chisel tip) on 80 lb drawing paper. From a high res (300 dpi) scan.

We made this image available as posters, framed prints, or greeting cards.

sketchbook sundays

 
This week we tried out a calligraphy pen to see if we could add some variations to our inked lines. We worked from a photo of a magpie, and you can see a detail of the lines below. Though very happy with the pen’s lines, we botched this drawing with several ink smudges. The calligraphy ink takes longer to dry than our fine point pens, and we failed to consider this. We may come back to magpie and do it right. For now, smudgy magpie can live on our kitchen wall in a thrift store frame.

 

 
We also made some progress on the piece we shared last week in pencil form. We decided to stop agonizing over lighting effects and just get to rendering. We can add some effects, if needed, with a white gel pen.

 

 
A box of our first pressing of Meteor Mags books showed up, too. It’s fun to think back to when this book cover was just a blank piece of drawing paper and a pencil in our hands.

 

 
Patches always has Mags’ back, so she is quite proud to appear on the back cover.

 

 
Meteor Mags cards with the same drawing as the book cover also arrived. We got this batch printed with vivan las anarquistas on the interior.

 

 
FineArtAmerica does such a great job printing these for us. Custom cards are a great way to share the results of our drawing sessions and keep in touch by mail.

Happy sketching!

 

sketchbook sundays

We received several issues of The Intruder this week. It’s an indie art publication, newspaper size, with each page holding one giant comic strip or artwork. We look forward to reading all of them soon. We love getting art gifts from Seattle and abroad!

This week’s drawing project made it as far as a fairly finished pencil stage. We need to work out how to render some dramatic lighting effects: the glowing lights (now circles) around her figure, and the electric energy crackling around her cybernetic pets (two eels circling her figure). This week we’ll try a few things on scratch paper. We got sidetracked writing more than 5000 words of dialogue for part one in a story about said cybernetic pets.

They have to come from somewhere, right?

 

sketchbook sundays: dream journal nine perfection

Sometimes you have those dreams where everything feels perfect. As a tribute to the numerous dreams we’ve had flipping through boxes of never-published comic books, the colors and textures of Dream Journal Nine contain vintage comic books in their depths.

 

 
This little 8×10 canvas has been a companion in the painting studio for two years, the object of many small-scale experiments we would later apply to larger canvases. It was once a light-hearted collage called “Perfect! The Master Will be Well Pleased!”

We’ve had much time to consider the idea of perfection, and we have a new perspective on it now. Perfection is a process, not a static state. Perfection is a verb, not a noun. Perfection is how we shape the world ever closer to an ideal we have in our minds. In reality, nothing is ever truly perfect, but that should not disappoint us too much. We are not trying to attain a state of perfection; we work to perfect our less-than-ideal world and make it more ideal.

On the flip side, you have imperfection. The crackled textures of Dream Journal Nine suggests cracks and imperfections. In dreams, the imperfections sometimes alert the dreamer that yes, this is a dream. You notice something that doesn’t seem quite right. And when you pause to think about it, it becomes clear you are dreaming. The imperfections of the dream world make perfect signposts on the road to lucid dreaming and greater awareness in the dream.

Dream Journal Nine could just as easily bear the title Imperfection, for perfection and imperfection form two sides of the same coin, two halves of the same whole.

We recently published three years of dreams from our dream journals in a 148-page paperback, and also Kindle format, called Three Years Dreaming.

sketchbook sundays

This week’s edition of Sketchbook Sundays is all about works in progress. Between cranking out research papers at the end of the semester and a sudden influx of writing, editing, and book design gigs, some of our art projects have just had to get aside for a bit. So, here’s what we have in progress here at our little outpost on the martian frontier.

 

 
Above, this new drawing of Meteor Mags is coming along nicely, but we need a background. Yes, we should probably plan backgrounds first, but we get caught up in inking gasmasks and stockings and then kind of fill in the details later.

Below, our seahorse painting awaits a final phase of rendering and highlighting. Considering that the next Mags story features a seahorse, it might be time to wrap this one up soon.

 

Below, our first attempt at painting Mags dancing has proven challenging but fun to work on. She needs her star and anarchy tattoos completed, at the very least, plus some attention to lighting and shadow. And who knows, we might put in some sea creatures before calling it done.

 

 
All that, plus we’ve plotted out the next Mags story but haven’t had the mental space to write the dang thing yet. We really thought our break between semesters would be mostly down time, but this has not been the case. Can’t complain though – it’s nice to have the work! Perhaps after this coming week gives us a chance to wrap things up in the business world, we can dive back in and get lost in some artwork.

Keep on sketching!

The Great Meteor Mags Draw Off Features Trey Baldwin!

Trey Baldwin sent us a joyously anarchic drawing of Meteor Mags for The Great Meteor Mags Draw Off! Finely crafted with black Sumi ink and white Liquitex marker, this meteoric masterpiece just made our day.

Trey Baldwin is the artist and co-writer of the web comic Collapsar Comics. Collapsar’s main storyline is a comedic science fiction tale about a lazy, inept space mercenary named X-ray and his disastrous misadventures. And you know what? We love space mercenaries! Trey also showcases his artwork at turbolard.wordpress.com.

 

 
BONUS POINTS to Trey for including Patches the space-loving cat – not to mention a UFO with an anarchy sign, striped socks, and so many star tattoos. TREY, YOU ROCK!

We’re accepting submissions to The Great Meteor Mags Draw Off all month long. So, artists of the world, just dig our post on how it works and get those pens, pencils, and digital stylus thingies fired up to draw some anarchy. It’s fun, it’s free, and it fills you with glee from your head down to your socks.
Long live the resistance!