Anxiety Series - Water Colour

This is a small series I am doing just for fun to get back into the habit of making water colours on a regular basis. In the series I show how my anxiety has impacted my life. In some of the water colours I give my anxiety a form, a hideous orange monster-like form, in drawing Anxiety this way I am able to visualize it better and it helps to overcome it. I use a comical style to take the edge off the subject matter and again to help to over come the real anxiety I face.

1. Anxiety-Don't Hesitate - Water Colour, 2011
Should be pretty self-explanatory but basically you have a representation of me playing chess against the personification of my anxiety, an angel-winged orange monster that is constantly questioning every move I make. Anxiety (the creature) used to have bat-like wings but I decided to change them to angel wings to represent hope. He has also shrunk a little since his last appearance and lost his tail.

2. Anxiety-Chipping Away - Water Colour, 2011
This one really did not scan well at all because I used very subtle colours but you get the idea I hope. The Anxiety creature is sealed away behind these concrete walls but you can see its orange essence kind of seeping through which has resulted in a very vague representation of my wife becoming suspicious and attempting to see what I have hidden away from her and myself. Our dogs and a squirrel look on in surprise.

3. Anxiety-Riddled with Anxiety, Water Colour, 2011
In seeing some of the bacteria riddled fish at Lake Vermillion in Northern Minnesota, I kind of related to them. It was really how I felt about my anxiety and I thought it was a great way to express visually the anxiety which in the past has consumed me. In the scene, I am represented by the blue fish and my wife the pink fish. She has come to wake me up only to find that my entire body has succumb to the Anxiety represented by orange spots.

Photography - San Diego Locations

From top to bottom:
1. Coronado Bridge, Sunrise from Coronado Island
2. Downtown San Diego, early morning (Sunrise) from Coronado Island
3. Downtown San Diego, after sunset from Harbour Island
4. Coronado Island Military Base/Point Loma, Sunset from Harbour Island
5. Aircraft Carrier San Diego Harbour, Early Morning (Sunrise) from Coronado Island
6-8. Surfers by Pacific Beach Pier, Afternoon

We invested in a new camera and I have been playing around with it trying to learn how to get more control over the photos I take. The above images are the results of the first few attempts. Some of the pics have been edited in Photoshop to clean them up and the one of the Aircraft Carrier I was just playing around with trying to make it look vintage. I have lots of locations I want to go and explore while practicing photography so more to come.

Pollutopia Ark - Pollutopia and Emma's Owl, water-colour

From Top to Bottom:
1. Pollutopia Ark - Pollutopia, water colour, 2011
2. Framed
3. Concept Sketch 1
4. Concept Sketch 2
5. Emma's Owl, water colour, 2011
6. Sketch
7. Concept

Pollutopia Ark - Pollutopia,
I wasn't sure what to call this one so I just decided to leave it as 'Pollutopia'. Part of the on-going series, I'm trying to develop the kind of scenes you will see in Pollutopia and I'm still working on colour-schemes. These characters are all related being that they were all born on the same page of my sketch pad. Bacchus makes a little appearance in the top right corner and I didn't add too much colour to him to separate him from the rest. He is the observer. I don't have names for any of the rest of them except the Pollutopian Floating Mine which is the Earth-like orb in the botton-right corner with tentacles sticking out.

Emma's Owl,
I made this for my sister's birthday. She mentioned she likes owls so this was my best shot in one attempt. Hadn't used water colour for a while but I enjoyed it a lot and I have begun making more.

Studio Tapu Sculpture - Hruby Flame Memorial, Bone

This is my first real sculpture and I made it to commemorate my father-in-law who recently passed away. He had actually commissioned this piece about a year ago after seeing the above concept sketch and suggested with a few changes it would make a nice sculpture. I wanted to document the process to show the family how the sculpture came to be. I couldn't find the sketch that he made over my design but it looked more like what I created than the original concept. Mark was a huge loss to our family and he will be missed. I like the idea that this flame will stand as a reminder of the light that he brought into our family and the lives of many others.

Photgraphy/Video - JUNE-BUG-TAPU

Last year around this time there were a bunch of June-bugs flying around. I found a couple wings and brought them home facinated by the rich green colors. I guess it is that time of year again and a couple days ago I heard this loud buzzing sound coming from my studio. I found this guy clumsily flying around banging into the walls over and over. It had gotten into some cob-web and was having trouble. I snapped a couple shots and got the above video then attempted to catch it with a couple BK cups. At first I had no trouble catching it in the cups but when I released it over the gate the stupid thing flew immediately back in. It bumped into my dog Giblets a couple times and he seemed amazingly ok with its presence (usually he would try to eat anything like that or at least stomp out it's existence). I caught and released it two more times before it finally got the message it wasn't supposed to be hanging around. I had considered creating a June-bug logo for Studio Tapu so I am taking this encounter as some kind of mystical June-bug sign or blessing for Studio Tapu!

Photography - Creatures and things of Omaha

Most of these images were taken at a reserve in Omaha around mid-August. There were many little critters running/hoping/flying around and some I had never seen in real life before (including the praying mantis and the creepy spider). We are looking at upgrading cameras so that I can get more out of images like these.

Illustration - Reaper Bandana Developments/Final, AI

This series of images should give some insight into how I might construct a specific vector image using various resources to pull it all together. Inspired by a really old illustration I saw of the Grim Reaper sitting on a gravestone with an hourglass in his hand. The client wanted a unique design that was very dark with a contemporary look that still seemed authentic to motorcyclists.