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Illustration Friday theme for this week was “Cultivate”.  I originally did it for “Stir”, as in “stirring” of emotions, but “cultivating” a mind works even better for this week, and required minimal changes.

I think this was the first time I did a legitimately happy piece without any sort of sinister twist.  Good for me!

Someone's in trouble.

I asked my sister what she would have loved to see in an illustration as a child.  She told me, and then I promptly forgot it because I came up with a better idea.  The color scheme is a little weird, but I like it for some odd reason.  I will probably never do it again.

What a strange reversal!

I was told by a potential client that all my pieces have a “sinister twist” to them, so I panicked and threw this up overnight.  Messy grade schooler vs. refined baby.  Nothing sinister in that, right?  Not much good either, I’m not a fan of it.  Maybe I just love the weird stuff.

Then, other than the Illustration Friday picture from yesterday, here’s a couple more black and white pieces I did today:

Oh No! He's trying to eat The Art of French Cooking!

This is the closest thing to an editorial cartoon I will ever do

Someone should have warned him.

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This week’s Illustration Friday topic is “swarm”, so I have a brother who has mechanized his sister into a defender from swarms of pug puppies.

This is the first decent illustration just for “me” really in like, 5 months.  Oh, and by the way, my first book for the iPad is available, and you can see the preview HERE.

One of the biggest projects has been these books for the ipad I’ve been doing for a client.  I’ve done an adaptation of a popular poem, an original story, and currently working on an old folk tale.  All of them have animations and interactive elements to them.  I can’t show any of the pictures yet (I still gotta check with the client to see if it’s alright), but I will assure you, it’s cool.

Since most of the stuff I’ve been doing is work for hire, I can’t really show a lot of recent projects, but below is a painting I spent 3 hours on, and I’m convinced it’s the worst thing I’ve drawn in years:

Whew.  Been so busy with client stuff, haven’t submitted anything to Illustration Friday for a while, much less made any personal pieces.

Anyway, about the topic – remember in elementary school, when a kid would have a pudding cup?  Oh my god, everyone wanted to be their friend, get them to trade for that pudding cup.  Can you imagine the awe and wonder in the eyes of a child with TWO pudding cups?  The possible pandemonium?  Neither can I, but I drew it anyway.

Submitting this to www.illustrationfriday.com; the theme this week was “Early”.

This piece is about early enlightenment.  Straight from the womb.  Also, I finished this early in the morning and I’m tired and I just want to sleep and I don’t want to make the piece look not terrible anymore.

Submitting this to www.illustrationfriday.com; the theme this week was “Cocoon”.

What happens to children that hide in their cocoon of blankets all night? They turn into horrific monsters that terrify everything that ever made them shudder, of course!

I spent a good part of the day that I was SUPPOSED to be sketching this reading a blog about time paradoxes in movies.  So I thought I’d draw one of my own.

Anyway, here’s the sketch that goes with it:

I should have some more finished illustration posts in a day or so; I’m working on some projects right now.