Bigger On The Inside

When looking for time travel stories it seems virtually and astronomically impossible not to stumble upon the television show Doctor Who. It is, like I said in my previous post, one of my favorite shows and I watched an episode entilted "The Doctor's Wife," written by the amazing author Neil Gaiman. As I was watching it an idea kind of popped into my head: "What if I had a Tardis?" I then went into the sort of mechanics about my version of the Tardis and what it would be like. The idea was what if this model of the Tardis would get sort of everything from every sort of era imaginable and sort of mashed it all together and it would have various doors that lead you through different ways, or something like that. I then set to work. What I did first was do various sketches of the classic police box from the show itself, and other actual police boxes, and then I just devoured history books and looked at the artistry from various eras. For some odd reason, I couldn't just abandon the notion of the Tardis being a police box, so I kept the sort of basic layout of a police box, complete with a light at the top of it. I then just did various eccentric designs for the doors (you can't see the others, but there are 4 doors all together, just thought I should clear that up). As I was drawing this I was also watching Sherlock Holmes with Robert Downey Jr. as Sherlock and I then I saw the lantern that is on a rail that stands in front of the door of 221b. I then decided to put, at the top of every door, a sort of lantern, which will comprise of various colors when I'm finished.

I then decided to test my new Micron pen that I bought and just drew over my pencil marks and erased the pencil when it was dry. What I then did was do a base of light blue, another homage to the show, and just started using various colors to see how it turned out. I'm not quite done, but I shall keep you folks posted as soon as I make progress. Hope you enjoy it and try something like it, too.

Keep a sharp eye out...

The Tardis is Cool & So is Quidditch

 I had recently bought a Micron brand drawing pen (with a point of 01, for those who are curious) and, instead of the usual dip pen and ink, I decided to take the Micron for a test run, so to speak. This first scribble here is just a sort of mash-up of my favorite things about one of my favorite television shows, Doctor Who, so I just sort of made up my own version of the main character, The Doctor, with his trusty sonic screwdriver and a shortly-lived fez. The colored bits in this drawing were done with a Sharpie marker and a fine-point Sharpie pen (red for the tartan design on his coat and blue for the bulb of the sonic screwdriver).

This next drawing was just one of my all time favorite books when I was growing up, Harry Potter. I could go on and on about it and how just bloody awesome and inspiring it was, but that's for another time. Granted, it might not be a good version of the Boy Who Lived, but, like I said, it was a test run. This drawing was painted with watercolor and I used red Sharpie pen to emphasize the red stripes in Harry's sweater (and it might look like his sweater is red and white, but I swear I meant for it to have the Gryffindor colors, and sorry, in advance for the sort of ovular frame around Harry, it's a bit wonky, I know).

Keep a sharp eye out...

Cogito Ergo Zoom

 One of my favorite books is The Wind in the Willows, by Kenneth Grahame and everytime I read it I can't help but think of old-fashioned motorcars of that era that Grahame had written this great work. I always loved the sort of clunky quality of those old motorcars and steamcars of the age when the automotive industry was just blooming. Although this little doodle at the side here is a  thoroughly made-up version of those motorcars, I still love those old cars.

Also, one of my favorite characters from The Wind in the Willows, besides Mr. Toad that is, is Ratty. I have always enjoyed his amiable nature and how he just wants to go scullying in his boat along the river. Ratty has that sort of nature that is familiar to all of us because we are or we know someone similar to Ratty. This version was sort of inspired by a movie version of Grahame's book in which the great Mark Gatiss portrays him down to a T I think. I have no idea why he would be smoking a pipe here, but it suits him all the same.



Notes: To start off the title of this post is a sort of play on words to the Latin saying Cogito ergo sum (I think, therefore I am), but this one means "I think, therefore I go really fast." As you can tell, I really enjoy wordplay, too. Now, the first drawing was more of a doodle and was drawn with just a regular mechanical pencil and the second was drawn with a fine point pen.

Keep a sharp eye out...

To the Moon! (and other places)

 I had recently seen the movie Hugo and also read the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret and I really enjoyed them (and highly recommend them). When I was waiting for a class to start one day, I decided, purely out of whim to draw the Man in the Moon with the rocket in its eye, like film, From the Earth to the Moon, by Georges Melies (I know there are accents over the two "e"s, sorry). I soon became kind of obsessed with the drawing.

 Now, whenever I have time to kill I have just been doodling the Man in the Moon. I particularly like how, in the movie, not so much in the book, how the stars are drawn. Most stars are drawn the typical fashion so that they kind of look like exaggerated letter A's, but these stars actually look like stars, at least in my way of thinking. The last drawing in this post is just me fiddling with the idea of an anthropomorphising a planet...

Voila...SATURN!

Granted it might not catch on, but, either way, I enjoyed drawing these characters, all the same.

Hopefull I'll have something fairly new up here, soon.

Keep a sharp eye out.

Notes: the first doodle was drawn with a fine-tipped pen and the rest were drawn in pencil.

Of Flying Ships & Cycling Fish

HUZZAH! A recent article that I wrote about illustrator Chris Riddell is now online at the Athens of Indiana Arts Studio & Gallery. Hope you guys enjoy it and thanks to Nina Cunningham and Sharon Gerow for their enormous help.

The Scrivener & The Tartan Doctor

WOO! Good news, folks! As you, kind readers and other folks that take a gander at this set of scribbles from time to time, you may have noticed that there is a new banner adorning this here blog. I recently completed it tonight, according to the date on this post, and I thought that it was high time to some decorative recalibration. I did the little caricature of myself with inkwash, like I did with my recent caricature of Chris Riddell in a previous post, and then did the rest of it with watercolor paint. The title was done in blue sharpie pen. I have to say that my favorite part was doing something I called "The Tartan Doctor." I shall explain later in some other future post, but, until then, keep a sharp eye out.

Drumroll, Please....

Ta da! Although this little caricature won't be up for some time, I just thought I should keep you folks posted as to the whereabouts of my progress of the various art blog posts that I am doing. This is a caricature of one of my favorite illustrators, Chris Riddell, as you can see from the picture. I had a blast looking through various books that he has illustrated and sort of combining my favorite characters from some of his stories. The various characters holding the little drawing of the author were drawn with waterproof ink and then painted with watercolors. The actual drawing of the author was drawn in the same waterproof ink and then I used some regular ink (basically not waterproof) and did a bit of inkwash to create a bit of contrast. Right-o, hope to have the article itself up here, soon. Until then, keep a sharp eye out.