Philadelphia.

I did these back in 1995 I think. I can't remember what the street scene was for but the city scape of Philadelphia was for some kind of "mall guide" website. I never knew if it was used or not. Now that I look at this, Philadelphia has a new taller Skyscraper, the Comcast Tower, that I will have to squeeze in some day.

Feel free to use the city scape as a very confusing desktop wallpaper.

Opossums.

Recently I was given a job with Highlights to draw a small map for the Science Corner page. To make a long story short, I only needed to draw the map but I foolishly thought that I needed to draw a "opossum playing dead" for an additional panel. Since these will not be used for anything I figured I could post them here. I did two versions, one of which was a bit more humorous.

Trains, Planes and Boats.

I sketch people pretty much every time I am on a train, a plane or a boat (in this case on our cruise last December). I don't use any pencil and alternate between a brush pen (refillable Copic) and a 05 Micron. It's a great way to pass the time and if you're lucky you get some nice characters for future projects.

These last 4 were done on the last night of our cruise at the "American Idol" Karaoke contest. Ted, the guy in the black turtle neck doing the air guitar, stole the show.

Barber Shop.

Here is another little preview of a hidden picture sketch I am working on. 

Sketchbook.

As I have said before, I often sketch while in church and sometimes while watching movies at home. Occasionally these two themes collide like in the last three images here, which is kind of fun.

Ads.

Bunny Village

It's good to look through some old files every once in a while! 

I just found these scans of the Philadelphia Zoo's children's book called, Bunny Village. I have the original art but I was never able to scan them in since they were such a large size. This was the first real rush job I had ever done. It's a long story but they needed 16 illustrations completed in 7 days (basically a full children's book that a publisher would give at least 6 months to do). I remember I wanted to have a nice texture to the painting so I choose a cold press rough Arches watercolor paper to do the finishes, which is fine and good for watercolor but when it came time for inking it was very difficult. The inking pens quickly wore down and after each page I had to soak my hand/arm in hot water since it hurt so much. Thankfully I was completed in 6 days but the downside was that I dreamt about bunnies for about a month.

I wish the scans were larger but I'll take what I can get.

Zoo Signs.

These are some signs I did the illustrations for at the Philadelphia Zoo back in 2001. The last time I checked they were still up in the Rare Mammal House. I miss working for the Zoo, I did a lot of fun stuff with them. It always challenged me as an artist and I always had something to learn. I thought I had lost these files but they thankfully resurfaced. 

Dressing up.

Here's another part of a sketch I recently finished for Highlights Hidden Pictures. It's pretty hard to make clothes look like they don't fit.

Corner Store.

I'm currently working on a bunch of Hidden Pictures for Highlights. I don't want to show the full sketches until they're approved, but here's a piece of one. 

I've never drawn a Deli before so this was a lot of fun. Growing up in the city we had what we called, "corner stores," which were stores at the end of the block that had all the essentials, including all the typical Deli stuff. I wasted a lot of money in those, I remember stupidly spending a rare two dollar bill to buy a couple of water ices for my friends and I.

I finally replaced that two dollar bill. I found one in Israel of all places, in the valley of the Dead Sea, next to Masada.