fun with the postal service

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my new acquaintance alex, who is a friend of my sister-in-law emily, has started up an art project in which the participants trade hand-made postcards. i signed up at the "no dear" poetry reading (where julia read her lovely poem about the science of consumption!), and i received a postcard from alex last week. so this was my reply, front and back. i have digitally altered alex's last name and address, to protect the innocent, of course. i also added the fake postmark, because i am a dork.

david cross redux

David Cross
graphite on paper with digital coloring, 5" x 8"

i finally colored my portrait of david cross! it was actually the first celebrity drawing i ever did (in 2007? i forget), back when i was only going to draw celebs i had seen in person. of course, now that i live in speonk, that happens less often--although the jules and i did see rachel weisz at an art reception in the hamptons a couple of weeks ago. we were (briefly) listening to some crap band that the geezers were calling "punk", when we realized that ms. weisz was standing right behind us. when we went back into the gallery, she sort of followed us around for a while. embarrassing, really.

that boy's on the drugs, i tell ya

here's the latest insane card i've made for one of my parents. i wonder if they keep these things.

outside: inside:

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Mother's Day 2009
Mixed media on paper, 10" x 13" (double-sided)

colonialism sucks, non-violent protest rules

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Mahatma Ghandi
graphite on paper with digital collage, 5" x 8"

this is for illustration friday's "legendary" theme this week. i'd say he meets the requirements.

i'm not dead. i'm the lion. you're dead.

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I Hate Jim
graphite and colored pencil on paper with digital coloring, 5" x 8"

here's a new one. can you tell which part of the yellow background is hand-drawn and which part is digital? if you can, you win...um...a sense of self-satisfaction, i guess.

me and the beard

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Self Portrait with Floral Motif
pen and ink on paper with digital coloring, 5" x 7"

here is a self portrait i made recently. the first version is a simple pen and ink drawing, without the color bits. i made it for my friend mike freiheit's new project, in which he is enlisting several artists to do portraits of jesus. my first sketches were of a truly semitic jesus, as opposed to the anglo-jesuses we see here in the west. but then, while i was working, i happened to see my reflection in a window, and thought, "hey my beard is looking jesusy, i have a shorter haircut (which my research had revealed would probably be more accurate), and i happen to be 33 years old right now. also, i was wearing a hooded sweatshirt at that moment, and i figured it would be a good stand-in for a shepherd's robe of some sort. and maybe it could be read in a "jesus is in all of us" sort of way, as well. i certainly do not mean to say that i am the messiah or anything, so don't look to me for salvation or anything--i'm fresh out at the moment.