Illustration Friday: Wide

Lucy Pevensie pulled the wardrobe door wide open, and found a whole other world.

I've been meaning to post some photos I took a couple years back of the actual wardrobe that inspired C. S. Lewis to write The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It was on display along with his writing desk, and other items. I was most interested in the wardrobe, which although it was not the one from the movie it was more special because it was the catalyst to the entire Narnia series. I thought it was timely to post it now with the new movie, Prince Caspian out in theaters now.

This sign was some cute museum humor. It warned, "Enter at your own risk. The Wade Center assumes no responsibility for persons who disappear or are lost in the wardrobe."

A Typical Day

The other day I was reading a post on Eric Orchard's blog about his typical day, and I couldn't help thinking about my own day, and so when I got to the end of the post, and saw that I was tagged, I thought what a fun surprise! But, sorry to say, my days are quite boring, and I don't have myself on a schedule for the illustrating stuff you see on this blog. I'm thinking I may have to fix that. Oh well, here's a typical weekday:

4:55 am - The alarm goes off. I hit snooze to turn the buzzer off. Also, my wakeup light turns on, and I have my thermostat set to make it hotter, so I'm forced to throw the covers off.

4:57 - The radio alarm turns on, and listen to the weather, etc for a little while, although lately all I hear is the rhythmic creaking of my neighbor's bed above my apartment. More incentive to get up, and leave I guess.

5:15 - give or take - Take a shower, and make myself presentable to the world. Make a protein fruit smoothie if I have time.

6:10 or so - Pack my lunch from whatever frozen meals I have prepared in the freezer. Grab my protein smoothie, if there is one, otherwise just grab a yogurt. Leave for work. It's so nice not to have to clean the ice and snow off the car anymore.

6:30 - Arrive at the office. I'll check my email and horoscope, and maybe a few blogs. Also, I have my breakfast smoothie, or the yogurt with cereal. Then I look at what projects I have. Right now I'm designing Christmas. So everyday is fa la la la la, and holly, holly, snowflake, snowflake. A few other projects also cross my desk.

midmorning - I start to get hungry. I might nibble some Trader Joe Multi-grain Pita Chips, and then a few Tollhouse chocolate chips. I would say I check my email again, but I've probably already checked it 5 times by now.

about 5 to 10 minutes before noon - I go to the cafeteria to heat up my lunch, unless I have a cold salad. Lunch is almost alway brought back to my desk to eat, and internet browse.

after lunch - Back to work.
2:00 - small break

3:15 pm - The benefit of starting so early pays off. It's time to go home!! :) Now here's the variable part of my day. I'll either:
a) Run some errands
b) Drive to the bike path for a 3 mile walk followed by relaxing outdoors
c) Go straight home, and do my Yoga Booty Ballet exercise video followed by a shower
d) Go straight home, and browse blogs, or draw, or work on other projects
I didn't do much of b and c over the winter, so I'm trying to get them back into the routine, so I have more energy. Yesterday, I did 16,585 steps, according to my pedometer, approxiamately 8.29 miles to make up for all the slacking. I'm feeling it today. Good pain though.

between 5:00 and 7:30 - I make myself some dinner. I'll usually have my favorite Discovery channel shows on, "Cash Cab" and "How's It Made".

7:00 - 10:00 - Watch tv and maybe draw, or visit blogs, or work on some procrastination project like making a necklace, or work on a freelance assignment. What I do in this block of time depends on how tired I am.

between 9:30 -11:00 - I often fall asleep on the couch with the lights and tv still on. This is an awful habit I'm still trying to break.

2:00 am - I awake to find that I'm still in the living room, and some horrible infomercial is on, and those messed up dreams I was just having are starting to make sense. I now try to go to bed, but end up not being able to fall asleep, and I toss and turn for hours, hopefully, eventually getting a little more sleep, before the alarm goes off, and I do it all over again.

Whoa, sorry this got to be so long. Probably way more then you ever wanted to know.

I will now tag-- Eric Smith, Andi Butler, David Sones, and Sheree Boyd

Illustration Friday: Electricity

After Ben Franklin discovered electricity he invented the oven, and he and Isacc Newton baked that apple that fell on Isaac's head into a very fine pie in this chapter of altered history.

This week's topic of course made me think of Ben, but I also, for some reason, immediately thought of Isacc, perhaps because their epiphanies both came about outdoors. Anyway, I was excited about drawing some historical figures, but the sketch wasn't turning out like I planned. It was too dull and ordinary, and I asked myself, "Matteson, where's the style, the dynamic shapes, the fun???" I was discouraged, but kept at it until I got to this point which I'm kinda o.k. with.

Interestingly enough, I just read that Ben just missed meeting the aging Newton. So it feels good to be able to bring them together at least in spirit. Ben actually did invent the Franklin stove, but it wasn't electric. For more real facts follow the links above.

Illustration Friday: Seed

Little did the mothers who gave birth today at Hanz Hopkins Hospital know that Doctor Spermalot had planted his seed all over town.

This was the first idea that came to mind this week. Mostly likely influenced by last week's episode of Reaper. I wasn't sure I wanted to finish sketching this idea, and had started a 'prettier' second idea, but bounced back to this one. I've got to get working on these earlier in the week, but then again having no time means quick decision making, and more unexpected results.

Illustration Friday: Wrinkles

Sam never worried about his wrinkled, rumpled clothes when he went fishing.

This needs some proper shading, but I only have time to block in some quick colors. I tried not to clean up my sketch so much this time for added wrinkly effect. :)

Illustration Friday: Primitive

Back home at my parents home there used to be a ton of cute, furry, little chipmunks scampering about the yard. But, slowly they started to disappear as some neighborhood cats took over the territory. Soon, no more chipmunks were to be found, but occasionally we would find a tail here and there. I began to imagine that the savage wild cats would perform some sort of ancient tail-removal ritual to gather these prize souvenirs. Somewhere in a secret lair I imagine them decked out in full ceremonial garb with the tails made into headdresses and necklaces. In the drawing I had to strategically place the tree stump because these guys are so savage that they don't wear any pants.

This is a sketch color blocked in photoshop. The other week I was busy painting some of my decorative wooden boxes to give my little place a little spring makeover, and I was sanding a painted surface, and ended up scanning that, and I used it here as the background texture.

My apologies to chipmunk lovers. No chipmunks were directly harmed in the creation of this illustration. The same can't be said for what happens in the wild.

Holocaust Star Project

back:

When Jillian Curtis contacted me about the Holocaust Memorial that she is building in her front yard I was more than happy to participate. It's a wonderful way to teach her children that every life is precious, and that we can never let hate overcome.

Jillian is asking that stars of any sort be sent. As I thought of what to illustrate I remembered the striking imagery of the girl in the red coat in Steven Spielberg's Schindler's List. While the girl in the movie wasn't based on anyone in particular, Roma Ligocka said that when she saw the movie she saw herself. She was wearing that same red coat when she was a little girl at the door to the home of the polish family that took her in, and secretly housed her.

You can follow the star project on Jillian's blog: Blog Me Til Midnight

••• update: The Winona Daily News did a story on the project. There's a sweet photo of Jillian and her boys holding my star. The article is here.

•••• 2 News stations covered the project for Holocaust Remembrance Day. You can read the articles, and watch the videos at these links:
KAALtv story and video
WEAU story and video on lower right side

The illustrations are acrylic painted on wood.

Illustration friday: Homage

An homage to an old friend.

This was a commission that I completed for someone as a christmas gift for her father. She wanted a portrait of their dog, Cocoa who had passed away. I used gouache on this acrylic paper I found which had a linen finish, and held up to the paint better than the bristol I had been previously using. I was given a few photos to work from, and I asked for a list of his traits. She said he liked the snow and liked riding in cars, so I incorporated that into it. (The snowy background is a little hard to see in the scan.) Trying to get some kind of likeness was difficult, especially since I couldn't see his eyes in any of the pics. When I gave it to her she said she loved it, and said I got the eyes perfect. Whew! He ended up younger than the pic, but she liked that since the painting was about remembering the good times when he was still alive.

Illustration Friday: Heavy

I had the idea for this little illustration back in the fall when I was remembering one autumn when I was viciously attacked and bitten by multiples of ladybugs, or rather it was most likely the fake ladybugs who masquerade as the nice benevolent ones, but are in fact nuisance worthy Mexican been beetles which feast on crops, and apparently exposed flesh. Anyway, it got me thinking that maybe the real ladybugs should have a showdown with the impostors, and the idea of the ladybug sumo wrestling bout was born. I had tried a few sketches at the time, but couldn't get the positioning right. 'Heavy' seemed like the perfect topic to make another attempt at it, and I have to say I had fun with this one. Some ideas just need extra time to marinate.
This was painted in photoshop, and was enhanced, as the last post, using some free brushes offered by the brilliant artist, Alex Dukal.

my workspace

A couple week's ago Nina Seven tagged me to share some pics of my workspace, and I thought it was a pretty cool idea for a meme. My art palettes in the first photo are empty since I left them set out too long uncovered, and fuzzies and dust had gotten into the paints, so I just cleaned everything out to start fresh with the new gouache paints I just bought. I snapped the photo yesterday when some morning sun was shining into the living room, a very rare occurance.
This second photo is my little Ikea computer desk which I'm constantly changing to try to make it more comfortable. Currently, I've decided it works better without the front panel on the drawer, and I finally removed the bottom shelf that was driving me crazy although this means my printer now sits directly on the floor. The clearance chair that I bought to go with the desk didn't work for sitting on, so it became a table for my scanner. That bit of shiny corner on the wall is the mirror I use to keep an eye on the tv when I'm too busy to take a real break, but want a little entertainment while I work. It's funny to see everything backwards. It makes it look like everyone is driving on the wrong side of the road. :)

I feel like I'm a bit out of the loop with who's already done this meme. I'd love to see everyone's workplace, so if you've already posted some photos of your space, or would like to share some pics please send me some links to your posts. :)