Happy Year of the Dragon!

Being that this year is "water dragon," I find my piece very fitting! Done for our Crowdstar dragon mini art-show.

Also digitally colored/ inked on my ipad!

IF: Boundaries- Green Octopus

Study for a lady/"monster" themed piece!

I also felt this fit with Illustration Friday's "Boundaries" theme because I like how her hair is sort of a tentacle and how the boundary between what is her and what is the octopus....

Starfish

Anemone

Redhead with Moorish Idol

Mermaids and Sea Turtles

Eagle Ray

I got to see BOTH a baby manta and an eagle ray while snorkeling in Hawaii- it was FANTASTIC!

Narwal

Ex Libris sketches

As you may or may not know, I absolutely LOVE getting my sketchbooks from Ex Libris Anonymous. They take old books and re-purpose them into sketchbooks, including remnant pages from the original books.  I love drawing on these pages and using them as inspiration and cool backgrounds.

I'm developing a Marie Antoinette costume for Halloween, hence all the wig up-does recently...

OH! and as always (which I should really make more clear), all drawings here are for sale and available either as originals or prints. Matted Prints= $10 each, Matted Originals=$25, framed originals= $35

Shark Woman

Ichthyosaur Mermaid

Inspired by our trip to the Smithsonian Museum of Natural History in Washington DC

Marine girls (Thursday)

Oceanic White-Tip shark

My friend Kristen has started a "shark a day" challenge for this week, which is Shark Week!

Today's shark is Oceanic White Tip. They have oversized front fins, and seem to be constantly surrounded by little pilot fish...

Speaking of sharks and shark week, I watched this short feature about the danger that sharks are currently facing from overfishing and exploitation... I highly recommend you check it out!

Shark Alert! Species Struggle

Shiva Mermaid... of sorts?

I like the concept of this one a lot- think it'd make a cool painting (sort of a hindi mermaid sort of character).. just a rough drawing for now, but I might come back to this later....

N is for Narwhal

I love narwhals- such strange looking creatures!

Comic-Con Inspired by: Jeremy Bastian

So I finally finished my piece from yesterday- this piece is inspired by Jeremy Bastian, a really great artist whom I've mentioned before. I was so excited to get to meet him at the Comic-Con- I wasn't even sure he'd be there, but I was lucky enough to happen across his booth and get to check out his stuff in person! His Tenniel-like illustrations are just exquisite, and he is such a nice and friendly artist to talk to. He has a great sense of combining mythological, grotesque, and fairy-tale like elements into his characters and pieces.

I managed to get a gorgeous griffin print from him, which is distressed to look aged and worn (giving it such a fantastic vintage look), and get to ask him about his upcoming book of compiled "The Cursed Pirate Girl" comics, which looks like it will be coming out in October. He also gave me and Damon a set of three beautiful prints of some of his characters from Cursed Pirate Girl- they'll look so nice framed together!

Anyway, I highly recommend checking Jeremy's work out- it's absolutely beautiful to look at and study all the details, and (as if it's not obvious to any long time reader of this blog), I have a penchant for things aquatic, so all his nautical themed art is right up my alley!

Jeremy Bastian
Jeremy's Blog

Illustration Friday: "Canned"

So, this is a two for one post; one being an Illustration Friday entry for "Canned," and the other continuing my series on highlighting/ being inspired by different artists I met during the San Diego Comic-Con this past weekend.

This piece was inspired by a really cool artist by the name of Josh Frankel, and his series of "wordless natural history comics." This illustration is based off the one called "Seafood," which tells the story of the life of a tuna, and how it gets from being a wild predator of the sea into the small can of processed fish you see on your supermarket shelf.

Josh brings a fantastic awareness of ocean conservation and awareness to his art, something that I hope to bring to my own art one day. The style of both his art and narrative of his work is really striking, and I highly recommend checking out his books and website. That, and he's a super nice guy to meet and talk to : D

Josh Frankel

Trilobite
Seafood
Twilight of the Sea Cow
and Water Column, which isn't for sale on his site yet, but is beautiful in it's abstract microscopic look at plankton (with a great surprise ending!)


Also, remember to eat responsibly when you eat seafood!

Illustration Friday: "Enough"

My submission for Illustration Friday's theme, "Enough."

I read this crazy article about octopi that have tons of extra tentacles (or arms)- one had up to 96 arms! Sounds like the gene that tells the tentacle gene "8 is enough!" is turned off in these little cephalopods!"



(the colors in my pic were inspired by a picture of a preserved octopi from 1957- very weird looking!)

Mr. Pink the betta

This is a watercolor study of an old betta i used to have who's long since passed; he was one of the original three I first had (I have had many, many bettas over the years; I'm currently down to around 9 at the moment)- I loved his coloration because it was this soft pastel pink and purple, and I used to keep him in a bowl with a fake rubber anemone that he loved hiding in.

Saturday, May 31, 2008

Jellyfish! I was watching a discovery channel show that mentioned that certain box jellyfish have primitive eyes that allow them to see up/down and light, as well as the relative size of predators and prey. Didn't draw any eyes on this guy, but was fun to elaborate on the design.