x.42

acrylic on Fabriano 300 watercolor paper 8" x 10"

Here’s x.42, a new painting for my alien menagerie extracts series of artwork. It’s been a while since I’ve finished one of these; 289 days passed between the completion of x.41 and x.42. Even accounting for how relatively rapidly time seems to pass, that’s a long interval! Between those two paintings I made 108 illustrations for broadcast on the 49th season of 60 MINUTES. That is work which I find challenging, rewarding and sometimes frustrating because of the schedule. While creating alien menagerie pieces aren’t without challenge, I experience a deep sense of serenity, and satisfaction. It’s every day, every moment, I’ve sat aside time to work on art for the love of it, connected as one.

preliminary pencil doodle, and ink rendering of alien x.42.

x.41

acrylic on Fabriano 300 watercolor paper 8" x 10"

I found the inspiration for X.41 in an ink doodle on a post it note. A fairly straightforward redraft was the basis for my final painting. The color palette is a purposeful homage to the Oms from the film FANTASTIC PLANET.

x.40

acrylic on Fabriano 300 watercolor paper 8" x 10"

Extract 40 is a revisit of an idea from some years ago - when I made some digital studies to get a feel for my alien menagerie as paintings. I’m happy with the subtle evolution it’s taken.

Preliminary sketches and the never quite finished digital painting from 2006.

Happy Holidays!

2015 is coming to an end soon!

I didn’t get to spend as much time with my alien menagerie project as I’d hoped this year, but I consider it a victory to end 2015 with the second installment of “Santas From Another Planet”

These are some of the sketches that led to the final design.

Inspired by my love of the Ugly Stickers and Odd Rods from the late 60’s, “Santas From Another Planet” is a Holiday card with a trading card attached to the front.

I hope you have an enjoyable Holiday Season!

x.39 Optikus

acrylic on Fabriano 300 watercolor paper 8" x 10"

Back in art school, I used to twist every assignment into something science fictional with the aim of building a portfolio to get work as a book jacket illustrator. Now I have an even more specific instinct to see how any theme for a show can lead to an alien menagerie piece. In 2012 the Society of Illustrators Member show called for illustrators to create art that illustrates one of the traditional five methods of perception. I didn’t submit anything, but I did put down some ideas and held onto them. Recently I’ve taken those and made X.39, who I’m calling “Optikus”.

I took the name from a song by the band KTU, just because I liked the sound of it. It turns out that “optikus” is “optician” in Hungarian.

x.38 outer-space-asparagus-man

acrylic on Fabriano 300 watercolor paper 8" x 10"

The doodle on the left is where I began working on x.38. I developed it in a few different directions, and the sketch in the middle is one of them, but I wasn't ready to commit. When I found the doodle on the right in my stash of alien menagerie drawings, the path to a final idea became much more apparent. The simple ball-point pen doodle was inspired by how I would assemble the bud from a Rose of Sharon with the flower to make a small 'person' when I was about five years old.

 I think it was inevitable that this memory would find it's way into my alien menagerie eventually.

The 'Phylosians' from Star Trek: the Animated Series were also on my mind. Always thought they were cool.

Happy Holidays!

Just about everything I work on that is “alien menagerie” reveals it to be an art project in slow motion. I’m fully aware of how many times I find myself writing in this blog about how this something-or-other was started “X” years ago. In 1995 I made a Holiday card featuring a whimsical green alien in a Santa hat.

I thought it could be the beginning of a theme - “Santas From Another Planet”. I’ve made a couple related cards in the years past, but the “Santas From Another Planet” theme just didn’t crystalize until this year. So here, 19 years later, is my Holiday card with a Collector Card attached to the front: “Santas From Another Planet #1” 

acrylic on Fabriano 300 watercolor paper

My New Years resolution will be to make a “Santa From Another Planet” collector card #2

I hope you all have a wonderful Holiday Season!

x.37 - the prophet

acrylic on Fabriano 300 watercolor paper 8" x 10"

The ballpoint pen doodle that led to x.37 was made while I was sketching through designs for the previous alien. From the beginning I saw a mystical quality in the character, and imagined it as a prophet of some kind. I set that sketch aside as the basis for what I knew would be the next extract from alien menagerie. Looking forward, the nature and appearance of x.38 is up for grabs. I have no idea what that one will turn out to be.

x.36 - sphynx

acrylic on Fabriano 300 watercolor paper 8" x 10"

This one started as a messy ball-point pen doodle, shown below along with some of the thumbnail variations I made.

I refined it down to these two before I settled on the "sphinx" version.

x.35

x.35 is the newest entry into my alien menagerie. I did a modest amount of redrafting, but my intent with the extracts is to work pretty directly from my sketchbooks.

acrylic on Fabriano 300 watercolor paper 8" x 10"

The original doodle is from 2003. In 2006 I used the sketch in a quick digital study to help visualize a move forward into paintings of these subjects. This may all serve as some proof that my methods are not all that spontaneous, but in truth it's also a lot of fun to circle back to an old sketch and bring it forward into a more fully realized version.

x.34

acrylic on Fabriano 300 watercolor paper 8" x 10"

Some of my aliens are designed to answer a specific theme or idea I'm chasing. Others are mined from sketches that I've accumulated over the years. i find value and enjoyment in both approaches, X.34 is a modest refinement of a quick doodle from 2011.

x.33

acrylic on Fabriano 300 watercolor paper 8" x 10"

x.32

acrylic on Fabriano 300 watercolor paper 8" x 10"

I've been moving from one painting to another, so it's been a while since I've had a new alien to post. 

I finished x.32 last week, but I started it earlier this summer. After painting for a while, I changed my mind about what color I wanted the polka dots to be, and started another version. Then I changed my mind again, and went back to complete the original. Alien x.32 was delayed by indecision over blue or yellow polka dots.

It will be available and on display at Illuxcon 6  September 14-15th.

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.

drawing from memory

When I'm working in the world of my alien menagerie, I often draw from nostalgic inspiration in some form or other.

I was recently browsing through some older sketchbooks of aliens, and this particular one caught my eye. When I sketched this, I was working from the memory of a toy I once had.  I wasn't trying to recreate it, so much as see how it might inspire something of my own. It was a rubber finger puppet that I remember getting at checkout in a grocery store when I was five or six.  I had a pretty clear image of how it looked, but I had know idea what it was called or how to find it either. 

In the time that's past since I made that sketch the mystery of it's inspiration was resolved.

It turns out the finger puppet was a RUBBER UGLY.  RUBBER UGLIES were a spin-off of UGLY STICKERS- the rubber monster on the left was based on the sticker pictured at right. Artwork by Norm Saunders.

I wrote about UGLY STICKERS in an earlier post. They were also another memory from childhood that I couldn't quite pin down. The images were vivid, but the name of them…not so much.  

It was the publication of a book of Norm Saunders work, and the additional discovery of a website devoted to him, that connected names with the images I remembered. Two mysteries solved at one time.

~ here's alien menagerie x.30 

acrylic on Arches 300 watercolor paper 8" x 10"

enigma alien • x.29

I ended 2012 and began 2013 working on the enigma aliens. Two of them are small oil paintings which are going to Gallery Nucleus as part of a show next month. I've only posted a couple very early progress photos of them over on Facebook, but I can share this enigma alien extract now. It grew from a small sketch that I drew when I was trying to decide what the second enigma would be. Not this one, it turns out, but I liked carrying it forward as one of my acrylic on watercolor paper extracts. I hope you do to!

acrylic on Arches 300 watercolor paper 8" x 10"

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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x.27

I'm not entirely sure if this is a really big alien, or if that's a really tiny planet.

acrylic on Arches 300 watercolor paper 8" x 10"