Jean's Art Journal

What Art Is

2009-12-18T23:59:21Z

I'm rather in love with this song because it shows what a lot of people, myself included, forget about what art is. There's all that entrapment with getting tangled up in rules, theories, composition, colors, technique, reactions, money, audience, interpretation, etc.

Art just is.

And whether people like something or dislike something, it's up to them, but it doesn't change whether something is art or not.

I'm pretty sure that it's Stephen Fry that said something like this, that art isn't a necessity in life in a practical sense, but art is something that improves the quality of life and brings you joy and fulfillment in a way that nothing else can.

Tis the season...

2009-12-13T20:27:38Z

To be insanely busy!

This was a hastily done Christmas card design for my family. My parents love doing photo Christmas cards, and yeah, they're cute when the kids are little but it just looks sad when they're in their 20's. Also, we received little to no warning that they were going to spring this on my brothers and myself and my brother had to leave so it was done quickly. Needless to say, the photos were horrid and I got roped into drawing one.

The end product came out cute enough, I used vintage cook book illustrations and My Neighbors the Yamadas as inspiration. I rather like it and I definitely prefer people seeing this illustration rather than an ugly photo of me! XD

Happy Thanksgiving! What are you guys thankful for?

2009-11-26T07:57:30Z

Could NOT resist doing this. XD I got the idea earlier and did it quickly between Thanksgiving preparations. It's also all inked completely by brush pen! It's a fun tool to use, I definitely need to use it more often.

Anyway, happy Thanksgiving everybody!

(also, the person off to the right side is never_ender. snaxident is also in the picture but she squeed herself off screen ;D)

Christmas Cards!

2009-11-15T18:46:42Z

I'm doing a superhero theme this year with the Christmas cards. :D Here's my Wonder Woman card for a wonder-ful Christmas (har har har)! If anyone would like a card, please leave a comment with your address in this journal! All comments will be screened for privacy. :D

24 Hour Comic!

2009-10-04T06:14:31Z

Currently, I'm working on on a 24 Hour Comic with my usual collaborator and fab friend copperbadge. It's called 'The Winter Book' and you can read the pages 1-9 here: http://copperbadge.livejournal.com/

Tell us what you think!! :D

Zombies! Girls! Zombie Girls!

2009-09-28T15:48:13Z

My old coworker Maglio invited me to be part of a Grind House poster themed art show! Of course, I was running till the last minute to finish this piece but I'm fairly happy with it. The design was inspired by old Japanese playing cards and Hellblazer comics. This time, I inked with a crow quill to get the more erratic lines I needed. I have to say, I did enjoy inking with that except for the times the ink just didn't come out and then came out all at ones! It's a temperamental pen, but when it works great, it works GREAT. I need some more practice with it definitely.

Crazy Dance in the Living Room

2009-08-23T19:17:42Z

My pal and amazing writer cruentum just brought to my attention that Bridging the Rift Podcast talked about 'RTD Goes to Hollywood' on their radio show!! I had no idea that this was going to happen at ALL! Thank you to the podcast DJs and wow, KATE ORMAN! Thank you guys very much for your kind words and for laughing! I did a crazy dance in my living room and scared my cat when I heard it come on!

The funny thing about doing art is that you draw it in some kind of void, you don't really see where it's going or if other people will respond to it the way you hope they would. Especially with drawing slightly controversial fan art. I drew 'RTD Goes to Hollywood' and 'Reactions to CoE' just to amuse myself and then posted them because I told my friends about the comics and they laughed. Even with posting artwork to communities, I don't really think about who sees them, whether it makes people laugh or makes them angry, although the nature of art tends to be creation by the artist and then reaction by an audience. I'm always really, really happy and surprised to know that people actually look at my art and enjoy them as much as I enjoy creating them, I don't know if that'll ever go away but it keeps me humbled and very honored. So thanks everyone for checking out the journal, leaving comments, and everything, I'm very touched. :D

True Jackson Game!

2009-08-03T22:20:41Z

The Nickelodeon game I worked on is now available to play here: http://www.nick.com/games/true-fury.html

I designed the characters, props, and the environment! It's a pretty fun game too. Let me know what you guys think! :D

Sketch dump!

2009-08-02T20:31:32Z

I got inspired by the 'Art of Kung Fu Panda' book and had to do some character designs!

Miscellaneous sketches from my little sketchbook. :)

Zombie Fun!

2009-08-01T20:57:35Z

In which Torchwood becomes a zombie movie!

First, there was this drawing inspired by my buddy Crue's drunken twittering...

...which ended up inspiring this drawing. XD

Comic: RTD Goes to Hollywood

2009-07-20T07:35:57Z

No spoilers at all! Just general dorkiness. My lovely British friend perrie joked that I might run into Russell T. Davies since he's moving to Hollywood and then gave me the whole silly scenario that might happen... >.>

Reactions to Torchwood: Children of Earth

2009-07-13T01:40:11Z

I make no apologies for this comic. Yes, I did have my own problems with Children of Earth but I got over it because in the end, it's just a tv show. It was fun while it lasted and I made some great friends through it, as well as some good art and if this was the way it was going to go, it ended better and stronger than ever. Passion is a wonderful thing to have but I think passion can be funneled to better places that will actually make a difference.

WAAAAHH!

2009-06-17T18:40:29Z

I'm not going to Comic Con this year and David Tennant is!! And Ilana is sad because Mighty Boosh is going to be there and she won't be. ;_;

Retro Girl!

2009-05-19T18:29:03Z

Quickie done in flash at work ;D Inspired by binsybaby's totally awesome Retro Girl playlist. I love it!

Hello, Captain Jack Hawtness- err... Harkness...

2009-05-18T07:13:25Z

Detail of a painting I'm working on. Lots of Doctor Who universe people on there, including Captain Hawtness himself. I lost my heart to a starship trooper~!

Like my hat?

2009-05-12T18:27:17Z

This was inspired by harveyjames's challenge of designing a girl based on a drawing that he did. It was a lot of fun to do but sadly, I was too late for the challenge! Oh well. But check out the other amazing artists who managed to make it in time and be inspired!

Just felt like it...

2009-05-07T18:19:51Z

Another Art Rage sketch! I started this a few weeks ago and I finally managed to come back to it. :) Just felt like drawing an art noveau fantasy lady drawing.

I've been friending a lot of artists whose work I found on lj! Mostly it's like a crazy amazing list of inspiration so check out the friends page to see some awesometastic art. :D

Little boxes on a hillside...

2009-05-01T06:19:13Z

I'd forgotten that I'd never posted my the paintings I did for 2nd Street Cigar Show! These two paintings are painted on cigar boxes. The middle part is the lid while the right and the left are on the two sides. I had two boxes that were almost the same size except one was painted red, so I decided that I should do a theme, 'The Little Girl with the Curl'. :D

So, When she was GOOD, she was Very Very Good.

And When she was BAD, she was HORRID!

Both paintings are on sale at 2nd Street Cigar Lounge and Gallery for $125 each!

Rob, the MASTER

2009-04-23T00:18:47Z

Mustache May is a fun thing at the studio I work at, all the men grow their facial hair all throughout April and then shave it in a weird way on May 1st! Then they're allowed to shave it all off. Somehow, Rob ended up really looking like the Master. SCARY! o_o

Fan art of Avatar fan art!

2009-04-20T08:17:42Z

This was inspired by rufftoon's AMAZING Avatar fan comic 'Water Tribe'. Believe it or not, Zhao's the protagonist! Ignore that he looks freaky scary in my tribute art for the story, he has a reason to. XD

Work work work~

2009-04-16T17:32:21Z

The show I worked on is finally going on the air! Well, in Canada anyway! If you live in Canada please have a looksee at Bob and Doug staring Dave Thomas and Dave Coullier. For this show, I've laid out and painted backgrounds, color styled characters, designed props and revised boards! It's been a long, winding, crazy road but the fruits of our labor is out for Canadians to see. Enjoy!

More Art Rage stuff

2009-04-07T17:10:47Z

I can't seem to find a good way to paint/color in Art Rage yet. I love it for drawing in but I'm not totally in love with it for painting. I did a really crappy painting of David Tennant (that's not ever going to see the light of day) with the paintbrush and pallet knife tool, and then I decided to try out the marker tool.

Nope. Still don't love it totally, I ended up using a bunch of different tools to get this to look right and it still doesn't. But I like it enough to post it. Anyway, I kind of wanted to do a Miyazaki esque drawing but it's still just the head and face that really looks it, the body's totally in my own style. Oh well.

An Angsty Art Rage Doodle

2009-04-03T18:39:59Z

Art Rage is very addicting. Here's my friend's character Adiel all doodled out in his doodly glory. XD

John Constantine

2009-04-02T18:06:27Z

One of my coworkers was trying out Art Rage and sent the program over to me. Have to say that I love it! This is a combination of digital pencil and marker, the maker smears the pencil like it would in real life! The interface sucks but as an art program, it's pretty fantastic. But it's lucky I work on a cintiq at work, I don't know how easily I'd be able to draw my favorite anti-hero with just a wacom tablet.

Boku wa Kuma!

2009-03-31T07:41:07Z

This was inspired by Utada's song Boku wa Kuma and Coraline production artwork. :D When I heard that Utada was going to be at the Sephora in Hollywood, I immediately wanted to do a painting for her! I've been listening to her music since I was thirteen and she debuted when she was... fifteen I think? So it's been almost a thirteen year love affair with her music! Utada is someone that I really admire, someone who doesn't compromise her intelligence and who doesn't try to change herself in order to get more listeners. She's a strong, creative, intelligent woman and I think what she does is really admirable so I wanted to paint something she'd like. :D

I've been looking at a lot of concept art done for Coraline and I was really inspired to do this painting in a rough acrylic, Mary Blair inspired style. I had a lot of fun with this piece!

In the end, I was able to hand it off to a wonderful and talented make up artist at Sephora who did my make up at the store (a fun and interesting experience) who was kind enough to pass it to Utada's people for me. :D Anyway, this was a delight to paint, I really should paint more bears!