alien menagerie monday

My 3rd attempt at an alien in ink. These are 5” x 5”

sumi ink on bristol

inked alien #2

The 2nd of my pen and inked aliens ~

sumi ink on bristol

inked alien #1

As a teenager in the mid-seventies my artistic ambitions were initially directed towards comics and fanzines. In October 2016 I decided to try my hand at drawing in ink again. It was challenging but fun to dip into this media again. This was the first off my drawing board.

sumi ink on bristol

Year of the Rooster

acrylic on Fabriano 300 watercolor paper 8" x 10"

My new alien menagerie piece to celebrate the Year of the Rooster which began January 28th 2017.

Below ~ sketching the evolution of a space chicken.

Year of the Monkey

acrylic on Fabriano 300 watercolor paper 8" x 10"

On February 8th, 127 days ago, the Year of the Monkey commenced. I began marking the Lunar New Year with a painting for my alien menagerie in 2011, the Year of the Rabbit. This is my sixth entry, and the first to be late. It’s an unfortunate circumstance for a series that celebrates the passage of time! Not to be deterred, I’m willing to take a chance that sharing this late is better than not at all.

With any luck, I will be completing the Chinese zodiac in the Year of the Tiger 2022 and celebrating my own completion of the sixty year cycle.

These are some of the sketches that evolved into my own space monkey.

Happy Year of the Sheep!

acrylic on Fabriano 300 watercolor paper 8" x 10"

~working out the year of the sheep, some sketches.

新年快樂

새해 복 많이 받으세요

chúc mừng năm mới

Happy Lunar New Year!

Happy Year of the Horse!

no comment on my absence from blogging except to say I'm glad to have something new to share. Happy Year of the Horse!

acrylic on Fabriano 300 watercolor paper 8" x 10"

~the evolution of a horse.

新年快樂

새해 복 많이 받으세요

chúc mừng năm mới

Happy Lunar New Year!

alien menagerie #12 • the atomic alien

The atomic alien #1 tunes in from the new frontier, a retro-future where bubble helmets are all the rage and time stands still. I bet they listen to Dave Brubeck out there. This one is a small, 6" x 8" painting. I'm pretty sure there will be more...

oil on wood panel 12" x 12"

Aliens for sale:

I've restocked my web shop with nine originals. These are acrylic on watercolor paper - 8" X 10"   Only $150 for a piece of original art from my alien menagerie project.  **shipping is free**

x.31 - the zombie from another planet

Things get a little more gruesome than normal with this addition to my alien menagerie as I try on the idea of a 'zombie from another planet'.  My goal was not to loose too much of the character of what I hope my aliens project. They tend to be a benign bunch. When a friend of mine suggested that  a previous alien, x.30 looked to be inspired by Lovecraft, I wondered where another horror theme might lead too.

acrylic on Fabriano 300 watercolor paper 8" x 10"

Speaking of zombies, recently I went to the opening for Travis Louie's ZOMBIE show that's at Last Rites Gallery until June 26th. I really enjoyed seeing all the different solutions that the artists came up with when challenged to interpret the theme.

Several artists: Travis Louie, Stan Manoukian, Bobby Chiu, and Vincent Di Nguyen came up with botanical solutions, which both surprised and impressed. Mark Garro and Vince Natale also contributed  a couple of wonderful, off-center paintings. You can see the entire show online here.

the enigma aliens at Gallery Nucleus

Last night "The Animal Kingdom" opened at Gallery Nucleus and alien menagerie 10 & 11 were part of this show.These are small pieces, measuring 6" X 8". Working this size, I chose to focus mostly on the aliens, and keep the environment stark, aiming for a surreal tone overall. The enigma aliens inhabit dream-space, their character a mystery.

Here's a video showing progress on enigma alien 2.

I wasn't ready to leave their world behind, so I made this extract depicting an alien which was a contender for enigma 2.

I'd like too thanks Wade Buchanan for inviting me to participate. "The Animal Kingdom" is viewable online here.

Happy Year of the Snake!

~some of the sketches working through the design for this piece.

新年快樂

새해 복 많이 받으세요

chúc mừng năm mới

Happy Lunar New Year!

alien evolution

In 1974 (or there about) I did this drawing of a guy who I named "Neptonian". A lot of the inspiration for this character came from the Outer Space Men toy, Astro-Nautilus (with a bit of Star Trek the Animated series thrown in). I still remember drawing this and how much fun it was to do.

Seventeen years later I was still painting aliens. This one was done as a book cover for the James White novel the "Genocidal Healer" in 1991.

Astronomer • alien menagerie #4, was done eighteen years after "Genocidal Healer" (thirty-five years since the "Neptonian"). I'm still painting aliens.

*it's still a really enjoyable thing to be doing 

2012.12.x28

acrylic on Arches 300 watercolor paper 8" x 10"

I'm pretty confident most of us are left with the feeling that we're trying to do too much. For myself, just about everyday starts with a certain optimism about how much can be accomplished, and ends somewhere short of that mark. Writing for this blog has been a regular victim of those shortages of time.

X.28 was finished about a month ago. I'd planned on posting it with an eye to the end of autumn, around the Thanksgiving holiday. The shape of x.28 reminded me of the gourds that are used as decoration about that time of year. I rather liked that idea, and I have a real fondness for fruits and vegetables with faces. 

Of course I never wrote that blog entry, and I couldn't quite figure out how to introduce x.28 to the world, until I realized it would be a good end-of-year post. So here's an alien that went ignored in the rush to move forward with new work and keep up with all the other things that life asks of us. I missed making a Holiday alien this year, but I've been working on some pieces for a group show early next year, and look forward to sharing those. So onward into 2013. I'm hoping to populate it with another round of groovy outer space aliens!

Coming Soon!

While my blog here has been quiet, I've been busy working on several different projects and I'm exited to announce one of those today with this promo video. 

The 1st 5 card set will debut at Illuxcon 2012 in just a few days, November 8-11th. Online sales will follow shortly thereafter.

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digital vs: traditional

I could get a lot more alien menagerie paintings finished if I made them in photoshop.

I'm not that tempted though, because this is a project where it's very important to me to have a piece of original art at the end of the process. 

Even though most of my illustrations painted before 2000 were executed in acrylics, I've adopted digital media for most of my commercial work since then. Until I did these digital pieces in 2006, "alien menagerie" had been a stack of pencil sketches made over several years which I hoped to paint someday. I made these to build up my confidence in the project after not having painted much. Each of these were done pretty rapidly: concept, sketch and paint in less than a week, and therefore some are more finished than others. I held back the shadow box treatment, focusing on the aliens themselves, and posted them in an art forum on the internet. It was a valuable transitional step to go through. 

What's in a name? : Uchujin Doumei

I've made a practice of naming pieces within "alien menagerie" in Japanese as well as English, (using the Japanese title within each image).

The Japanese name I gave the overall project is "uchujin doumei"  (宇宙人同盟）which translates to "The League of Outer Space Men"  or maybe "The League of Aliens". I really like how this title translates to English too, in some respects better than "Alien Menagerie", but I also enjoy that the names I'm using aren't direct equivalents. 

Having two titles in this way allow me to express a slightly different interpretation of the project, even if it's obscure.

Happy Year of the Dragon!

acrylic on Rives BFK paper 8" x 10"

Chinese New Year has arrived and this one is for my own Dragon boy who turns 12 later this year.

新年快樂

새해 복 많이 받으세요

chúc mừng năm mới

Happy Lunar New Year!

Uchujin X.17 & Norm Saunders

Here's alien menagerie x.17~

While I was working on it, I realized this might be a good opportunity to acknowledge the influence of Norm Saunders on my art.

Norm Saunders was the artist who painted the Mars Attacks trading card series, and that was the work I associated with his name. It wasn't until recently that I learned he was also the principle illustrator of some art, a series of stickers, that had a profound influence on my young, impressionable mind. They were crazy, imaginative monsters with prosaic names...like Mike, Steve, Don and Bruce. To me, these were over the top cool. I may have drawn from them, I don't know, but I stuck them all over the headboard of my bed, probably a few other places too. The images remained stuck deep inside my head I'm certain

I remember buying them at a little convenience store in the neighborhood I lived in through 2nd grade. When our family moved out into suburbia in 1970, I never saw them in a store again. Over time I lost whatever I'd collected, and also completely forgot whatever they were called. It wasn't until Daniel Zimmer of The Illustrated Press published a book of Norman Saunders art that I rediscovered them. I was looking at the book for the art from Mars Attacks. I had no idea I was about to reacquaint myself with the awesomeness known as UGLY STICKERS! I recognized nearly every one of them. At one time, I must have had a lot! Suddenly I realized some of the joy I get from alien menagerie is in part a recreation of these outlandish cards.

I'd love to get them all, but the only card I've bought on eBay is this one, "Julie". It's one I clearly remember, and one of my favorites from the series.

It's number 17.

ugly stickers at www.normansauners.com

Norman Saunders at The Illustrated Press

Happy Year of the Rabbit!

acrylic on Rives BFK paper 8" x 10"

(In Vietnam it is the year of the Cat, not Rabbit, so maybe this is a cat from another planet?)

I really should have started a series of aliens inspired by the Chinese Zodiac last year. Last year was "my" year. I'm a Tiger.

新年快樂

새해 복 많이 받으세요

chúc mừng năm mới

(multilingualism courtesy of Wikipedia)

Happy Lunar New Year!