Angela's Faves

I intended to do quick little spot illustrations for Inktober this year, but nooooooo! Now Jimmy is drowning in digital ink and lots of doodle details. This was way too much fun to go simple. I also included the original sketch this time.

Sometimes I just want to be in Mario's world.

The daring rescue of the helpless space jellies from a pesky rope nebula. Moleskine sketch.

Day 15 of Inktober2017 - Mysterious.

Doodleaddicts competition winner 'Mother Nature'

A lot of times my pens take over, spilling out the inside of my brain onto the paper. Thankfully, it's not as gross as it sounds.

I felt like drawing birdhouses and this came out in my large Moleskine.

I think I’m becoming obsessed with the whole rabbit hole thing.

When my robots are happy, I'm happy.

Morning doodle. It's hard to get anything else when doodling is near the top of the list. Not that I'm complaining. ;)

My 9 year old Boston Terrier, Annabelle is a bright light in my life and she shows up in my work often. Best Christmas gift EVER!!!

I'm going to try to remember Throw Back Thursday. It's fun for me to go back and try to remember what was going on in my mind that made me doodle what I doodled on that day.

Don’t cry over spilled milk unless you are Mr. Milk of course.

Having way too much fun with textures and halftones in Procreate.

Summertime. Who doesn’t love crabs?

This is the kind of stuff that comes out of me when I'm really hungry.

More nautical stuff keeps pouring out of my brain and into my moleskine.

Fishy stuff going on with Bradshaw lately. Summertime must be getting close.

Working on characters.

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?"

Hand lettering for a work in progress.