Two weeks ago my studio did a weekend monotype workshop at Zea Mays Printmaking. I really enjoyed it and learned a lot about monotypes. I think what I liked most about making monotypes was the experimentation from one piece the next. Trying one technique, liking aspects of it and then repeating what I liked and adding something new to the next print. A good portion of the weekend I played around with making transparent shapes and overlaying them on one another; something I’ve been playing with in my illustration work for a few months. I’m really happy with how the print above came out. It took 6 passes through the press, the first laying down the off white color and then each pass afterwords laying down a larger circle than before. The color is exactly what I was looking for and I like the relationship the large group of circles has with the small light colored circle to the right of it. My concept for the print was to represent a comparison of humans to God. Humans being made in God’s image but not having His glory or power. I can’t wait to do more. I think in the future it would be interesting to try and depict this relationship in a way that brings the two objects closer together, not necessarily making humans closer to in stature to God but closer in intimacy.

Something I’m going to start doing a bit more is post some of my own work. This painting started as a sketch I did for Christianity Today Magazine about a man who died of throat cancer. The magazine went with another sketch that I equally liked but I thought it would a shame not to do a final for this image as well. Like I’ve mentioned in other posts I’ve been very interested in concentrating circles. One of the things I find fascinating about them is that they can be used to point to things. When adding color they can create an emotional and physical response like this one pinpointing the associated pain of the cancer or like in Luke Painter’s animation (see here) an emergence and build up of power. Another part of this paining that I enjoyed making were the cells. I looked at a lot of beautiful and grotesque images of cancer cells. They have an amazing motion that was fun to try and capture.

Jez Burrows is a young designer and illustrator living and working in Scotland. I love the simplicity of his work. Though it could be digital, pretty much anything you see online can be these days, his work appears to be hand printed and beautifully textured. You can see the softness of the paper in his rich colors. I posted the middle image because I did an illo for Poz Magazine a few years ago that had to do with itching. I really like Jez’s solution for the concept. Check out his site to see more.

Invisible Creature is a Grammy Award winning design firm that among other things does two things that I love. They use a lot of patterns and a lot of illustration. They also incorporate texture really well in their work. I spent a long time on their site and everything is good. Invisible creature has worked on everything from album artwork for the Foo Fighters to working with the blog Grain Edit (one of my favs).

Hey Oscar Wilde It’s Clobberin Time is an extension of the blog owners personal collection of artist’s work interpreting their favorite literary figures, authors and characters. It is a fun blog featuring many styles from a lot of artists. Each image offers links to information about the subject of the piece as well as information about the artist.

You may be familiar with Mike Mitchell’s “I’m with Coco” illustration used by facebookers to show their loyalty to Conan O’Brien. Mike has some other great work too including some fun pattern designs and paintings with Star Wars references. I had a great time looking through his site. Mike is a great painter with a serious sense of humor. It is easy to see why he would be a Conan fan.