Author Archive

Sketchercise: Films of Wes Anderson

Thursday, September 2nd, 2010

(Bad Route by Jason Kottke, featured in the film The Royal Tenenbaums.)

Do you sit at home, alone, night after night just toiling away on portraits of Bill Murray, Owen Wilson and Jason Schwartzman that the world may never see? Well, then today is your lucky Sketchercise! The theme for this round is The Films of Wes Anderson. Participants should put on their very best crested blazers, wetsuits or red Adidas jogging suits and set about drawing their favorite characters or scenes from any existing Wes Anderson movie. Although, actually if you drew an image from a non-existent Wes Anderson movie, that might be damned impressive. Below is a helpful list of from which to draw inspiration from:

Bottle Rocket

Rushmore

The Royal Tenenbaums

The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou

The Darjeeling Limited (including Hotel Chevalier)

The Fantastic Mr. Fox

That’s it! Good luck out there my Lawn Wranglers!

Sketchercise: Evil Ex Kenny Powers

Wednesday, August 25th, 2010

Admittedly, I saw a really great drawing of Kenny that Brandon had done and I just wanted a shot sketching out this living legend my own self. Besides, I’m sure a down and out Ramona would be powerless against the advances of an even downer and outer, recently fired Kenny Powers in a sordid little sports bar someplace. So 8th Evil Ex Kenny Powers, let’s go!

Our Growing Media Empire

Thursday, August 12th, 2010

So, wow, Sketch Charlotte is spreading it’s tendrils further and further out into the recesses of the larger world all the time. We have, naturally, our Twitter account ( follow us @sketchcharlotte), a freshly minted Facebook page: http://www.facebook.com/sketch.charlotte and, as of today, a Group page on deviantART:   http://sketchcharlotte.deviantart.com .

Turns out nearly a dozen of our Sketch Charlotte members also sport pages at deviantART, so it only seems natural that we should all buddy up over there as well. Please drop by some time and wander through the Group galleries but also check out the members’ individual pages where you can see even more great art from our remarkably talented crew.

Hellboy Sketchercise: The Baba Yaga!

Monday, August 9th, 2010

This week’s Sketchercise is The Hellboy Universe and the character I’ve sketched up is The Baba Yaga, a scary old Slavic hag who rides around in a mortar counting dead people’s fingers and eatin’ toddlers. She’s a hoot and a half. I actually wasn’t that familiar with her but fortunately Brandon forwarded me this link where you can read her particular Hellboy encounter in full:  http://www.darkhorse.com/Features/Animations/12/Hellboy-The-Baba-Yaga

I drooded this one here with a Japanese nib (Nikko 357) and a pot of ink on Bristol. Used markers for all that blackground.

Sketchercise: Lee Harvey Jughead

Monday, July 26th, 2010

So this week’s Sketchercise was a scene with three characters from Archie comics: Jughead, Betty and Mr. Weatherbee. I immediately scanned my brainpan for the most fun image I could plug these three into and what came out the other side was…. the assassination of Lee Harvey Oswald!  I’ll admit my brain is, well, it’s not the healthiest organ around. But anyway, this was really fun and I think the 60’s connection between the characters and the imagery kind of marries up. I tried to spice this one up in Photoshop a bit to give it a newspaper feel. Hopefully I didn’t totally ruin it. Apologies to children and history buffs the world over.

Sketchercise- Bloom County By Way of Peanuts

Monday, July 19th, 2010

Bloom County had an enormous effect on me as a young dude. I used to cut the dailies out of the Concord Tribune and paste them into spiral notebooks where I would practice drawing Bill the Cat in the margins. I might have been the only 11-year old in my school who knew who Caspar Weinberger was. I like to think reading this strip contributed a lot to my skewed sense of humor and general skepticism of authority.

Here I’ve drawn Binkley and Opus as Schroeder and Snoopy, banging out some cacophony on piano. It ain’t Billy and the Boingers but I suppose it’ll do.

Sketchercisin’ My Blues Away

Sunday, July 4th, 2010

Despite the many requests, no, I will not be wearing a leopard spotted leotard to the Sketch Charlotte meetings. I will, however, be wearing a zebra print speedo. Look for it!

Here’s some sketchercises from some recent meetings. I’m really loving meeting weekly, guys!

Sketches from June 17th Meeting

Monday, June 21st, 2010

Oh my golly, I had such a great time at last week’s meeting. Here’s the dumb stuff I drew there.

Meanwhile, some other peeps at the table had some astounding work. Bridgit had this awesome horned devil owl page that was pure glory. Chris Brunner brought his thoroughly amazing Boondock Saints cover art. Tom was doing this whacked out pirate mowing the lawn drawing that inspired me to go all bilge rat on my first sketch. Herc drew like 1,000 neat little pictures with black and gray markers. Terence attempted to mind a sketchbook and a 1 year-old simultaneously and fared way better than I might have in the same situation. And Dan and I got all simpatico with dual Superman drawings. Really great time, you guys! Looking forward to all the future Thursday nights, cheers!

Some HeroesCon sketches

Wednesday, June 9th, 2010

Hey! It’s me, the new guy. Here’s some junk I drew while holding down a table at the recent Heroes Convention and simultaneously hangin’ with Sketch Charlotte alums Tom and Rich. Hopefully the great time I was having kinda shines through a little in these drawings. Fun!