Art for Friends

So, I’ve been terrible about finding time for drawing, except when my friends ask me to make them things for their things! Here are two of those things!

This one is a banner for THEATER 4the PEOPLE’s PLAYWORKS Reading Series fundraiser, which happened at the end of June. They produced an amazing workshop of my play (twice) and this was the least I could do. The concept is based on those ridiculous kids on the boxes of board games (and, it turns out, one of the actors (who is also a producer of the reading series) was one of those girls on the board game boxes.) It’s also me drawing in black india ink and then doing the colors in photoshop (well, gimp) because I feel like logos need digital colors to look right.

THEN last week I made this pie for some other friends:Which is a logo for this new movie they’re currently shooting in Richmond, Virginia called Goodish. They even talk about me in one of their videos! Hey, look at that! You can give them money (you should give them money.)

I made it the same way I did the PLAYWORKS image – india ink on paper and then digital colors.
Here are two banner versions I made with a title and everything:

Opening Night

Well, it’s been forever, and I haven’t really been doing a lot of drawing lately, which is sad. But I’ve been working pretty steadily since last fall as a props designer, which is also fun. Here’s a little artwork based on the latest show I’ve been working on, Natasha, Pierre & The Great Comet of 1812, which opens TONIGHT!

Happy Halloween

Things are a little crazy here in New York right now, but I couldn’t let Halloween go by unmarked. Here’s a spooky little doodle with plenty of my favorite russet india ink! Watch the great, scary music video this is based on.

August Journal Comics

Hey there. Here are some journal comics from three months ago when I went home to Vermont to see my brother off to college. Sorry it took so long to put them up. This first one is from the bus ride home on the brand new Mega Bus to Burlington with its one weird pit stop:

Then I was home with the whole family for a couple days. This is a typical scene:

Everybody left very early to fly my brother across the country while I stayed home with Chlöe the Dog and the flock of chickens.

And then I fed the chickens and procrastinated on all my writing projects and watched many hours of Criminal Minds…

and really, really intended to make more than just four comics… Oh well. The end.

54/10 Music Marathon

Over at Ars Nova tonight we’re finishing up week one of our two-week summer music marathon, and that is very relevant here because I did the poster art. Not only that, I entered a contest and WON and then did some revisions and then that became the poster art. Here is the whole cool journey. You can click on the link above to see how it’s all integrated or, better yet, come to one of the concerts this week (unless you’re reading this in the future and the festival has ended. Sad for you, future people.)

So here’s the original submission:

India Ink, Colors w/ Photoshop (Basically my first attempt ever at digital colors. Lots of paint bucket.)

Then, after some meetings and such, the simplified redesign, which became some trendy riff on His Master’s Voice, I guess:

India Ink

And then the final poster, with its black light party inverse color scheme:

See you at the show!

Fly Away, Little Otter!

Oh man, oh man it’s been a long time since I’ve updated. Which is a shame, really, since I’ve actually been doing a fair bit of drawing lately, and managing to fold it into my theater-artist life in unexpected and interesting ways beyond just doodling at my desk.

Here’s one of the weirder and more fun ways that’s happened. My supervisor at my internship (which ended in June) is leaving for business school halfway across the country, so as part of throwing her a huge going away party I made these drawings of her as a superhero. This first one is based verbatim on a real thing that happened after a Halloween party. The second is just extrapolation. Other than that, by way of context, she’s really into otters. I think she turned out looking like some awesome combination of Molly Hayes and Squirrel Girl. (How’s that for obscure Marvel characters?)

Pen & India Ink

Happy Father’s Day

Well, I know it’s a few days late here on the Internet, but in real life I gave this to my Dad on Sunday. This is probably how he imagines the rest of our family. He is dark and heroic and the rest of us are a bunch of crazies who keep making life hard for him. And he’s probably not wrong (at least for one day a year).
Happy Father’s Day, Dad.

Watercolor & Pencil

Left to right: Me–The Riddler; Chloe the Australian Shepherd–Catwoman; My Dad–Batman; My Brother–Scarecrow; and My Mom–Poison Ivy.

Desk Drawings I Actually Spent Time On

Here’s the last batch of these at-work doodles. For now. So this first one I didn’t do at my desk, though. I did it in the lobby while welcoming a million and three artists for a photo shoot, so I had a lot of time to stand around. When my friend at work saw it, she said “Emily Dickinson!” My only flat surface was my hand, so there’s an impressive little factoid for you.

Here’s a guy who’s maybe a character in a play or something someday. He looks worried at the prospect.

And here is… oh no. Hunger Games Fan Art? Seriously?
I guess I could pretend it’s somehow my friend Emily at work’s fault because we read all the books and talked about them at work and went to see the midnight showing of the movie (allegedly) but that seems like maybe just a half-truth.

Pen and Pencil and Highlighter and Magic Markers on Lined Paper because that is what I have around my desk.

Also, I made this post on a train to Vermont for the weekend. Train post!

More Highlighter Faces

More office doodles.

Guys, profile is really hard to freehand, it turns out.

These next guys are probably characters from a play I should start working on.

Pen, Highlighter, Sharpie.

So I Haven’t Been Drawing Lot of Comics…

…But I have been drawing, I guess.

My fancy-schmancy theater internship keeps me so, so busy, my own playwriting pursuits fill up my free time, and I’ve been feeling dumb about not drawing funny and sad comics about it all. But I have definitely been doodling at my desk (never to the detriment of my work, of course – usually while on hold with JetBlue or something equally stupid thing) and some of them are even sort of good. Even if they aren’t, at least they aren’t the same old Christmas post that’s been up for four months.

What’s scary and interesting to me about them is that they’re not sketched out in pencil and then laboriously inked with brushes and india ink. They’re no-net pen sketches and then sometimes, like below, filled in with whatever crazy highlighter colors are in my highlighter jar.

So kind of cool, right? I’ll post more over the next few days. Happy Spring!