REQUEST & WIN FREE ART

Rats! I knew this was a bad week to start sketch-a-day up again. My place looks like a bomb went off from moving, and I'm neck deep in a huge project working with Live Nation that is taking up all of my energy. I'd like to take this opportunity to take requests for sketch-a-day weekly themes for when I get back to it. I'll send someone a sketch of their choosing for the best suggestion. Place suggestions in the comments section of this post. Thanks!

SKETCH-A-DAY: ARTHUR MITCHELL

Another Dexter sketch. If you haven't seen the show, you should. You'll never look at John Lithgow the same after seeing his role as the "Trinity Killer."

SKETCH-A-DAY: DEXTER MORGAN

I may be crazy for trying to do sketch-a-day this week, but here goes. I'm limiting my time on these, so we might see a frantic scribble post by Friday. This first installment is an homage to someone I'm extremely happy to have back in my life.

NEW LIFE, NEW WEBSITE

Big news! For the first time since the day I turned 15, I don't have a job! I've decided the time is finally right to go full time freelance illustration, and I'm chomping at the bit to make the best work of my career. My fiancee Shannon and I will also be packing up and moving to Denver for a little change of pace. And you can look forward to some sketch-a-day action and lots of new art coming right up.

Coinciding with my newfound employment status, I just relaunched my entire online presence including my shiny new WEBSITE, a facelift for my BLOG and STORE, new ways to FOLLOW, and tons of never before seen content. Go! Look! Wish me luck!

DENVER DOES DENVER

I was invited to participate in the second Denver Does Denver show opening this Saturday night. I chose local art ally John Fellows as my subject, and created this Vegito-esque merging of our two styles in the cooperative spirit of the show. It was a lot of fun dissecting John's linoleum cuts, and experimenting with his palette. Overall I'm happy with the result, and from what I've seen the show should be a lot of fun. See you there.

"We're Connected, You And I"

ink, paint, transfer on wood panel

MONSTER ENGINE COLLAB

Just finished up a piece for Indyink's Monter Engine show. If you're not familiar with The Monster Engine, here’s the big idea. David Devrie takes children’s drawings and works them into fully rendered paintings, maintaining the wildly imaginative and ininhibited essence of the original drawings. David will have some work in the show, as well as Denver’s finest and their equally brilliant pint-sized partners.

Upon being invited to participate in the show, I realized that I no longer know any young kids. Scrambling to come up with something, I posted to my Twitter and Facebook accounts looking for an imaginative youngster to collab with. My buddy Markham "Shitty Kitten" Maes (One of my favorite local artists) came to my aid.

Meet my new drawing partner Lilly Maes, age 5. With a father like Shitty Kitten, the apple doesn't fall far from the tree. She's got an amazing imagination, and made me a handful of awesome drawings to choose from. This was so much fun.

This one was my favorite out of the bunch. As Lilly describes the scene, the girl is happy because she wants to eat the ice cream monster. I'm sold. According to Markham, this was one of her first attempts at using Photoshop. I think we've got a future illustrator on our hands.

I toyed with David Devrie's technique of using the child's exact shaping to render a ralistic image, and decided that it wasn't working for me. With just a week to get the piece out, and a full schedule to work around, I decided to take Lilly's scene and reimagine it in my own style. This was the chosen thumbnail.

Fleshing out the thumbnail design, I added a few elements of my own to continue the vintage manga look I've been working with as of late (speedlines-a-go-go!). The Japanese writing dictated the title of the piece "Frozen Fruit Giant Man." This was an intentionally shoddy translation, as Japanese translated into English often makes me laugh. I like to wink back at the Japanese with my work sometimes, all out of love of course.

The final digital file was then transferred onto wood, and the corners roughed up to resemble a tattered manga book cover. I'm happy with the final result.

Lilly putting the finishing touch on "Frozen Fruit Giant Man." Thanks so much to the Maes family for all your help!

IT PAYS TO READ MY BLOG

Ask Chris Marciano who won the #1 Conan print and a drawing of his choice for guessing 100% correctly in the contest. He chose Mickey Mouse, and I chose to portray Ub Iwerks's noodle armed protagonist Steamboat Willie. Definitely my favorite incarnation of one of the world's most recognizable icons. Iwerks made Walt Disney.

Thanks to everyone who preordered Conan prints! They're shipping tomorrow. I've got about half of them left so snap one up while they last. The Conan contest was a lot of fun, I'll be sure to do some more contests in the future.

Look for a new post this week, and enjoy the UNCENSORED version of Steamboat Willie you may have never seen. Complete with animal cruelty! Yay!

COCO CONTEST WINNER

First off, thanks to everyone who entered the contest, the response was quite literally overwhelming! I was glad to not need the tie breaking descriptions on the characters, as the winner with the only perfect scorecard was Chris Marciano. He'll receive the #1 print of the finished illustration, and a custom drawing of his choosing. Congrats! Also receiving prints are Joe Donnelly, Chris Taber, and Andy Pickens who each got just one wrong.

I'll be doing more contests like this in the future, so subscribe to my blog, snag the RSS, or follow me on Twitter to keep up on such things. If you did not win, and would still like a print of this piece, you can buy them HERE for just $20 (edition of 50).

This was a lot of fun guys, thanks so much for participating! I'll need help spreading this image out there and sharing with even more fans. Shoot me a comment and let me know how you liked the contest or just share some Conan links or something. I don't think I've ever had so much fun looking for photo reference before. I highly recommend googling some of these characters' videos just for fun.

Scoring this was really tough, but I was looking for exact character names first and foremost. Here are the correct answers:

1- Carl "Oldy" Olson

2- Shoeverine (lame X-men characters skit)

3- Cloppy the Late Night horse

4- Abe Lincoln

5- Joel Goddard, Late Night Announcer

6- In the Year 2000

7- La Bamba, of the Max Weinberg 7

8- Wolfboy

9- Cody Devereaux

10- Clive Clemmons' Inappropriate Response Network (NBC satellite)

11- Frankenstein (Wastes a Minute of Our Time)

12- Fedex Pope

13- The Coked-up Werewolf

14- Preparation H Raymond

15- Santa Claus

16- Pimp Bot 5000

17- The Horny Manatee

18- Stacy, Andy's little sister

19- Andy Richter

20- Toshi, Joel Goddard's male escort

21- Max Weinberg

22- The Recliner of Rage

23- Pierre Bernard, Late Night Graphic Designer

24- The Interrupter

25- The Masturbating Bear

26- Vomiting Kermit

27- Desk Driving (Bessie Lou)

28- Triumph the insult comic dog

29- Jar Barf

30- The Walker Texas Ranger Lever

31- Guy Who is Protected From Three-Inch Bees

32- Wax Tom Cruise and Fonzie

CONAN CONTEST IS CLOSED

The I Heart Conan Contest is now closed to further entries, thanks a ton to everyone who participated and helped to promote the contest! Special thanks to friends on Facebook & Twitter, New York Magazine, The Daily What, and The Denver Egotist for helping get this thing out there.

I've yet to tally up all of the final scores, but I can tell you everyone did quite well. I was glad to find I'm not the only person who remembers Jar Barf as well (look it up). Please come back in the next couple of days to see the final illustration and find out if you've won a prize.

(final illustration in progress)

"I HEART CONAN" CONTEST IS LIVE

RULES:

EDIT: CONTEST IS NOW CLOSED. THANKS FOR PLAYING!

-To win you must name as many of the Conan O'Brien sketch characters in the illustration as possible, and be among the first to do so. Keep in mind, some of the items can be named by a reference or sketch name, in addition to the character's name. The more specific you are the better chance you have of getting it 100% correct (or MORE correct than another person). For example, #15 is just a common character (Santa Claus), but #10 is a character with a part inside of a common sketch. Confused? Great.

-SIMPLIFY YOUR ANSWERS PLEASE, no running sentences.

-Email your 32 numbered answers to: josh@josholland.com

-SUBJECT LINE MUST READ "I HEART CONAN" or it will be disregarded

-ONE ENTRY per person. No changing answers later.

That's it! I don't know what to expect just yet, maybe a lot of people will get them all right, maybe nobody will. I'm playing it by ear, but the grand prize will a large print of the Conan piece, and a custom sketch of your choosing. The winner and some runner up prizes will be announced when the finished illustration goes up this weekend. Good luck!

I HEART CONAN CONTEST

Watching Conan's last night on The Tonight Show admittedly left me a bit misty eyed. It's funny how seeing something come to an end can teach you just how important it really is to you. I realized I've been watching Conan since I was 13-years-old; that's over half of my life! Feeling inspired by the massive outpouring of love for Conan, I set out to make an epic homage featuring all of my favorite Late Night characters. After countless sketches and a lot of wasted paper, I realized this is a job for a wacom tablet and the forgiveness of photoshop. So here it is, my super sloppy final sketch. Check back in a few days for the finished pencil drawing, and a contest to name as many characters as you can for a prize! Hold your guesses.

HIPSTER FABULOUS

Hey all, it's been a few. Well, life's been crazy on my end, mostly because I finally proposed to my girlfr- er fiance Shannon Bonatakis after 7 plus years. We've come a long way since that fateful day in illustrative drawing class, when I wooed her with my sardonic charm and underwear model good looks. So we're neck deep in wedding planning and it's eating up most of my free time at the moment. BUT I'm making a new year's resolution to blog more frequently so please hit subscribe, snag my RSS feed, bookmark me, follow me on Twitter, do whatever you do and expect some fresh graphite when you come back.

So this new piece is for a PBR show in Denver this Saturday at Illiterate and Indyink. I'm honestly not a huge fan of Pabst, but you can't deny the hipster loyalty PBR has earned over the last decade. I'm much more fond of a hoppy microbrew when I lust for ale, so I guess I'll have to kick out my homage to Stone Brewing Co. soon.

Final illustration

Some sketches and WIP drawing

Transferred on wood and varnished

TERRIBLE YELLOW EYES FEATURE

Got my WTWTA piece featured on Terrible Yellow Eyes on Friday. If you haven't seen this amazing collection of super pro fan art, I'm on my way to come slap you personally. Better head over now to avoid the humiliation.

INDYINK XMAS SHOW FRIDAY

I was recently invited to participate in IndyInk's Xmas Show, opening December 4th. The show touts a great lineup of local artists, contains nothing over $100, and promotes the noble concept of giving local art as Christmas gifts. So if you're in the greater Denver area, get there early and get first pick! You can even take your newly purchased treasures with you.

My contribution is a handful of quick little framed paintings on wood panels, all going for $100. I rarely work this small, and I never have originals this cheap so go snatch them up! I've also included the remaining "I Can Change" paper prints from my Adaptation show (1/50). There are only 5 left, and they're going for $100 as well. Fits a standard 24" x 36" poster frame.

"I'll Make My Own Fucking Friends, They'll Be Sorry"

"Only When I'm Nervous"

"Gushing Over You"

"I Can Change"

24x36 serigraph on archival paper 1/50

(detail)

WTWTA FINISH

Finally finished! Can't believe how long this took, but I've been ridiculously busy lately. Promo work always takes a back seat to deadlines and more pressing stuff. Overall, I'm happy with my end result. I think the most amazing part of seeing all these Sendak homages is the sheer variety of interpretations out there. You can feel the deep affinity for the subject matter from everyone involved. Hope the movie didn't ruin this spirit, I know a lot of people didn't like it. What did you think?

WTWTA FINAL PENCILS

Whew, finally finished this thing! I started this piece well before the movie came out, and am just now finishing the pencil drawing. I feel like I'm late for the party, seeing all the great Where The Wild Things Are art that's popped up over the last month or two. October was crazy busy for me, but I'm hoping to get a lot more posts done in November. I've got some promo ideas in the hopper, and a website to finish.

Went a little crazy with the crosshatching on this piece in an effort to really study the lines of Mr. Sendak. Doing him justice is no simple task. ON TO COLOR! Nails in coffins and what not.

WTWTA FINAL SKETCH

Close enough. Moving straight into the final pencil drawing from here. I still have a few decisions to make, but my foreground is worked out well enough to move forward.

TERRIBLE YELLOW THUMBNAILS

Surely there should be some sketches on this sketch blog right? Well I've been working on a piece for the Terrible Yellow Eyes blog, perfect opportunity to get some progress pics up. Here's my initial batch of concepts. Working out a final sketch now.

FINISHED PRINTS

Just got everything printed for the Illiterate show tonight. Prints are going for $50, more info here.

(final artist's proof)

(detail)

(3 color variants: "MYK" 1/20, "YK" 1/5, "MK" 1/5)

GO SPACE DINO!

Taking on the theme of RGB VS CMYK, my thoughts immediately moved to comic books. Here is an entire industry that hinges on printed materials and a collector's market, one that could never make a complete translation to a digital format. The ability to hold something in your hands, to smell the fresh newsprint, to get ink on your fingers, to buy two and keep one pristine, to wear something out with repeated use and love, all of this is impossible with rights-managed digital files.

Future generations will not miss print as we will, having never grown up in our world of convenient disposability and waste. But there's something about holding some ancient thing in your hands, looking at it as nobody had before, the wear and patina of age transforming the ordinary into treasure. It's sad that this will surely be lost eventually.

(Space Dinosaur: Defend History Against Unknown Future)