New Gig Poster

Over the past few weeks I have been working with Anthology to create the gig poster for their latest concert series. As fun as it was to make the poster, the concerts themselves are even more fun. Check them out at AnthologyVoices.com.

This was made in pieces... first I painted the four squares on illustration board with acrylic paint. I chose the palette from looking at old Japanese war postcards, these colors were often used with and within uniforms. Then, on a separate piece of board I drew a bunch of uniform symbols (along with the four you see here, I also drafted a sergeants patch, airline wings, and a police badge). The group then chose which ones to use based on the programming of the show.

I drew over the draft drawings with thick black marker, and scanned them in to my computer. Then I cleaned them up, inverted the color to white, and made them all comparable size, to then place into the squares. I added text with Photoshop, and printed off posters and postcards for them to use.

We are Boston Handmade

...and most of us will be at the SoWa Show on Sunday, October 18th.
10am-4pm
rain or shine

more info here

Ash

Ink and acrylic paint on sketchbook page.

I call her Ash, no real reason other than a slight reference to the book I am reading right now. It's been a while since I've posted a new drawing, and like any self-respecting artist who works a full time job, things are backed-up here on the assembly-line of my handmade shop.

I have several new prints which are done and ready, but need to be photographed and listed. This will be happening shortly, as its a goal for the upcoming long weekend.

In the meantime, Ash is a sketch from one of my recent sketchbooks- she will not be made into a print, so I am just sharing.

Hope you are all well.

Boson Handmade Marketplace Photos

Meet and Support Your Local Artists

Boston Handmade will be at the SoWa Market
October 18th, 2009
10 am - 4 pm

This is a quick save-the-date post for your calendars.

Boston Handmade, is excited to announce their second and final SoWa group appearance of 2009 on Sunday, October 18th from 10am - 4pm. With over twenty Boston Handmade members showing their unique wares it will be one of the largest appearances to date
for the group.

Work created by members of Boston Handmade represent a wide variety of mediums, methods and art forms; from contemporary photography and cutting edge jewelry design, to classic children's toys, apparel and modern and home decor. Boston Handmade members offer unique and personal items for all ages, stages, and budgets.

SoWa Open Market is located at 540 Harrison Ave in Boston, with plenty of free parking behind the market. Stalls open at 10am and fresh baked goods, newly picked produce, along with one of a kind, limited edition and truly unique items from local craftspeople are on display and available for purchase.



For more information on the artists who make-up Boston Handmade visit the Boston Handmade website:
www.bostonhandmade.org.

Find more information and directions to the event at the SoWa website: www.southendopenmarket.com

Sketchbook Love

Some people love shopping for shoes, but in my world, you can never have too many sketchbooks. I carry one with me everywhere I go, and keep them scattered about my house, always ready for a moment of inspiration or distraction.

I have always been taught that sketching every day is critical to ones growth in drawing, and I thought it might be nice to share some of my favorite sketchbooks, in case, like me, you love to draw and are a bit of a paper fiend.

So, along with my pocket-sized moleskine, here are a few of my favorites:


The NoteSketch book from Bienfang

This spiral-bound notebook comes in a selection of layouts. I've chosen the blank top, lined bottom as best for working with cartoons. Its great to sketch and list all on the same page neatly.


The Art Spiral from CARnet

This one is lightweight and durable. It is filled with 48, acid-free, 120lb white pages. It has a brilliant yellow ribbon closure, that lets it double as a display. The pages are (sadly) not perforated. My favorite part is that the top three rings of the spiral binding are the same color as the ribbon; for whatever reason, looking at that three renegade twists make me smile.


The Monk Journal by Artisan Graham

This is my favorite ever. Its handmade by an Etsy member, if you click on his name above, it will take you to the shop. Its heavy. Its handsome. Its so magnificent on the outside, that whatever goes in it pales by comparison, but it just doesn't matter. Acid free hand torn pages with deckled edges. Plus, it has buckles!

Windmill

I drew this one in pen and ink for my parents.

FIN 9

Update

So, I stayed at Illustration Academy through the impressive Lecture Week, and decided to come home a little early to get working.

I am back in Boston now, which means back with Boston Handmade, and gearing up for selling at shows again. First up will be July 11th at the annual Boston Handmade Marketplace in Somerville's Union Square. I will have some new pieces available at this show, including FIN ninja prints and new illustrations.

Here is the official website for the show on July 11th. I hope to see you there.

Be well,
Jaye

IA Week Three video

IA Week Two video

IA Video, week one

This is where I am...

Greetings from Sarasota

some sculpture downtown


what the heck are these? they are everywhere


relief from the heat is always within reach


caution down on the docks


water, boats, beaches...


...but, this is the view I will have
the rest of the time I am here

The Artists That Leave

I've lived in Boston my entire life, but as I write this entry, I am some 30,000 miles over Georgia on my way to Florida. The plane's cargo area holds my three 60-pound suitcases, full of shorts, tee-shirts, and a tremendous amount of art supplies. I am both terrified and thrilled. This is new. I have never seen a palm tree. I have never seen ocean water that is not dark blue. And I have never been to art school.

This is the first time in my life that I will be able to focus on nothing but art for 24 hours a day; but I am not the first artist to be able to do this. My girlfriend, a professional singer, has made this trip twice before. Anyone going to tour the museums, countryside, and cities far away for the sole purpose of being creatively inspired, has made this trip before. Anyone with a performance or exhibition far from home has made this trip before.

Part of the art-making process includes finding ourselves ready for the next level. It shows in the amount of work and the quality of work we are producing. We can just feel the rut, we can see the weaknesses, we can be pulled to grow now, because that growth is the only thing that will allow us to continue to breathe.

So we pack up our things, kiss our loved ones goodbye, and take off for grand adventure. We follow the poets, the musicians, and the painters before us to the land of something new.

For me, this comes in the form of studio art education. I was accepted into Illustration Academy, and will be spending the next two months learning new techniques and industry methods to be a professional illustrator. Expect to see some new things from me in the autumn, for I expect to making lots of new things from here on out.



My online shops are closed until August, but rest assured, even though I am now among the artists who leave to better their craft, I will be back.

An Old Friend

As a child I used to read Price Valiant in every Sunday newspaper. Harold Foster's creation was beautifully drawn, with incredible detail, and really stood out from the other comic strips.



In my pocket sketchbook recently, I found myself remembering Val, and his incredible hair:


... and, trying out some new color pencils, here is another one I made as well:


It was a nice exercise, to visit an influence from my childhood and work with it. There are many comics these days that take a lot of shot cuts with the art, but Hal Foster never did, and I will always respect his epic body of comic work.

Greetings from Wisconsin

Even in March, I find this place beautiful, so I send a big Thank You to everyone who ever told me I must see it here Its been a spectacular trip so far, full of relaxation, creativity, and fresh air.



Today is lovely and warm, but on my walk I did happen upon some ice fisherman! This is new to me, so I share the photo proof. I have no idea what they are catching in the frozen lake, but a passerby told me that there were hundreds of them out all winter, and this seemed to be the last one of the season.



But, spring is coming, I can just tell.
Today is 70 degrees!



More soon.

Be well.

Greetings and...

Happy St. Patrick's Day, from Chicagoland.



Its been a blast seeing the city this weekend, and I have taken a lot of new photos to share over the next while. This one is from today, the day of the city's St. Patrick's Day Parade, and they dye the river green. Its bright green- almost neon... AND its all environmentally sound. Or so I hear.

Enjoy.

Jaye

Movie Poster

My latest project:

The poster is 18" x 24" - one of my largest ever. It was a fun project for a compelling new documentary from Nantascot Films. It is the story of the horrible plane crash in 1978- PSA Flight 182, when a large commercial plane collided with a smaller cesna plane, and went down in the city of San Diego.

The trailer can be found here in quicktime format.

Boston Exhibits

Lately, to save money and keep inspired, I have taken some opportunities to visit a couple free exhibits in the Boston area. There are two I wanted to especially share here on the Boston Handmade blog.

The first is Ports and Ships: Photographs by Andrea Frank which can be found in the Compton Gallery on the MIT Campus in Cambridge until June 14th. The gallery is open daily 10am-5pm, and directions can be found by clicking here. It is near Kendall Square.

Andrea Frank's photography of ports and container ships from around the world are presented in fabulous large-format frames and offer up interesting colors and patterns that I truly enjoyed seeing.



The second free show, Joseph Wheelwright's 28 Moons, concludes this weekend (on March 15th), and is at the Boston Sculptors Gallery in the SOWA area of Boston. It is near the NE Medical Center T stop. Directions and hours can be found by clicking here.



For 28 years Wheelwright created one moon, and now the collection is complete and on display for all to enjoy. The space itself invites you in to look down on each moon, much as the moon looks down upon us; they are small in size, but large in character.



I hope that you are able to check out some of these and other free exhibits in town right now. Thank you for supporting the arts.

yay weekend

Well, its been a busy week. I am both surprised and relieved it is Friday. This week my boss was in town every day, which makes for some exhausting and stress-filled work days. The ceiling caved in our apartment, so my evenings have been filled with dealing with that. Most of our kitchen stuff is in the living room right now, which is okay, except we have a good friend staying with us for the weekend and the poor woman has to deal with dishes all around her. She's being great about it, thankfully!

Check out Franken-ceiling:

This is just one of the MANY repairs.

All that said, the weather is warming up and I was able to play basketball for the first time in '09 yesterday. What a great feeling to be outside again. Its been an awfully long winter. This weekend I will be working on a few drawing projects, going to a show, and enjoying the company of our friend. Hopefully I'll be able to post some new work on Monday.

I wish you all well, and hope you enjoy your weekend.

Jaye

next

I spend more time indoors than I would care to, so as the weather warms up (and the sun stays out later), I will be taking my sketchbook outside. Lately I have been drawing every day, including quick drawings of random people I see, to practice gestural drawing. They are quick sketches done in ballpoint pen on whatever paper is handy. So far I have learned that I am not so good at ears, and that my powers of observation are slowly improving. Its been worth it.

One surprising outcome of my drawing every day is that my appetite for drawing is insatiable. Everything I see becomes just lines and shadows in my minds eye, and I play with it until I find my favorite angle. I am always eager to take pen to paper now, and no longer care if the outcome looks a mess.



For whatever reason, with each sketch, a new idea is born. Current projects include: FIN cartoons for March, April, and May; and a film poster for an upcoming documentary. This is a new thing for me, in that I have done some gig posters, but never one for a film. Its a larger format for me to learn, and I look forward to helping promote a movie.

right now

My days inevitably begin with me waking up late. So much so that my boss officially changed my start time to "9:15 or whenever." This sort of flexibility is the main reason I remain in this job. I've never been one for time-clocks and early meetings. In fact, in this job I have no meetings what-so-ever, a far cry from my days as a facilities manager.

My commute is wonderful, I walk 230 steps (ah, pedometer) to my neighbors' house just around the corner. Often I'll go one block out of the way to a local cafeteria for some coffee and a corn muffin to go. This gets me through the morning grumbling- not from my tummy, but from my boss.

I stay there in his house for the next seven or eight hours, and I organize his life. It keeps me busy, far busier than I ever expected- I mean, the amount of work this one man generates is truly astonishing. At times it is stressful, at other times it is peaceful. The deciding factor is a simple one, for it only depends on whether he is home or not.

After work is done, I walk back home and enjoy dinner with my girlfriend, who is a professional singer. We've lived together for years, and always have a lot to catch up on from our day. After dinner, my real work begins.

Like so many other artists, my evenings are filled with answering emails, packaging orders, updating sites, reading books about business, reading blogs, scanning, blogging, and - oh yeah - drawing, inking, and measuring out new boards.

I also enjoy, and need, some sort of exercise during this time, but it varies. Sometimes its a long walk with a camera, or to the post office, or to shoot baskets at a local court. Sometimes I do nothing but stay hunkered over my work until I am too drowsy to do anymore. When I go to bed and start the whole thing over again. It is not the way I want things to be, but it works for right now.

Obviously, I cannot do all these things every night, so I have recently developed a schedule for me as a guide. And its one thing having a schedule, its a whole other thing to post it on my wall. Seeing it constantly encourages me to stick to it, and to know that whatever else is on my list of things to do, there will be a time for everything. I figure, if I spend half my day organizing my bosses life, some of these skills can surely apply to organizing mine.

oh, really?

Out for a walk the other night, and happened upon this sign.
Sure glad I wasn't driving.

New Gig Poster

The wings were the only thing hand-drawn and scanned in for this quick poster. And the colors are not as rich here as they are when printed, because the compression for web viewing faded it a bit.

Other gig posters I have done are here.

All over Flickr

Today I upgraded my account on Flickr, and I have uploaded tons of art you don't see on my regular site galleries. I'm quite choosy about what goes on the website, I treat that like my portfolio, but I wanted to have an online sketchbook depository as well, and I've decided that Flickr is a great place for that.

There are a ton of communities that are related to drawing, and many of my friends are already there. So, if you are on Flickr, or want to see more drawings than I usually post, go on and check it out here:

Thirteenth Story on Flickr

PS

This is the latest in my PS series, which serves as light commentary on whats going on with me at the moment. I can't really explain any of them, though. In a sense, I'd like to just keep it as a drawing and not get thinking too much about meaning.




This one also features my trusty sidekick, Hamlet.


These are always drawn in ink on Bristol, with a rapidograph pen and brushwork for the inking. They are larger in real life than I upload them for the web, because I think the reduced size serves just as well.

Many might recognize them from the back cover of the Thirteenth Story zine, and if you are interested in seeing the others, just click here, to the comic art portion of my site.

FIN Valentine

Habits

I've often wondered how important it is to create daily. At every new years (or whenever I am compelled to have a new beginning), the first thing I say is: "I want to draw every day."

Unlike my friend Bret, I have not been unable to accomplish this. And, this year I've found it helps to really contemplate how important drawing every day is to me. For starters, practicing, developing new techniques, and new ways of interpreting the world are critical to keep my work fresh. My work tends to be simple, stark, iconic looking, but that doesn't mean it has to be without dimension and story. You should see some of the under-drawings! Practicing, especially drawing from life, will enhance and help my work along to the next place.

I was checking out some of my favorite artists whom I have dedicated a "Spotlight" section of my zine. Though very different they all have one thing in common:

...sketching and drawing as often as possible. And if it helped bring these artists to the level they worked at, it sure can't hurt me to try!

Be well,
Jaye

13 Forest Gallery has Plenty

13 Forest Gallery in Arlington, MA is in the middle of their winter show, aptly called "Plenty." It features over forty local artists, and their small works. The Antique Shop original, which is actually one of my largest works, is included.

The show runs until January 9th. The gallery also sells wonderful handmade gift items from artists around the world. There are household goods and jewelry, along with many prints and original pieces of wall art. For directions and store hours, please check out the website, 13 Forest.



Thanks,
Jaye