play

Just playing with lines and pens

Which pair would you wear? . This fun doodle is in response to the latest weekly drawing prompt to draw a pattern, in red, with a pen. If you want to play along, sign-up on the site and a new quirky prompt will be delivered to your inbox every Monday.

Play of shadows & light at leaves

Playing around with bird patterns. I scanned in all my watercolor birds and then arranged them with GIMP.

Details of the stand up bass player and the pianist.

In the migration seasons the geese and swans fly for the night to the sea get safe rest .And playing with positive and negative spaces

Playing around with digital stained-glass effects, and thought it would be fun to portray tropical summer vibes in a medium where you don't usually find them. Shout out to Lisa Bardot at bardotbrush.com for the basic digital technique.

55 mins “I Never Noticed The House Was On Fire” This is a painting for an upcoming group exhibition about memories. When I was a kid I grew up in a household where my parents were functioning alcoholics. They gave me toys, put me in front of the tv, and sent me outside to play to keep me distracted from what was going on. When I look back almost all of my childhood memories revolve around these things. I became obsessed with these imaginary worlds and I learned to draw by copying my favorite cartoons and characters from children’s books. It was not until I was much older, that the truth could no longer be hidden from me. The imaginary world of cartoons and books kept me shielded from the harsh realities of home. As I grew into an adult that form of coping grew with me as I created my own imaginary places inspired by the ones I loved as a child. A healthy place to escape.

Playing with some experimental media while drawing from life with my students last spring. Gearing up for new sessions in a couple weeks.

Playing with colored inks at fountain pen

Did you ever have a page in your sketchbook that was so bad and so embarrassing that you tore it out and chucked it? This was one of those pages that made me cringed every time I came to it. So today I said to myself, "ENOUGH!" and ripped it out of my moleskine. But something wouldn't let me throw it in the can. Now, I'm not one of those artists that can't bring himself to throw away any of his stuff because each and every piece, good or bad holds some kind of sentimentality or sense of importance. This particular page was a result of a crappy angst filled day and stuff poured out of me. For some reason, it felt like I was throwing away some piece of my soul. There were parts that were overworked and others that were painfully too personal. So I decided to cut it up and put it back together in no particular order, however it seemed best. As I was pasting the pieces down it occurred to me that this had a comic book feel so I scanned the final and added the black borders in photoshop which I really dug. I like that it is cryptic and jumbled up like my brain can so often be. This reminded me of the awesome @johnhendrix who said something in his book, Drawing Is Magic that stuck with me. He said, "Don't worry about doing anything wrong. If you're hoping your sketchbook turns into a glossy display of only your best drawings, you are not carrying a sketchbook, you are carrying a portfolio." In other words, explore, take chances, loosen up and have fun. Try your best to go at it like an uninhibited child. In so doing, you will stretch as an artist by avoiding repetition and predictability. We all know how to do what we already know. To sum up, I created a bad page, and whether or not I was able to fix it, it expanded me. So, follow your pencil, pen, or whatever and let them take you to places you never imagined when you started. Then, maybe you will end up staring happily at the final and with childlike wonder, say, "man, where did that come from?"

Playin with light and shadows. Plus one with real shadows

It's starting to feel a little bit fall-like around here so I'm playing with some new colors.

The rhododendron in my yard is blooming and my daughter and I love to stare out the window to watch our cats, Squanchy and Beemo, hunt and play in the yard.

This is an acrylic painting that I made for someone I was close to. We would often take turns of one of us being overly affectionate and the other being playfully annoyed. I tried to capture this dynamic in the painting of these two owls. This painting was an experiment in portraying animals, something I don't do often, and using my paint knife as a tool in my paintings.

I started rewatching the Saw franchise

It’s always good to find some drawing time on vacation. We went to some weird random small towns in Washington and a ghost town called Burke with some particularly interesting history. I had Cheers playing on my phone while I drew this but no similarity is intended. It’s a classic show but it would have been better without the distracting laugh tracks.

Flower Doodle

playing around with some markers.

I can't stop playing with the pattern maker in illustrator! ❤️

Playing around with drawing with the ink dropper, I really like this guy. And you can tell I took the pic before the ink dried because you can see the shadow on the page.

Ms. Nathan was a play production teacher with flair and a big personality. She wore colorful clothing and loud socks that never matched. Her joyful, chortling laugh filled the room—or the hallway—wherever she happened to be. Staff meetings and PD days have always been strong invitations for observational drawings. Over the years, I’ve found that there are many boxes to check in a wide variety of systems. I often created my own boxes—and checked them with sketches of my colleagues. This one goes out to the colorful Ms. Nathan.

Sketched while watching the Mariners get knocked out of playoff contention. Colored on the computer. I did a hue changing little animation with it if you check my Instagram. :)

A4 test piece for A2 piece to come. Playing with colour

I've been playing around with this different colors on this floral pattern.

Way back in '88 I was staying up late, Playing games like Donkey Kong (and of course Pac-Man was great!) Smashing barrels, chomping dots, chased by Blinky, eating Clyde- Climbing ladders, jumping fire all to make that princess mine!