Kristina Carroll - Ophelia

I'm fascinated with characters who are driven to extremes by love. Like Medea, Ophelia has been misused, though exactly how is never explicitly mentioned. To me, she was always meant to represent the very fragile and most human elements in Hamlet. Between ghosts and murder and incest, how does one lovesick girl compete? We connect with that simple desire in the face of evil and the tragic results of what happens to innocence in  madness. I see the death of Ophelia as the point of no return for the other characters.

I really want to do something more with this I was playing around with the shapes of flowers and thinking of orchids when developing the overall shape.

Alice Stanne - Mating Ritual

Why go through all those crazy displays to prove your strength and agility when you can just tweet at your girl...

Carly Janine Mazur - Red Hot Love

Had some extra paint on the palette and decided to fingerpaint and scumble a little.

Scott Murphy - Metal Love

Heading out to a concert tonight, so here's a quick sketch of one of my favorite metal musicians, Abbath from the black metal band, Immortal. As I mentioned before, I love all (well, most) music. I don't know what I would do if I couldn't listen to music every moment of the day. It's also great to live in New York city where you can go out and find a great concert on almost any night of the week.

Marc Scheff - Mating Ritual

I admit a fascination with the visceral. Underneath all the flowers and poetry, there are mechanics. Muscles, tendons, saliva, nerve endings, unpretty things that hold up the curtains of our lives' theatre. Underneath, the oil of olay and botox and implants, or the natural beauties with faces the color of Spring afternoons, stately gentlemen, or good-time charlies. Underneath. I wonder what we are reaching for, when so often it's nothing, just us.

acrylic and pen on paper

Tim Paul - Mating Rituals

Oh the ritual of the first date, where we compare ourselves to see if we are a match!

Challenge #9 for Saturday Feb. 23rd

Our 9th Challenge  comes courtesy of Marc Scheff

 The subject is:  "I would do anything for love, but I won't do that."

Jeffrey Alan Love - Dredd

I watched Dredd the other night and loved it.  How many other directors/writers would have had him take off his helmet?  How many actors would have insisted in their contract that their face had to be shown?  I had no idea what Karl Urban looked like until a friend told me he was that one guy in Lord of the Rings.  And if anyone else had made the film they would have had Anderson and Dredd kiss, and added about ten to fifteen minutes at the end to "wrap things up".  It lived up to my expectations while also confounding them and I love when a movie can do that to me.

Carly Janine Mazur - Mating Rituals

I was at work all day, and hadn't much to do considering the kids are on February break. I then spent a good while rooting through my supplies and using a set of alphabet stamps I had found, individually coloring and stamping each letter. Originally this was to be the background for something, but I love how this looks by itself. It shall remain the mating call of typographers and graphic designers.

Scott Murphy - Mating Ritual

Well, this didn't turn out as well as I had hoped, but in any a case I always thought peacocks had a pretty sweet mating ritual. My grandfather used to bring us to a farm when we were younger and they had peacocks. I remember them being some of the most amazing sights when they had their full plumage on view. so anyhow, this is my tired lame attempt.

Ricardo Lopez Ortiz- Mating Rituals

Thankfully I never shared a room in my college days. So I never ran into this.

Kristina Carroll - Mating Rituals

Charcoal

Everyone tries to put on their best features, real or not,  when meeting new people. Sometimes the mask comes off after a while, sometimes it stays on as a barrier from person to person, but everyone wears them.

Very, very rough sketch that I may like to develop more.

Scott Brundage- Mating Rituals

A male hippo will spray his poo at a potential mate. Apparently the females are into it.

Kristina Carroll - I love my job

James Gurney painting a student

Jim Burke has been doing some amazing things with the illustration program at NHIA, and I am so grateful to be a part of it. The latest big project was coordinating a a demo, a lecture AND a stunning Dinotopia show in our gallery through a partnership with the Norman Rockwell Museum. (up through March 13th) Needless to say the students are ecstatic.(they've been talking about this for months - I love my students. They know what's up.) So I decided to do this sketch of James during his demo, but as I didn't get home until 1pm last night I am only getting to post it now. (btw- that big square in front of him is the laptop monitor pointed at his painting to project it on the big screen in the auditorium. IT didn't look like the most comfortable set-up but didn't prevent James from making a beautiful portrait.)

Marc Scheff - Love Balloon

Continuing my bromance with another Tim Paul sketch. This is yesterday's post, which I tried to post from my phone, but the Blogger app doesn't let you resize images and Tim's head would be HUGE. We can't have that.

Jeffrey Alan Love - Mating Rituals

The way we dress, the clothes we wear, the postures we take everyday - to me they are a low-level, constant hum of a mating ritual.

Carly Janine Mazur - Odd Couple

Here's my odd couple meant for yesterday's challenge!

Scott Murphy - TV Sketch

A bit low on inspiration tonight, so I decided to just do a quick sketch of Lis watching tv.

Tim Paul - Whatever

Was a busy day, and so I drew this while at the Society of Illustrators Happy Hour Trivia night. On the left, Sam Wolfe Connely, on the right, a banana hammer. Don't ask. 

Ricardo Lopez Ortiz- Mulder and Scully

Need I say more?

Jeanine Henderson—Odd Couple and Mermaids

I love yesterday's "Odd Couple" theme—so even though I'm late, had to post mine! My best friend and I are kind of an odd couple—totally love costume-making, parading, and getting ourselves into crazy fun. This sketch is weirdly inspired by real life...

And that got me thinking (naturally) of the Coney Island Mermaid Parade...4 months till this year's! So here's a 2nd sketch for today's open love theme...

Alice Stanne - Bleeding Hearts

Cynthia Sheppard - Just a Key

Just a key. A thing that may unlock something else, but who knows what?

Challenge #8 for Thursday Feb. 21st

Our 8th Challenge  comes courtesy of Carly Mazur

 The subject is:  "Mating Rituals"

Jeffrey Alan Love - Dragons

From Smaug to Kilgharrah, the dragon who sleeps in chains beneath Camelot, I have always loved dragons.

Tara Jacoby - Odd Couple

My take on Grant Wood's "American Gothic."

Marc Scheff - Odd Couple

Scott Murphy - Odd Couple

Here's my "Odd Couple," the bearded lady and the worlds smallest man.

Ricardo Lopez Ortiz- Odd Couple

Here's one of my favorite "Odd Couples" Don Quijote and Sancho Panza.

Tara Jacoby - Tainted Love

Kristina Carroll - Odd Couple

Even grumpy old Bridge-Trolls deserve a Valentine.

Scott Brundage- Odd Couple and Tainted Love

Odd Couple

Tainted Love*

*all apologies to Ricardo. I completely forgot about your earlier stripper butt. It's a fine butt. 

Carly Janine Mazur - Opposites Attract

7"x5" acrylic and pen on masonite

Opposites attract, like, you know, polar opposites. Hahaha, ha... magnets... how do they work...

Seems like I misremembered the theme for today, whoops! I'll remedy that tomorrow.

Cynthia Sheppard - Odd Couple

Tim Paul - Odd Couple

I don't think I will be able to finish this today, have to run out and take care of some things, and help a friend, which will probably run late into the evening. So I thought I would post what I have done so far.

Once again, more animals. I'm really enjoying these animals I've been doing. It's new to me.

Narciso Espiritu - Freestyle 3

I've been having a rough couple days. I think I have a creative block or something. Still trying to burn through it, so I drew what came easiest to me. This is Caution, a character influenced from one Halloween night several years ago. Probably even long before that. Like when I was thirteen. Anyway, there's a couple of images of him on my website.

Scott Brundage-Freestyle Sunday

One long weekend and I'm three days behind. Here are some stream of consciousness and subway doodles for you.

Jeffrey Alan Love - The Odd Couple

Today's theme brought to mind Beauty and the Beast to me.  I love fairy tales that retain their sense of menace, their dark edge, rather than the polished and watered-down versions I see so much now. 

Tim Paul - Tainted Love

Still trying to catch up. Here is some Tainted Love.

Marc Scheff - Super Love

I realize I must have been inspired by Jeffrey's post. As mentioned in a previous post, I just bought some acrylics and am experimenting with this new (to me) media. Dry on dry, dry on wet, wet on wet, and some ink pens. And I love superheroes. So much, I even enjoyed the Fantastic Four, both movies.