Dia de los Muertos

TOM - Here is my contribution to a group show I was asked to be a part of, the theme being 'Dia De Los Muertos'. This piece along with several other artists work will be on display in Portland, OR at The Screaming Sky Gallery September 29 - October 23rd. If you're in the area, go check out the opening this Thursday!

Here's a quick look at my process for creating this piece. As always, it started off with a pretty rough sketch. I knew I wanted some sort of graffiti theme and after skateboarding all summer, I wanted to incorporate a skateboard in the mix somehow. Anyway, there was enough info in this sketch for me to get excited and want to add to more to it.

I brought it to a level of detail that I was happy with in the inking stage. I had fun trying to mimic the 'spray paint' look of the skull. I used dry brush to long continuous strokes, much like someone who's actually spray painting might approach it. The pattern on her sweater was inspired by patterns I've seen in an old Mexican pin-up book, Mexican art continues to blow my mind and inspire me.

Above is the flyer for the show with some of the details. If you're interested, the color print of this piece will be for sale at the gallery and the original black and white drawing will also be for sale(just not on display).

Thanks for reading!

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Seattle Met Fall Arts Preview

TOM- I recently got a chance to work together again with Seattle Met for their September issue. I was asked to illustrate the full page opening for their Fall Arts Preview. It was a really cool gig and fun to work on. The AD, Chris left it really open and gave me pretty much free reign on coming up with an idea, which I was really excited about. The motive was to somehow incorporate all the areas of the arts that the preview would cover; dance, fine arts, music, literature.

They originally had a rough concept of a ballerina, which I thought was pretty interesting and decided to try and play with that idea in my sketching process. Above is some of my brainstorming, trying to keep it as feminine as possible, but also graphic and exciting enough for a full page opener.

They decided to go with the third sketch, which I was pretty excited to draw. Here's a look at that idea a little more fleshed out, brought to a rough pencil stage.

I tightened the pencils up a bit more and inked it with a #2 synthetic brush on Bristol.  My old and trusty electric guitar served as my model for this particular guitar (and most electric guitars that I draw).

And here's a look at how it all came together in the end. Chris hooked it up with a nice type treatment and the print version came out looking really great. Always great working with Seattle Met.

Don't let this post fool you, Fall is not here yet! We still got a couple weeks left of summer, enjoy it! As always, thanks for reading.

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OC Weekly

TOM - Last week I was contacted by OC Weekly to illustrate their feature story about the city council's layoff of nearly one third of the city employees. It's causing a bit of a stir in Costa Mesa and the Orange County Employees Association has called the move drastic and unnecessary.
In the sketching process, I wanted to try and capture the emotion and tension between the two sides. Two of the sketches also play with the 'pink slip' metaphor, I thought that might be a nice graphic and symbolic approach. In the end, both the art director and I were leaning towards the second sketch and the last, we ultimately went with the last one.

I was hoping that the idea of the council man trying to flick the city workers off of his agenda gets the sentiment across. Above is the ink drawing on bristol which I used a #2 brush to ink with. I knew I wanted to play around with color and mood, so I kept the drawing pretty open.

And here's the final image. After much trial and error with the coloring, I finally settled on this one, hoping that it get's the right mood and drama across.
And here's a little spot I did to accompany the article. You can read the article here. Thanks to Laila for the assignment, always fun working with the OC Weekly.

Thanks for reading. I know I've been a bit silent on the blog lately, but it's been a very eventful summer and there's a bunch of new things I can't wait to share, so stay tuned!

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