Here are some Zoological Doodles.

Realized that I don't post a lot of sketches anymore - most of the doodling I do ends up being finished portrait or caricature paintings.  This means two things - I need to sketch more, and when I do it, I need to scan and share it like I used to.  I'm quite sure that I'll be burning pencils like kindling here in a week, when grad school starts. So never fear!  Here's some animals that I sketched today while watching the AFC and NFC championship games.

a Japanese Macaque

a Right Whale                                                a Peacock

Ben Bailey - Process GIF

A quick animated GIF series showing the process of drawing and digitally painting Ben Bailey.

Comedian/Cabbie Ben Bailey - Friday the 13th Edition!

Did a picture of Ben Bailey, and Brooke and I went to see him do standup tonight.  He's an incredibly nice guy, and a damned funny standup comedian, in addition to his career as Mobile Game Show Host.

The lovely and talented Gilda Radner

I was showing my new Cintiq to my mom and dad on Christmas, and asked them for a suggestion of someone to draw.  They had just opened their Blues Brothers painting gift, and in that spirit suggested that I try drawing their SNL colleague Gilda Radner.  I worked on it for a couple of hours with them giving feedback and pushing the likeness, and then spent some more time finishing it up later.  I wanted to get one more finished piece up to wrap up 2011.  HAPPY NEW YEAR everyone!

"I can always be distracted by love, but eventually I get horny for my creativity." - Gilda Radner

We're on a mission from SCMOD.

A little process video of the Blues Brothers painting - 8 1/2 hours of blood, sweat and tears compressed to 7 minutes of spastic fun.  Enjoy!

DO YOU SEE THE LIGHT?

YES!  YES!  JESUS H. TAP-DANCING CHRIST! I HAVE SEEN THE LIGHT!

This is a piece I've been wanting to do for a long, long time.  Joliet Jake and Elwood Blues, The Blues Brothers Rhythm & Blues Revue.  Painted this in a hurry as a Christmas gift for my mom and dad... and I'm super extremely pleased with the results.  The love affair with my Cintiq is far from over, and Dad helped me install it on a big robot arm mounted to my huge ancient steel Invincible desk, so now it's positionable and flexible and even more awesomable.  HAPPY HOLIDAYS!

What if the hurricane was Hurricane Ditka?

Here's my first finished painting on my new Wacom Cintiq.  It was meant to be!  Anyway - I've been wanting to paint Coach Ditka for a while, his face just cracks me up every time I see him.

In-Flight Sketches NYC: Andy Richter and Reggie Watts

On the flight to NYC for the Conan exhibit and show, I decided to try to sketch everyone that would be appearing on the Halloween live show that we were attending, just in case we got to meet any of them and get autographs.  The guests were Jimmy Fallon and Reggie Watts (also Mayor Bloomberg, but that was unannounced).  I sketched a couple of Jimmy Fallon, but those were awful so you don't get to see them.

I did a fun one of the co-host Andy Richter, and we did have the great fortune to meet him after the show, while he tried to sneak out incognito to do Halloween stuff with his kids.  He was super nice - I gave him the signed original sketch to take with him, and he signed a color copy I had made.  It's framed now, in the new Hallway of Fame (thanks Brooke for the idea to hang all the signed stuff there) and I just finally remembered to take a snapshot.

(Here's the awful phone pic of me and Andy - what a nice guy!)

I also drew Reggie Watts (if you don't know who he is, you should go find out http://reggiewatts.com/ ) and it came out to be one of my favorite sketches ever.  Unfortunately we never got to see him, but I still hope to get a signed copy to him and a signed one from him somehow.

In-Class Portrait Sketching Demo: Vin Diesel

This was the challenge from my students this week - he was a really challenging likeness to get at all, and i'm still not sure I REALLY got him, but I like the sketch anyway.  About 2 1/2 hours, Photoshop on a Cintiq tablet & projector/screen.

Sergeant Frank Drebin, Police Squad

My name is Sergeant Frank Drebin, Detective Lieutenant, Police Squad. There'd been a recent wave of gorgeous fashion models found naked and unconscious in laundromats on the West Side. Unfortunately, I was assigned to investigate holdups of neighborhood credit unions.


I started this portrait of Leslie Nielsen as a demo for my students in Advanced Drawing for Animators - i asked them for a suggestion for someone to caricature, and this was the first name I got.  Really had a blast working on this, he had such a great deadpan face and recognizable features.  I worked on it a few hours in class, and a few hours later in the week.  All told, a pretty quick monochrome Photoshop painting, 7 or 8 hours total.  Enjoy!

The New York City Conan Art Odyssey Extravaganza

(or: How I Had To Change My Underwear After Seeing This Giant Damn Painting)

(or: This Is How You Trick Your Friends Into Looking At Your Vacation Photos)

Sunday, October 30, 2011. Brooke and I went to NYC to see the NYCOCOMOCA gallery display of Conan O'Brien Fan Art at the Time Warner Center on Columbus Circle (see previous blog posts for back story). I can honestly say that walking up to the front glass panels of that absurdly huge shiny skyscraper and seeing that absurdly huge shiny redheaded man with my name and signature sprawled across the bottom was one of the peak experiences of my whole life up to this point.

The gallery itself was really great - 50 pieces of Conan-related art in all sorts of media, from oils and acrylics to sculptures made of crochet yarn and one life-size statue made entirely of colored pencils:

In addition to the front of the building, my painting was used on all of the in-building signage (the bottom two floors are a very upscale shopping mall, and second floor center was the gallery exhibit)

It was also used as the image that was sent out in press releases, so it showed up
 in New York Magazine and Time Out New York.

The staff at Lead Dog Marketing and the gallery attendants were the most wonderful hosts, they made us feel like part of the family. Thanks again to Carter, Diana, Aly, Sarah, Joe, D.J., Austin, Karim (and everyone whose names are escaping me at the moment) and Brian from TBS as well.

On Halloween Night, we got to attend the first night of taping of Conan's week of NYC shows.

We waited a long time after to try to meet Conan, but it was just too crazy. We did, however, get to meet Andy Richter, and I gave him a sketch portrait I had hastily scribbled on the plane ride out there.

And we also got to meet La Bamba, who is way more talented in real life
than you get to see on the show - and a damn nice guy:

There was a 500-lb robotic, huggomatic Conan Loveseat at the exhibit, built by DeepLocal- I have to find the pic I got on there with La Bamba and Pierre, and scan it later... but here was a fun one with me and Brooke:

The exhibit still hasn't been shown on the Conan show - we went back there at least a dozen times hoping to meet Conan or get on TV. Finally the Thursday morning we were leaving, a remote crew came and shot some footage... of the gallery, of the front of the building, and a bit of an interview with me and some strange guy that was wandering through the exhibit. No way to know yet if they will ever use the footage.

Conan finally came to see the gallery a couple of hours after we left NYC to come home to Denver. It was terribly disappointing not to get to meet him. BUT - we met a wonderful staff member named Amanda outside the theater on Halloween, and gave her a couple of copies of my painting, to hopefully get a copy to Conan, and have him sign one for me. She really got the job done, and he wrote a very nice note on it for me!

"To Dustin - You have captured my inner sadness perfectly.
Thanks for sharing your incredible talent. Your friend, Conan."

It really was a wonderful trip, and we had a great time.
 I'm going to have to do more of this gallery stuff, it could get addictive!

So I was pretty sure that LAST blog post was the best one ever...

The NYCOCOMOCA gallery show opened Monday, and it's getting some press coverage.

LOOK AT THE SIZE OF THIS THING in the front windows of the Time Warner Center!
http://teamcoco.com/content/new-york-coco-moca-now-open

More press: 

http://www.wired.com/underwire/2011/10/conan-obrien-fans-art

http://newyork.timeout.com/things-to-do/this-week-in-new-york/2080869/the-new-york-museum-of-conan-art-nycocomoca

Suffice it to say, my mind is good and blown... nothing remotely like this has ever happened to me before.  I hope it's not the last time!

NYCOCOMOCA - HOLY CRAP! Best blog post EVER.

Holy crap... I have some great big good news to share.

As many of you know, I painted a digital caricature of Conan O'Brien back on New Year's Day for a sort of open fan-art competition, where they displayed people's submissions on the show, between commercial breaks.  My piece was chosen and aired on Tuesday, May 17, 2011.  It was an incredible and important moment for me.

Yesterday (October 5) I was contacted by an agency on behalf of Conan's show, to let me know that in coordination with his upcoming week of NYC-filmed episodes (http://teamcoco.com/video/conan-coming-to-nyc), they are putting on a gallery show of Conan Fan Art at the Time Warner Center on Columbus Circle in New York.  My piece was chosen as one of their favorite 50 to be exhibited at the event!  It will be printed and framed, and in this gallery show for 11 days starting October 24th. :O

Apparently the show's staff kinda liked my painting, as it was selected to appear on some of the signage advertising the show as well.  SO EVERYONE - watch the Conan show on TBS all week starting on Halloween, and you just might see my picture on the show again - but bigger this time!  I'll keep everyone posted as I find out more details, Brooke and I are definitely going to figure out a way to make the trip up there to see the display.

Here's the original piece again,  in case you haven't seen it, or just want another glimpse.

Like I said... holy crap.  NYCOCOMOCA for the win!  Somebody pinch me...

Holy cow - I taught a whole entire class!

Last week was the final week of my first class as an adjunct professor - it was such a blast, and I can't wait to start teaching again this week.  For the last day, I gave a (very) easy final, and then spent the class time going over facial features, specifically "how to draw noses" and then the class challenged me to do a portrait drawing there in front of them... this is what I got in the waning minutes of my wonderful class:

Life Drawing September 23, 2011

Definitely have a pile of art to get scanned from this session, but this was the final piece I did, and I liked it enough to put up separately.  Used the brown china markers, and a nice man at the session had prismacolor sticks (sienna) that matched it really well - I'm thrilled with the results!

Big Blue Life Drawing - 9/10/2011

I have a HUGE stack of life drawings from the last month or so... have never drawn as much as I have since I've been teaching this Drawing & Anatomy class.  I've got them all scanned, but need some time to photoshop and collage them up... but in the interest of posting something, here's my very favorite piece of life drawing, possibly ever, from this last Saturday.  I've been using the manila yellow paper for quite a while, and hadn't busted out the fancy Canson Mi-Tientes in quite a while... I was thrilled with how this came out though.  There was a strange burst of light as I was starting with the white pencil (some sort of reflection of the sun off a windshield outside, I suspect) that cast the stripes from the window blinds across the model.  Nice to catch a special lighting moment by accident!

Drawing & Anatomy Class - Week 3

I've got a whole bunch of sketches scanned from the model sessions in my Drawing & Anatomy class so far - I'm walking around critiquing, helping, and trying to teach a lot, but still getting a ton of drawing done on a regular basis.  It's a pretty great feeling to not always be starting from rust & cobwebs!

Life Drawing August 27, 2011

Dragged the Wacom back to school after weeks and weeks of only drawing on paper.  Like falling off a bicycle!

In-Flight Sketches, Part 7: Paul Newman

My man Luke can eat FIFTY BOILED EGGS.

Here's #7, a full vacation's worth of airplane sketches.  Hopefully my china markers will be on fire on this next trip too!

In-Flight Sketches, Part 6: Tom Cruise

Day 6: You can't handle the truth.

In-Flight Sketches, Part 5: Oprah Winfrey

One host to rule them all...

In-Flight Sketches, Part 4: Steve Martin

Former wild and crazy guy.

Btw - these all came from a People Magazine "Top 100 Celebrities Who Defined Our Time" thing I grabbed at the airport on the way out of Denver.

In-Flight Sketches, Part 3: Audrey Hepburn

Day 3 of 7 of the Airplane Drawings

In-Flight Sketches, Part 2: Clint Eastwood

He feels lucky.  

Day 2 of the Airline Sketch Extravaganza: the multitalented Mr. Eastwood.