Four New Crazy Works of Art

Greetings, my loyal following of eleven, or possibly a dozen readers!  I’ve apparently been slacking on the written content, as it’s been just over a month since my last post.  It’s not that I haven’t intended to produce any new work, but quite a bit has transpired in the past thirty days… including a move to a new apartment, as well as running my first Boston Marathon.

I have a recipe for carrot dogs that I’m close to posting.  At some point soon, I’ll share a few reflections on the marathon, as the event turned out to be a simultaneously heinous and awesome learning experience, for various reasons.

In the meantime, please enjoy my four most recently completed sketches…

The Fairpour Two-Headed Crow

This particular work isn’t completely new, as I’ve posted the original version on my Sketches and Artwork page.  However, I’ve since added the Fairpour logo to the front of the diner mug, as the owner indicated that he’d possibly hang it up in the coffee shop, along with some of my other works, if I added the logo.  As I initially learned when creating my Smokin’ Hot Chicks BBQ sketch, recreating a company logo with unique text and exact shapes is a challenge all its own.  Furthermore, giving the Fairpour logo a curved appearance as it wound around the side of the mug proved to be especially daunting.  All in all, I’m fairly pleased with the final result.

The Classical Owl

At first glance, there’s nothing special about the owl itself, as it’s just a barred owl.  The classical aspect is the violin neck and scroll tree branch, which I decided to add at the last minute.  Initially, I was just going to add a simple branch, but then I decided that the composition needed an additional aspect of whimsical fantasy.  Since I took violin lessons for over ten years and am trying to pick it up once again and play more often, I settled on the violin neck and scroll.  I’m really pleased with how it turned out.

The Hario Owl or Two-Headed Crow

One day at work while I was making a cup of coffee with my Hario V60 ceramic coffee dripper at my desk, I found myself closely studying the shape, shadows, and tones of the all-white device.  Since I’d managed to successfully draw a diner mug, this seemed like the next logical item to reproduce on paper.  The most challenging aspect was recreating the ‘Hario 02’ text.  Aside from the fact that I may have made it too big, I think I otherwise succeeded.  Of course, I needed to have a bird perched on the ceramic coffee maker to complete the work.  And I decided on…  yup…  another two-headed crow, which is quickly becoming a recurring theme.  At the last moment, I decided to add the third beak in the center of the bird’s neck, giving the possible illusion that one is observing a single bird head on, with the beaks of the two crows serving as ears.  The effect was lost upon many, as the crows eyes were too small and far apart for the single bird to be obvious.

However, for the following creation, which my old college roommate called…

Just a mutated hell beast that needs to be tossed into the fires of Mordor

…I made a conscious effort for the possible presence of a single bird to be more apparent.  For this work, I chose a barred owl, and I also decided to use pastel colored chalk pencils, as I’d been getting too comfortable with the dark graphite pencils on the previous three drawings.  It was time to challenge myself a bit further.

I started by drawing the multiple bird heads, as I have in the past.  However, I purposely made the eyes a larger ‘owl size’ and placed them closer together.  Then, I enclosed the multiple bird heads within a single owl head outline, and went from there.  So really, the beaks of the two birds may more closely resemble the ears of a great horned owl, but we’ve still placed it on the body of a barred owl.

I tried to explain all of this to my old college roommate, Ros.  But he didn’t agree, saying, “Nope.  Just a mutated hell beast that needs to be tossed into the fires of Mordor.”

Maybe he’s right.  See below…

Anyways, I’m pretty proud of this work…  especially the details I was able to convey in the feathers.  It’s not perfect, but I’ve only been at this for four months, so I’m pretty happy.

Now, I need to get some business cards together, just in case anybody wants to purchase my mutant, hellish creations.