Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Scooting part 2

Here's another project that sat in my queue for too long.

My mortgage guy wanted a drawing from me since I am so amazing and famous (ha). Wasn't sure what I should draw for a straight guy who doesn't really read comic books, so I made a variant of my scooter drawing for him.

Here, I have tomboy Debbie whizzing along with her male companion. Her leg looks a little Fd up, but whatevs.

Which do you prefer? the original or this redux?

Monday, July 12, 2010

Womb Chair art



I recently almost bought a Knoll Womb Chair.

My artistic history with the chair goes back a bit. Not only did I include one in my Cannonball story (from the I ♥ Marvel series) but I found a drawing of one in my files dated 1990.


During college I was in a bit of a animation and Disney-esque animation phase. Hundreds of drawings probably amounted to a few seconds of motion.

This drawing was co-inspired by some Rockwell painting. Except I mod-ed it up. Boy in Womb Chair "ignoring" GF as she snootily walks away. I then drew each element of this as separate images: boy, girl, chair. I probably had big ideas to animate this.

Yes, I know the Womb Chair isn't tufted.

Friday, July 9, 2010

Credenza town






My new place has very limited wall space, 25 windows—and no closets. There are 3 walls that are "full walls" floor to ceiling. Of which, two are ear-marked for closet construction. But around the perimeter of the unit runs the heating pipes and a half wall, sitting underneath the 25 windows.

Hence, the credenza becomes a fantastic furniture option for both storage and as room dividers.

I bought my first via Craiglist for a fair price for the quality of the construction. I bought another for an super price at the MIT Furniture Exchange (considering it has beautiful tambour doors). The third I found for an AMAZING price ($10), with a catch—it was missing the shelves, 5 of the 8 shelf pegs, and doors. And, the back has holes cut from the low-grade plywood.

Thanks to my dad and his collection of scrap wood, he has made a shelf and doors. To stay a bit authentic to the period, I will cover the doors with cloth. And add finger pulls. I will take a photo when the project is complete.

In the meantime, enjoy the sketches I made, and instructions to my dad. As I said, he ended up using scrap wood and not buying inferior stuff from Lowe's.

UPDATE

Interior: I took a wooden dowell and made 5 shelf pegs. My dad made me 2 shelves, so it's wonderfully functional.

Back: I folded the edges of a piece of natural burlap and stapled to the back. I replaced the poorly-fitting make-shift cross board with a properly fitting one, and covered it with the same burlap. Now, the piece looks clean and neutral from the back and can be used as a room divider should I wish to.

Front: My dad made 2 doors from scrap plywood, and bevelled the bottoms so they would fit into the rubber-lined slider track. I wrapped them in "celery" colored burlap (period-appropriate grasscloth is tough to find in the colors I wanted!), added the finger pulls and inserted.

Now, I think this Canadian-made Paul McCobb-esque credenza looks far from perfect, but fantastic.

Thursday, July 8, 2010

Fix me

Meant to post this some time ago.

We had quite a rainy spring, and therefore I was taking the subway more often than usual (you may recall that my primary transport to work is bicycle).

Those familiar with the Porter Sq subway station know its giant escalators are in frequent disrepair. Its usually annoying when you have to walk up or cram onto the only working escalator, but on this day, it wasn't annoying at all.

The two repairmen assigned to the job both cleared 6' and were each very cute in their own way: one skinny and scruffy, the other something like an ex-Marine. Put the pair in matching jumpsuits and you have the intro to a porn in the making.

I moved away from the Porter Squarea in May.

Wednesday, July 7, 2010

Disco Inferno!

I was asked to contribute to the Twenty Six Tiny Tombstones tribute blog last fall. I drew this in November, and finally got to color it. It will run soon on the blog.

Scanning through the alphabet, I chose "R is for Rhoda, consumed by a fire." I couldn't get the image out of my head of a disco signer, consumed by a fire, both literally and figuratively. A true disco inferno.

It feels good to be catching up on all the art projects I am behind on, and turning to new ones!

Tuesday, July 6, 2010

Inbound #5 Preview

You may recall I did a last-minute 1-page story for the Boston-based comics anthology Inbound #4 last summer. It was the "Boston history" issue, and my story was a factual account of Bernadette's special talent from the locally produced PBS children's program ZOOM.

This year, the beautifully produced anthology's theme is "food." I was delighted to be asked to participate, as I'd hoped it would help get me out of a drawing rut. Rather, lack of drawing due to my home purchase, move, renovation.

I was blanking on the ideas and script, so it was Goo Goo to the rescue, providing me with a shortie after some brainstorming back-and-forth.

The issue I believe will be for sale in time for MICE, the new Boston indie comics show in late September. In the meantime, I will tease you with page 1!

Monday, July 5, 2010

Into the closet

I'll spare you all the renovation chatter. I will, however, remind you that my new home (a live/work loft in an artist association building!) has no closets—not one!

In my sketchbook are pages and pages of closet/murphy bed idea sketches. My dad is going to start building it in 2 weeks, so I had to convert the rough sketches into more precise drawings on graph paper for him.

The first one!