Office Building Fountain Court

I think this is one of the best architectural studies I have ever done. I did it exactly five years ago, on site in the courtyard of an office building where I was waiting for regular maintenance on my car to be done. It's done in ink and markers, and was finished in the studio later that evening. Size is about 6 inches square. The blue-ish thing in the center right is a waterfall fountain. The place is a surprisingly peaceful corner in the tumult of Tysons Corner.

Muscle Woman

There really are women bodybuilders. They are in a number of categories, from "hardcore" to "figure" to "fitness," which features gymnastic dancers. They have contests just like the men. In the "hardcore" sector women train just like the men and also dose themselves with steroids, to get big muscle physiques. The "figure" contestants are less bloated but are still tricked out with big boob implants and absurd costumes, just like this one. I assure you that this is drawn from a real model, though I've made a couple of changes in the costume and given her a headdress. There are lots of ways to do body modification. Maybe you're horrified by this but I'm not.

Unseen Architecture

I did this drawing about 9 years ago. Falls Church is filled with little bits of interesting architecture, ignored or unseen by the people who walk by it or through it every day. This is an enclosed stairway behind a small office building. It is made of brick and shows the inventiveness of some forgottten architect. Check out the rectangular openings in the brick walls around the staircase. Someone spent time making that design up.  

Crumpled Crumbs

I had a multigrain bagel from Panera today, and this is the wrapper. The idea was to draw something crumpled up,  in close detail. Here it is in ink colored with Photoshop. That wraps up my current series of "Dodson Doodles," the exercises in creativity which I have been following from the book "Drawing with Imagination," by Bert Dodson. I looked ahead in the book, and found that subsequent art exercises were complex and time-consuming, that is, they were getting to be too much like work. Work!? Forget that! I have enough work. I would like to do at least some art which is more like "fun" than work. And also closer to my intentions as a fantasy and comic book artist. So Dodson is back on the shelf, at a safe distance from Burne Hogarth's smelly feet. 

The Four Jocks

This forceful foursome marks the end of my Burne Hogarth drawing phase. These are copies, but now I will be doing "original" drawings again from photo models. The longsuffering Burne Guys can now go back to whatever gym or bath house they came from. My next set of drawings will please my (straight) male readers. I'll be doing a series of action babes and pinup girls.

Prosecco

The ads for specialty wines in my Trader Joe's store featured cutesy personifications of bottles, drawn by an illustrator who has since left our studio and gone home to Texas to be with his family. This sign was in the series so I had to make it match the others, even though I don't usually create cartoons in this style. Acrylic markers on black-painted masonite board, 9" x 12".

Sports Action

Master Hogarth's figures are good models for sports action pictures. The guy at the top is sliding into second having extended a single into a double. You'll have to imagine that he is wearing a proper baseball uniform and gear, otherwise, he would be quite uncomfortable on the infield dirt. I'm not sure what the second figure is doing. He could be an outfielder throwing the ball in trying to catch the dude who is running towards second. Or he could be an incompetent receiver missing the quarterback's throw. I've now copied a lot of Hogarth's model faces, and none of them ever look happy.