Continuing to work on my Three Friends story and a subsequent animation to go along with it.  These three pals live inside a large treehouse and I thought it would be a good exercise to illustrate that interior.

I recently had the opportunity to work with Anna Rosenblum Palmer and winwinapps to create a background illustration for their recent iPhone app: Patience.  It was a cool challenge as one end of the illustration had to flow continuously into the other end.  The purpose of the app is to create a pleasing way to implement impulse control with the illo slowly scrolling along against some nice chill music.  The app is free as well.

During a recent roadtrip to Colorado my wife and I stopped to observe some petroglyphs in the middle of Nevada.  While visiting this site a kangaroo rat came a-bouncing up to my slightly startled wife. She was rather taken with the fellow.  It should be said in the name of preserving the kangaroo rat’s reputation that it is a rodent with no formal relation to actual rats (not that there’s anything wrong with that).  They can bounce 7 to 8 feet and also store food in the pouches in their cheeks.

Anyway, I’ve been continuing to formulate and illustrate new children’s book characters and perhaps this traveling troupe might make an appearance in the Three Friends story I’m working on – or perhaps they’ll get a story of their own.

Here is the trailer I put together for my first children’s book – Snowmastodon: Snow Day Adventure.  The music is by my brother and fellow invisibleman James Antonson.

I’m learning After Effects so keep a look out for a snazzy, special effects-laden version soon!

I finally replenished my gouache supplies, and picked up some new Arches watercolor blocks. Here’s a little sketch I did from where fellow Invisibleman Kerry O’Neill and I hiked up to in the Adirondacks this week. This was painted from the Rose Mountain lookout in Old Forge, NY looking towards the High Peaks.

My wife and I hiked up to Cathedral Lake on July the 4th and I sketched this fallen tree.  It had very expressive branches. Cathedral Lake is nestled on one of Mt. Tallac’s arms in South Lake Tahoe.

Shot this on my iPhone 4 while on vacation using the fantastic Reel Moments app. On my PHONE! Looks great full-screen in HD.

Some footage I shot of these amazing jellyfish seen at the New England Aquarium. Needs a good soundtrack…

Whoa. It’s certainly been a while. Eeegads…over a year! Well my excuse is now walking around our house jibber-jabbering and busy being ridiculously cute. Becoming Blake‘s Dad has drastically cut into my “project” time, but still, I should be ashamed. So here’s a little reminder that I do in fact still have sketchbooks with blank pages, a good mechanical pencil, and the will to use it if given the right amount of leisure time.

These are drawings of Little Moose Lake, up near Old Forge, NY. Beautiful part of this great state.

Here are a few of the early sketches in the process of creating Snowmastodon! Snow Day Adventure. We had a very short window of 3 months to come up with the story and create all the illustrations so there wasn’t too much time for sketching.

I think ‘Always Cute’ was a good motto to keep in mind as I worked through the illustrations.